Prince Caspian

Prince Caspian

By: C.S. Lewis

I don’t normally do a book review on a book in the middle of a series without previously reviewing the rest of the series. But I’m making a special exception for this one!

Over three years ago I started reading The Chronicles of Narnia with a kid I used to work with at the elementary school I used to work at. We used it as a reward—if we accomplished our work we would read a little bit out of the book. We started with The Magician’s Nephew and quickly made our way through books 1-3.

Now that I don’t work at the school anymore, I still go back to read with him once a week. It’s truly something I look forward to every week. But since we haven’t been reading daily it’s taken us a long time to get through Prince Caspian. It’s taken us two years.

As much as I love Prince Caspian, I am so glad we have finally finished it. This is the second time I’ve read this book, and in the past this is where I stopped reading. I didn’t stop reading because I got tired of the series. I think I just lost steam. But reading through these books with my buddy has been so motivating. I want to finish the series (because I want to finish the series) because I want HIM to finish the series.

Reviewing a book this old, and one in a series that is so well known, almost seems silly. Of course it’s a good book.

It’s not my favorite book in The Chronicles of Narnia, but it is good. My favorite is probably The Magician’s Nephew or The Horse and His Boy.

This review isn’t typical. I’m not going to pick apart the story like I have in the past. I do think there are some flaws in the story’s plot, but the allegory of it all allows this in some instances. Knowing that this is an allegory for the Christian faith almost makes it so there are little Easter eggs of metaphors and images.

I will say that I think C.S. Lewis got caught up in the metaphor of this story. We spend a lot of time in the middle of nowhere with the Pevensie kids and the D.L.F. trying to get to Caspian and the rest of the Narnians. I understand what Lewis was doing—he was illustrating what it means to walk by faith. I do wish there was a little more time spent in Aslan’s How once they get to the Narnians, and I wish the time with the Narnian’s was a little meatier. I feel like maybe the falling action of the story is a little rushed. The second half of this book is a lot of telling and not a lot of showing.

But I like the story. I think it’s an important installment in the series.

Next week we’ll start reading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and I’m excited to go further in this series than I’ve ever gone before!