Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Prince Caspian

If you lately viewed the really popular Disney film "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", you may be aware that C. S. Lewis composed a total of seven books about Narnia. These are, in order of the inner chronology of events:
1 - The Magician's Nephew
2 - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
3- The Horse and His Boy
4 - Prince Caspian
5 - The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
6 - The Silver Chair
7 - The Last Battle
The novel "Prince Caspian" starts one year after the events said in "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" on a railway platform where Peter, Edmund, Susan and Lucy are expecting  trains that will take them to their boarding schools. All of a sudden they feel themselves carried into another world, and after a few hours of meandering about they recognize that it is Narnia, where many centuries have surpassed meanwhile.
The second storyline involves young Prince Caspian, heir to the throne of Narnia, who has to flee from his seizing uncle Miraz. Deep in a forest he finds some of the "Old Narnians" - talking creatures and midgets - and later chooses to challenge his uncle for the kingship.
Before long, though, the armed forces state of affairs drops for Caspian and his modest army, and they end up enclosed on Aslan's How, a hill established over the site of the rock table that acted as an essential role in "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe". When things appear utterly desolate, Caspian uses his most cherished object, Queen Susan's Horn, to rally help.

Lewis does an effective job of depicting the bit-by-bit re-transformation of the four children, who once more turn from being English pupils to becoming Kings and Queens of Narnia.

To me, "Prince Caspian" is among the three best books in the Narnia series, together with "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" and "The Magician's Nephew". In many ways, it duplicates themes from "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", but adds an intriguing view by having the events of the earlier book become the stuff of legend.

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