basesurge's Full Review: C. S. Lewis et al - La Ultima Batalla / the Last B...
(Oops... This is a review of the Spanish language version of this book. I've put a duplicate review under the correct entry...)
All things, good and bad, at last come to and end, or at least a stop. Most TV shows grind to a halt. Well thought-out stories have a beginning, middle and end. This was what endeared the TV show Babylon 5 to me (among other things). "The Magician's Nephew" was Narnia's official beginning, although "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" has been the introduction to most readers. The other books serve as as the middle. Now comes Narnia's end.
The story once again begins in Narnia, a first for the series. Shift the Ape and his nominal friend Puzzle the Donkey discover a lion skin in a pool and Shift, who is shifty, gets himself an idea... It's been many a year since Aslan the Lion Lord of Narnia has shown himself and belief is fading. Shift decides to use the skin to put on a little charade. The lion skin, draped over Puzzle's back, becomes the returned Aslan and Shift is his simian prophet. He calls to his side soldiers from Narnia's hostile southern neighbor Calormene who have their own agenda. Shift uses his position to give himself an easy life and lord it over the other talking animals of Narnia. It the process despoiling the land around him.
Up against these forces is Tirian the last king of Narnia. He strives to overturn the new Order of the Ape but finds out the Ape has the numbers. So, one last time, people from our world, Eustace and Jill from "The Silver Chair" are summoned to Narnia to join the battle against the land's enemies.
"Last Battle" is essentially Lewis's apocalypse story. It follows the story-line of the Biblical book of Revelations fairly closely with Shift the Ape standing in for that book's "Beast" figure. (Fun fact: the word: "antichrist" doesn't appear in Revelations.) It's story has an impostor pretending to act in the name of a distant and nebulous Aslan/Christ, even symbolically assuming his "mantle" (the lion skin). Assuming the above, you can predict the ending, yes?
The story of this book is, if anything, even more symbolic and allegorical than the first book in the series (by publication date) "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" and as in "The Magician's Nephew" (Narnia's "creation myth") Lewis models his story on the Bible. Like Lewis's friend and co-professor J.R.R. Tolkien, I dislike the allegorical/symbolic form. However in this story Lewis makes it work, rather better than in LWW and parts of the other books. In fact some of the imagery in the last four chapters of LB are impressive and even beautiful. The last time a read the Chronicles was many years ago and I had forgotten much of it (and frankly, there are many forgettable parts) but I do remember being impressed by LB even back then. This book would have to be placed, by me at least, along side "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" as one of the more successful books in the series.
At seems to me a bit odd that a book at least nominally aimed at children should deal so openly with the end of the world. Isn't just "Aslan's (Jesus) back and he's going to stay forever this time!" Rather it shows the grim, grand shut-down, destruction, and abandonment of what has become (at least the author hopes) a treasured land of fantasy. I'm not sure how a child who has come to feel affection for Narnia would feel reading this.
The text this time out feels pretty grown-up. The grand-fatherly tone that characterized the earlier works is, for the most part gone. I have noticed that the text seemed to "grow up" as it went along. Perhaps this was intentional, I don't know. I also wonder if Lewis isn't having a bit of a dig at the Darwinists of the world by making his most evil talking animal an ape.
There is no point whatsoever in trying to read this book without reading the others first. Sorry...
I have to hand it to Lewis for having the stones to bring his successful series to a close without even the possibility of a "Part 8". Also for facing the consequence implied by the beginning essayed in the creation story of "The Magician's Nephew." (I've always felt the grand sweep of Tolkien's legendrum is rather handicapped by a stunted and largely missing apocalypse myth.) This book is a substantially better and more moving read than that lack-luster book as well. If you like the Narnia it may grieve you to see it's end but you know what they say about all good things... You should read it anyway.
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