Even during
my years of munchkinhood, I do believe this book was never a favourite of mine.
Prince Caspian tells two stories which
only intertwine properly three quarters of the way through the book. One story
is that of the four Pevensie children – Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy (and
shame on you if you needed that explanatory detail! Time to join the
bespectacled bookworms, my friend). The other story is that of Prince Caspian,
a boy trying to claim the throne which is rightfully his…but currently occupied
by his uncle/Big Cardboard Villain. But we’ll get to that later.
Basically,
Caspian, being a scrawny pre-adolescent, needs help taking back his kingdom.
Solution? Call in four schoolchildren from England to lend a hand.
Ah, I jest…
But at the same time, I don’t, because that’s actually the master plan of
Caspian and crew. The Pevensies, now mere half-forgotten legends in Narnia, are
called back to save the day and beat down the evil uncle Miraz and his army of
Telmarines.
Bad points first:
-
The characterisation: on the whole, it’s
pretty weak.
Actually, scratch that – it’s
abysmal. Our main characters are far less interesting or endearing than the
freaking badger, for heaven’s sake! Peter is flat, dull, without personality.
Lucy is glorified once more as being always right, and is often given painfully
unsubtle lines in scenes drowned in religious allegory… Yes, she believes in God
Aslan, she’s a good girl, now can we please just get back to the light-hearted
child with a big imagination? Thankyou.
-
Susan’s characterisation can get a point
to itself. It is evident that C. S. Lewis simply DID NOT LIKE HER; there is no
subtlety about it! She is always the one to complain, to raise the unpopular
suggestion, to hang back, to believe in logic as opposed to Aslan… And this
last point in particular really annoys me because this book is stuffed with the
concept that faith is THE most important thing, and that blind faith in a deity
is totally cool. Susan’s desire to not wander round the woods in the illogical
direction following what is probably a non-talking lion which probably wants to
eat them is viewed as a terrible lack
of faith, and treated in a ‘Geez, Susan, you heretic!’ kind of way. Poor kid –
her author was actually picking on her. And at the end of the day, this didn’t
make me like any of the other characters more – it just made me want to slap
Lucy when she started crying and to punch Aslan in the face.
-
Onto Aslan – urgh. (…Maybe I should stop
reading the Narnia books and just
live with my romanticised image of them in my mind.) I had forgotten how
dreadfully full of allegory this lion is. People don’t read children’s fiction
to be preached at! Yet Aslan is like a teacher, a horribly blunt and
single-minded teacher who doesn’t allow you to have your own opinions. Plus, he
isn’t even a very sympathetic omnipotence – a dwarf notably comes up to him to
say “Now that I can see you (because you’ve finally stopped being an invisible
pain in the ****!) I can believe that you’re real. Sorry for saying talking
lions don’t exist.” Fair enough, in my opinion – you can’t expect the dwarf to
believe in this deity-like figure who has let the country fall apart and the
dwarven race get chased underground. But noooo, Aslan decides to be a douchebag
and picks up the dwarf in his teeth, shakes him about a little and then throws
him on the ground. Is this behaviour okay? I don’t think so! Keep your hands,
feet, paws, teeth, tails and whatever the heck else you might have to yourself
– deities included. Aslan should be setting a good example. Sheesh!
-
Ahem…back to characterisation, now that
I have let off some steam. Let’s keep things short and the rage to a minimum. So:
Miraz = cardboard. Caspian = cardboard.
I wish there was more to say but cardboard gives you very little to
discuss. Damn.
-
Moving on to more negative points. The
pace was rubbish, as the Pevensies spent an awfully large part of the novel
lost in the forest or following Aslan and growing in faith (…shoot me). And
Caspian and Miraz were absent for a good chunk of the novel and then, when they
finally reappeared, we were meant to still care about what happened to them.
Right. It would help if they had personalities, for starters…
-
So basically – the tension was minimal,
the pace awful, and the characterisation lamentable. So what was good about
this book?
The good points – because yes, even after all my
whinging, I don’t consider this book to be at all furnace-worthy.
-
Edmund: easily one of the best
characters ever written into children’s fiction. He is flawed; he grows and
changes from book to book, and doesn’t go from wicked child to saint. He wasn’t
perfect back in the days of The Lion, the
Witch and the Wardrobe, and he continues to be multi-faceted in Prince Caspian. He is simply written well, and his dialogue in particular
reads more naturally and shows more depth, less cardboard. Not to mention that
he gets the final line in the book and it’s pure gold.
-
The writing. You could say that the Narnia novels came before the era in
which authors began trying too hard and got too wrapped up in purple prose.
Lewis keeps things simple, and this makes his action scenes in particular a
relief to read. No ‘swirl of blades in an intricate dance which rose and fell
like the mountain wind’ here. And to continue on with the writing style; there
are a couple of good lines, such as the aforementioned final words in the book.
Therefore, thankfully, at least this book is not taxing due to stylistic issues
with the writing.
-
The escapism of this book also proves to
be a good point. Many great stories – eg. Harry Potter – succeed through their
ability to whisk an ordinary protagonist and an ordinary reader out of their
mundane, everyday world and into a universe filled with magic and the potential
for anything to happen. It’s clearly an old but good formula, and that type of
formula which will likely never go out of fashion.
-
Finally, the element of Prince Caspian which really hauls it out
of the deep end – or at least, saves it from drowning – is the pure imagination
which underpins the world of Narnia. This creativity is what has kept the
series popular. The reader is handed a world filled with talking animals,
walking trees (no-one say ‘ent’ – Tolkien and Lewis were friends, they may well
have come up with the tree idea together!), time which goes faster in one world
than another, segregation of magical creatures, court backstabbing, battles, a
rich history and, wonderfully, several references to previous books in the
series. (Jadis! Cair Paravel! The Stone Table!). And in relation to the last
point; the series really gained a sense of scope through Lewis’s ability to
refer to previous event in Narnian history in such a natural way. It’s hard to
explain, but the important thing is that it worked.
Yet despite
the beauty of the creativity, one can’t quite ignore the negative points…so I’m
afraid I’ll be giving this book a pretty average rating. It had its moments;
points from which you caught a glimpse of why Narnia books have stood the test
of time; yet ultimately, other books in the series have everything you’ll find
in Prince Caspian, but more (and
better done). So don’t read this book first in the series – stick with The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe;
you can’t go far wrong there.
Also, (and
yes, this is irrelevant to my review or rating but I feel the need to spread
the warning) the most recent film adaptation of Prince Caspian (2008) is absolutely terrible. Sure, it didn’t have
the greatest source material, as we have seen, but honestly; I have tried to
watch it several times and can barely make it through the whole thing. It has
no soul and is, quite frankly, dull. A brief appearance of Tilda Swinton (‘The
Great’, in my eyes at least) saves a scene, but the rest is utterly
unmemorable. I believe I recall some interesting music while they ran on the
beach, which evoked some nostalgia… But that’s it. Prince Caspian can be pretty to watch at times, but nothing more.
(And really, what was up with the romance thrown in at the end?!).
The film is
so bad that I won’t even link you to the trailer. Sorry if this annoys you, but
your displeasure can in no way top mine concerning this film. Watching it has
me practically foaming at the mouth with the desire to run away. Maybe this is
irrational hatred, but…it runs deep!
Anyway,
inexplicable and disproportionate rage aside, it’s time to give Prince Caspian, the novel, a score.
Pippa’s rating: 5/10
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