The Voyage of the Dawn Trader
This story is much different from the rest of the Chronicles of Narnia in the sense that Lewis wasn’t trying to give us more of Narnia, he was trying to end it and as such The Last Battle had a much darker tone than most Narnian fans would expect. The story is heart breaking, truly, from the first page to the last it’s filled with lack of hope and a frailty. The other books were light and gave you a feeling of preservation and determination, as if good could conquer all. That was not present in this novel and I guess it could be expected with the title The Last Battle, I mean, that pretty much screams impending doom. However, reading a book where every fight is lost, every plan vanquished and every hope lost is not a fun read. It’s hard to enjoy because there’s no rollercoaster for the reader, we start at sad and stay at sad.
I should note that I may be a bit biased having just read all of the other books in this series so I may not have perspective. But who wants to see Narnia end?
When Aslan (finally) came out and started ending the world I was bewildered and horrified at the same time. His imagery is very powerful too so it just adds to the horror of seeing our beloved land skinned by giant lizards and dragons and covered in giant waves and flame; then finally the horrible part, darkness. Empty, quiet, darkness. If I was a bit younger I would have been bawling. How could Lewis make us so attached to this place just to give is such an ending? Then we are introduced to the ‘real’ Narnia (Heaven) and it issuppose to be bigger and better than our old one but I couldn’t understand how Lewis would even try to substitute it.
As a reader it felt like taking a toy with a loose screw to a parent to fix but instead of fixing the parent deems it beyond repair and stomps on it until it is beyond recognition before your very eyes. Then they hand you a new toy, a better toy, but you still can’t get that image out of your head; you just keep seeing something you loved die a horrible death. That’s what it felt like so when we were supposed to be happy because we’ve reached Salvation I couldn’t buy into it. Once again, I think this is proof that Lewis’s intent was not to deliver an epic tale in the land of Narnia but rather retell a biblical story.
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