The little people in Narnia
Written: May 29 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: An exciting journey from Calormen to Narnia
Cons: None
The Bottom Line: It's another great adventure in the Chronicles of Narnia. Need I say more?
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| sweet-indigo's Full Review: C. S. Lewis - Horse And His Boy: Full-color Collec... |
The Horse and his Boy is another great book in the Chronicles of Narnia. It's unique in all of the books in that it starts out neither in our world nor in Narnia itself, but in the southern land of Calormen, a country that roughly parallels Arabia in culture, although is of course still uniqu in its own way! The whole book does not see our world at all, but stays in Aslan's world all the way through.
It's set in the time when the four children we meet in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe are kings and queens ruling Narnia, although by this time they are adults. In Calormen, Shasta, a fisherman's son, overhears his father and a nobleman haggling over a price for him to be sold as a slave. He also overhears that due to the mismatch in their appearance (ie, Shasta is white and the fisherman is not) it's fairly obvious that Shasta isn't the fisherman's son. By a stroke of luck, he finds himself teamed up with a talking horse (Narnian, of course) called Bree. He's a proud warhorse who takes Shasta on and teaches him to ride. By another apparent stroke of luck, they meet a haughty Calormene girl called Aravis, who is running away from her home too with the shyer and more sensible talking horse Hwin. This book is the story of their journey through Calormen, the desert and eventually to Archenland and Narnia.
It's cleverly written - the characters and their relationships with each other gradually evolve as the story goes on. Plus there are some unexpected turns of the plot as the story goes on, as they are inexplicably caught up in the politics between Calormen and Narnia, as well as a few surprising personal revelations. The Kings and Queens of Narnia are for the most part in the background; the book focuses more on the 'little people'. And going with their more everyday nature, we see the more everyday workings of Aslan, the Lion who is traditionally seen as restoring kings, bringing peace and redemption and so on. In this book we see him with more common purposes, bringing together the 'little things' that people rarely consider. Together with that, he becomes a more personal character, especially for Shasta and Aravis.
It's got a nice varied storyline - city to desert to countryside to battle, and the writing suits each. For instance, from my first reading of this book, I always remember the desert crossing as being much longer and more tedious for the characters than it is if I read the book more carefully. There's also a good balance between the personal aspects of the characters, and the larger scale political events going on around them.
It's a very cool book.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
sweet-indigo
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Reviews written: 21
Trusted by: 1 member
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