It was good to read this one again. I don’t think I’d opened a copy of it since my teen years. It was never among my favorites of the Narnia books, perhaps because there’s so much battle stuff going on. Although less than I had remembered. Warning for some SPOILERS if you haven’t read this yet.
So- the four main characters, children in England just on their way off to boarding school, get suddenly pulled back into the magical world of Narnia. It turns out they were summoned, but they don’t know why at first, or by whom. They find themselves in a castle ruin in a tangled forest. They free a dwarf who was supposed to get executed, and from him learn that a thousand years have passed since they were last in Narnia- and much has changed. Narnia has for a long time now been ruled by an outsider nation of Men, the Telmarines. Young Caspian is next in line to be king, but suddenly learns from his tutor, that his uncle plans to kill him and rule instead. So Caspian flees and gathers supporters- from the Old Narnians, the ones whose country was taken over. The talking animals, centaurs, giants, fauns, etc. Even walking, talking trees. A lot of the current people don’t believe these creatures still exist, they’ve been living so long in hiding. Much less do they believe in the stories of Aslan the Lion. In fact a lot of the story is about who believes or doubts- when the four children are tromping through the woods with the dwarf to try and meet up with Caspian’s forces, Lucy suddenly sees Aslan at a distance on a hill, and feels sure he is beckoning them to go that way. After some argument, it turns out that nobody believes her, so they go the original path, and it all goes wrong. Difficult and puts them in danger. They have to backtrack and take Lucy’s suggestion after all. When they do meet up with Caspian, they overhear his followers arguing too- some of them believe Aslan will return to save them (they have no hope of winning against the uncle’s larger army), others think they should summon the White Witch out of the past, or call on other evil creatures for support. Among the four children too, they are often questioning each other’s abilities. In the end, Peter the oldest steps up to fight Miraz in singlehanded combat, but when he fells the older knight, the enemies all jump forward to attack. Then Aslan shows up with the trees behind him. So they are saved by him, but only after they had done their utmost themselves, and come together in a unified front (and expressed belief in the Lion). Everyone comes around to this, even the sour dwarf who was reluctant and critical all along.
I think it is the characters who make this story come alive for me. How the four siblings talk amongst themselves, their arguments about faith or not, the bickering about where to go, all feel so realistic. And the little gritty details about their stay in Narnia- it’s not at all easy. They don’t have any supplies when they land in the forest- for quite a while they’re eating nothing but apples and the occasional fish. The walks are long and hard and everyone is tired and argues more because of it, and some of them are petty and unpleasant to each other. They get muddy and trip on things and so on. But it all turns out right in the end, and there are other parts so lovely it’s hard to comprehend the descriptions of the scenes (or they are just not described very clearly to me). Lucy and Susan dancing with the talking trees and the Maenads (I had to look up what those figures actually were, the author was rather subtle about it in this book!), riding on Aslan’s back once again, re-visiting places they had loved and seeing how much has changed. They succeed in their mission to put Caspian back on the throne, and then after seeing most of the invading peoples out of Narnia, are sent by Aslan through a magical doorway and tumble back into the railway station to go to school.
Just the right way to end an adventure, ha.
There were some little things I had completely forgotten, or glossed over when I was a kid- like the fact that apparently the Telmarines are descended from pirates that accidentally found their way into Narnia hundreds of years ago themselves? I had no recollection of this! Makes me more interested to keep reading the series, see what else I notice so differently reading them as an adult. (A lot of people point out the dearth of female characters, how little the children actually do to help Caspian, and annoying references to Christian theology via Aslan, but none of that bothered me still).
