The Horse and His Boy

[sawyl]

Not really in the mood for what I had been reading, I've decided to switch to some shameless comfort reading, starting with C.S. Lewis. Having already talked about The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, I'm skipping ahead to The Horse and His Boy, the only immersive fantasy in what are otherwise a series of solid portal stories.

We begin with Shasta, apparently the son of a poor fisherman, living in southern Calormen. When a passing nobleman stops at Arsheesh's hut, Shasta discovers that not only is the fisherman not his father, but he doesn't seem to have too many scruples about selling his foster son into slavery. To escape his fate, Shasta flees with the nobleman's stallion, a talking Narnian horse called Bree, and the pair head for the north and freedom. A few days into their journey the pair encounter another duo of escapees: Aravis, a young Tarkina running away from an arranged marriage, and Hwin, her Narnian mare.

The opening begins rather well although Lewis' casual othering of Calormenes as universally cruel and unscrupulous feels rather uncomfortable, even if it is balanced by their charming and distinctive rhetorical style. The banter between Arsheesh and Anradin as they negotiate away Shasta's freedom, is spiced with plenty of exotic aphorisms, while the ornate, formal mode of storytelling Aravis uses to explain the reasons for her flight is one of the high points of the book.

But what really distinguishes the opening is the quality of Lewis' characterisation, for if Shasta and Hwin are rather slight the other two principles are strongly and clearly drawn. Bree is magnificently pompous and vain, and despite being a firm friend to Shasta, he frequently displays a strong streak of insensitivity: he fails to appreciate that Shasta might be sensitive about his humble origins and his ignorance of the practices of the great Tarkaan lords; he describes Shasta's gradually growing equestrian skills in distinctly mocking terms; and he spends far more time talking to Aravis about people they have in common than he does talking to either Shasta or Hwin.

Aravis is one of Lewis' best female characters. She's determined and capable, rescuing herself from her arranged marriage to the ancient Grand Visier Ahoshta by putting on her brother's armour and fleeing with Hwin. Her somewhat tomboyish interest in archery and sword-fighting and riding are contrasted with the more traditional female pattern of her fluttery, fashionable friend Lasaraleen, who's great enthusiasms are clothes and parties and society. In the early parts of the book, Aravis is casually snobbish and very dismissive of Shasta, whom she believes to be beneath her, but she gradually starts to come round when she realises that its in their common interests to work together to get to safety, eventually coming to realise what she's done.

Passing through the great city of Tashbaan, both Shasta and Aravis happen to overhear separate parts of the Tisroc's plan to strike against Narnia. Shasta, who gets mistaken for a member of a visiting Narnian delegation, is perfectly placed to witness King Edmund's realisation that Prince Rabadash, the Tisroc's eldest son, won't let the Narnians leave unless his is allowed to marry Queen Susan and to hear the Narnians come up with a plan to escape their gilded cage. Meanwhile Aravis, sneaking through the palace in the immediate aftermath of the Narnians' flight, overhears a meeting between Rabadash and the Tisroc in which the Prince proposes a lightning strike against Narnia to abduct Susan, in the process establishing a bridgehead in Archenland to allow his father build up his forces for the eventual conquest of the north.

Inevitably parts of the section in Tashbaan feel a little contrived, with everyone just happening to be in precisely the right place to hear exactly what they need to get themselves where the ought to be next whilst also filling in important background details that couldn't be dumped into the narrative by any other means. But I'm relatively willing to allow this to pass because Lewis has already put in a deal of the ground work, establishing Shasta's uncertain parentage and implying that he looks enough like a northerner to be legitimately mistaken for Prince Corin. Also while Aravis' encounter with the Tisroc stretches chance, I think it too may be justified: Lasaraleen comes across a so flaky that's not hard to imagine her losing her way in the palace; while the Tisroc's decision to use the old part of the palace because it allows for greater discretion also feels justified. Besides, there's a lot to like about the scene between the Tisroc, Rasbadash and Ahoshta, not least Rabadash's appalling tendency to kick the kowtowing Ahoshta in the bum whenever he comes out with a poetic aphorism — something for which the Prince has absolutely no patience.

Having learnt of the impending Calormene attack, Shasta, Aravis and the horses strike out for the north across the desert following a trail Shasta happened to learn about during his time with the Narnians. Arriving on the doorstep of the Hermit of the Southern Wastes with no time to spare, Shasta leaves the injured Aravis and exhausted horses behind and runs on raise the alarm, first in Archenland and then, with the help of Aslan, in Narnia. Arriving in time to help lift the siege of Anvard, Shasta discovers the truth about his origins and is reconciled with Aravis. Bree is deeply worried about his return to Narnia, partly because his tail was cut ragged to help disguise him in Tashbaan and partly because he's not sure whether Narnian horses roll in the grass or not, but Aslan takes him down a peg or two and puts him on the path to humility.

To me, the last part of the book isn't entirely successful: the moralising feels a little clumsy and Shasta, lacking the balance of the other characters, feels a little self-indulgent and complaining. There's also an unfortunate moment when Lewis' previously sure-footed characterisation completely abandons him and he indulges in a brief moment that comes across as completely inauthentic: when Aravis arrives in Anvard, she meets Lucy for the first time but instead of doing what you'd expected two determined, self-possessed and active young women to do — go off hunting or compare archery techniques or something — they "went away together to talk about Aravis's bedroom and Aravis's boudoir and about getting clothes for her, and all the sorts of things girls do talk about on such an occasion." I suppose, charitably, one could read this as meaning that Lucy knew that Aravis needed to change clothes to blend in and, while they were doing that, they talked about battles and archery and such, but the more obvious reading is that both of them have suddenly stepped out of character and turned into Lasaraleen.

I also have problems with the language used by some of the characters — although, to be fair, this is a consistent niggle throughout the series. Shasta's vernacular is hardly that of a poor fisherman's son and sounds more like a public schoolboy of the 1930s, especially when describes his true father as an absolute brick. Similarly Prince Corin sounds a bit like an English schoolboy while all those around him — his father, the nobles, and most oddly, the Narnian Kings and Queens — seem to use an anachronistic faux medieval style of speech. Which makes me wonder: do the humans of Narnia and Archenland undergo some sort of strange linguistic shift at puberty?

For all it's problems, I like the The Horse and His Boy a lot. It greatly expands the world of the Chronicles, adding in the Ottoman-influenced if problematic culture of the Calormenes as well as introducing the Archenlanders, and picks up various minor threads mentioned as asides in Prince Caspian, spinning them out into the story of Edmund and Susan's trip to Tashbaan.