Prince Caspian

[sawyl]

I was pretty sure I'd read Prince Caspian relatively recently, but I couldn't find a copy of it floating around at home, there wasn't any evidence on LibraryThing, and I don't seem to have jotted down any notes on it, so I think my memory must be playing me false.

The four Pevensies — Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy — are sat on a train platform waiting to go back to school when some strange magic draws them into Narnia. Finding themselves on a wooded island, it isn't until Susan finds a gold chessman that they realise that they have arrived many hundreds of years after their time and that the stone ruins about them are the remains of their great castle of Cair Paravel. Spying a pair of soldiers in a boat trying to drown a struggling bundle, Peter and Susan stage a daring rescue, only to discover that they have rescued a dwarf by the name of Trumpkin who claims to be a subject of Caspian X, the true king of Narnia.

As he does elsewhere, Lewis contrasts the idea of the school term with mundane reality and holidays with adventures that allow people to be true to their inner selves; and holds the dreary train station and school uniforms up against the wooded semi-tropical island and the treasure chamber full of treasure and great suits of armour and finds them wanting. The return to Cair Paravel is nicely done, with the growing sense of familiarity giving way to the sudden shock of recognition and the realisation of the time that must have past. It also serves, by allowing the children to reminisce about their lives at Cair Paravel, to fill out the place's past with details from The Horse and His Boy making it feel a bit more like somewhere with genuine history.

At the children's insistence, Trumpkin tells them the story of Caspian's rebellion. Having grown up in the court of his usurping uncle, King Miraz, Caspian has had to learn the stories of Old Narnia — of the four kings and queens, of dwarves and talking beasts, of Aslan — in secret from his nurse and, later from his tutor, Doctor Cornelius. Forced to flee when the Queen gives birth to a son, Caspian falls in with a pair of dwarves and a badger and, through them, with a great number of Old Narnians. Having called a council, Caspian is forced to reconsider his plans when Doctor Cornelius arrives and tells him that Miraz is on the move and they must retreat immediately to the safety of the hill of Aslan's How — a great mound raised in antiquity over the stone table. With the war going badly, Caspian decides that the time has come to use Queen Susan's horn to summon help. Unsure where the help may appear, Caspian first dispatches emissaries to the two most important places: Pattertwig the Squirrel to Lantern Waste and Trumpkin to the ruins of Cair Paravel.

Trumpkin's omniscient narration does a great deal of heavy lifting, establishing a number of characters and providing the Pevensies — and the reader — with a comprehensive account of Caspian's life to date. As is typical of portal quests, the account is beyond question and to be believed absolutely without any idea that Trumpkin's own opinions — he's deeply sceptical of magic, of the old kings and queens, and of Aslan, despite living with a talking badger! — might colour his version of events is not to be thought of.

After convincing the dwarf that they're not just kids, the children head up river in the boat basing their route on Peter and Edmund's memories of the land. Unfortunately Narnia has changed greatly since their time and they soon find themselves stuck on the wrong side of a deep gorge. During the day, Lucy thinks she sees Aslan and tries to convince the others to follow her but, with the valiant exception of Edmund, she is unable to win them over and they stick with Peter's original plan until they run into an ambush and are forced to backtrack. That evening Lucy has a second vision of Aslan and this time manages to persuade the others to follow her, even though they are unable to see the Lion. Sure enough, by putting their faith in Lucy and Aslan, they finally find themselves on the right road and, by the time they've arrived at Aslan's How, they've all come to be able to see him.

Obviously, the journey is intended to be read as an allegory for the struggle between faith and reason, with Peter and Edmund making what seem like sensible decisions based on their flawed knowledge, whereas Lucy makes hers based on her faith following her fleeting glimpse of Aslan. This is made explicit when during Aslan's second appearance in which he tells Lucy that she should have followed him from the first regardless of what the others decided, suggesting that her faith was found wanting when it was put to the test, but despite that Aslan's graceful and forgiving nature is such that she and the others have been given a second chance. It's also telling that Edmund is the one to side with Lucy, given his initial, pre-redemption behaviour in The Lion.

Arriving in time to save Caspian from Nikabrik's scheme to summon up the White Witch, Peter comes up with a plan to win some time by challenging King Miraz to single combat. Initially minded to refuse Peter's transparent trick, Miraz is manipulated into accepting by a couple of his supposed allies. Meanwhile Aslan and the children go an wild ride in the company of Bacchus and his maenads, rousing the trees and the river gods, freeing those who believe and driving out those who do not. Consequently, when Peter's duel ends in chaos with both armies fighting for their lives, the Narnians find themselves bolstered by a great force of tree spirits who drive Miraz' army before them. The story ends with the Old Narnians victorious, Caspian established as rightful king, and Aslan's announcement that he has created a gateway to allow Miraz supporters, who came to Narnia from another reality via the country of Telmar, that he has established a doorway to allow them to return to their own world. In order to show the defeated army that they have nothing to fear from the gateway, the four Pevensie children change back into their school uniforms, step through the door and find themselves back on the railway platform waiting to return to school.

Lucy and Susan's journey through Narnia on Aslan's back is presumably intended to be read as evangelical allegory, with the redemption of the just and the suffering of the unjust. I'm not quite sure what to make of Lewis' use of pre-Christian figures like Bacchus or the way he casually mixes up Greek and Roman figures, but consistent world-building has never really been Narnia's thing! Peter's duel with Miraz is rather well done as a whole — I particularly the way he casually dictates his florid letter of challenge to Doctor Cornelius — but the big pay-off ultimately falls a little flat thanks to the deus-ex-machina of tree spirits showing up in the very last minute. The departure from Narnia is bittersweet, for although Edmund and Lucy are assured that they are to return, Peter and Susan have been told that they're never to return; something they both take extremely well — I'm not sure that Peter, in his mid-teens, isn't more mature and certain than I am in my late 30s.

Despite the awkwardness of the plotting and pacing, Prince Caspian contains truly wonderful moments that lift the whole book. I also have to admit to having a seriously nostalgic soft spot for it; I'm pretty sure the battered Collins edition from my primary school library was my gateway into the rest of the Narnia novels and for that alone, I'm willing to forgive it practically anything.