Prince Caspian

I enjoy Prince Caspian because it is a true return to Narnia in the vein of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe but it is better developed than that one. It's a pretty straightforward battle story (although I did not remember how actually violent, although brief, the battle sequences are) with a good interjection of Aslan mixed in.

Great installment, hehe! The story really pulled me in from the start, because it started after the events in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It's a year later and we follow the Pevensies' on their second trip to Narnia. But before we go to Narnia we see the siblings in a train station on their way to boarding school, but that soon changes when they find themselves on an island! (YAY magic). They need to help a prince (hi, Caspian) and that's why they are back in that magical land.

I loved the writing style once again. I adore Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy so much. Their characters are great. I love the fact C.S. used time as a big reference to divide the real world from the Narnian world (as in decades have past in Narnia, we've got new Kings and Queens).

This was just great again. I love it.

This was OK, kinda fun in some places, kinda draggy in others. As usual, there was some pretty heavy-handed religious allegory in the second half of the book, but without as much of a narrative drive as in Lion, Witch, Wardrobe.

More than anything, I felt that the personalities of the children here felt a bit more effaced compared to the first book. In the first book, Lucy was gentle, innocent, and pure, Edmund was self-centered, narrow-minded but ultimately repentant, and Peter was always noble and righteous. Susan was a bit of a non-entity in the first book, and she takes a different turn from her siblings in this second book, more on that later. In this book, I found that the children's personalities became more blurry, indistinct, and bland.

Lucy had her moments of being the innocent clinging on to her faith despite the mockery and disbelief of the world, as she did in the first book, but there was a bit less of her wonder and joy at being in Narnia. Peter was pretty much as he was in the first book, apparently always doing the right thing but there's nothing much to make him stand out. Edmund, who was one of the most interesting characters in the first book because he actually had character growth and a redemption arc which is more than any of his siblings did, became a pseudo-Peter in this one. He even manages to out-Peter Peter when he chooses to believe Lucy when the others would not. This might be part of his redemption arc but I wish more had been done with him.

By an unintended twist, Susan became a bit more interesting in this one. I couldn't really tell you what she did at all in the first book because she was just along for the ride and didn't do much else. In this one though, out of the four siblings, she is the first one to start choosing not to believe in Aslan - not because of any dramatic evil personae working on her mind like the White Witch did with Edmund in the first book, but simply because she... chooses not to? She doesn't turn evil or bad or anything, but it's interesting and a little saddening to see one's childhood incredulity and energy slip away so visibly.

The Prince Caspian storyline comes straight out of a fairytale and was just okay. It was entertaining enough but also nothing mind-blowing. What was most interesting about it was perhaps at the end when it's revealed that the Telmarines are actually descendents of real-world pirates who had somehow slipped into Narnia. It was a really wild story with them being stuck on an island and brutalizing the natives there and then somehow traversing a crack in the world into Narnia. I think there might be some message here about colonialism, not just in the real world with the pirates killing the natives of the Pacific island and “taking their native women as wives”, but also coming into Narnia and then colonizing Narnians. It all introduces a very interesting thread that I didn't think I would come across in the Narnia series.

Looking forward to go on to the next one.

I've read this book countless times over the years, and loved it each time.To be fair, the structure is somewhat annoying - there's a wonderful start to the book (magical in more than one way) with our friends, the Pevensie children from [b:The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe 100915 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Chronicles of Narnia, #1) C.S. Lewis https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1353029077l/100915.SY75.jpg 4790821], but then just as things are getting really interesting we are sucked into a story-within-a-story as Trumpkin the Dwarf relates the childhood and education of Prince Caspian leaving us missing our old friends. The secondary story is slow to start, but picks up and finally gets really exciting as Caspian, aided by the awesome Pattertwig the squirrel has gotten the gang together and looks set to face down the evil Miraz...and then we're jarringly back with the Pevensie children who proceed to go on a very long walk while we're desperate to find out what our new friends Caspian, the wonderful Bulgy Bears, the lovable giant, the wise Badger Trufflehunter, and of course the peerless Reepicheep are up to.That said, when all that build up finally pays off and all the threads come together ... it is all so worth it. I have read this to several different groups of children over the years and each time the final few chapters have provoked bouts of spontaneous cheering and dancing around the room.That was my reaction at age 7ish too. All these many moons later I still feel pretty much the same.

This book definitely started to drag on for my 5 year old as we went. While the plot was interesting for ME to read to him, it was certainly slower going than the other books in the series. The characters were less compelling and more deeply flawed than the others, though, which is saying something!!

Yes, Lewis here expands some of the Narnia lore and introduces some fun characters, but I do think the plot is pretty boring, slow, and arbitrary. It feels like Lewis just really wanted to go back to Narnia and couldn't quite figure out what he wanted to do once he was there. It seems that this book was more like stage-setting for future stories than it was a full story in its own right.

This is a re-read for me. The Chronicles of Narnia are on my 11-year old's summer reading list, so we're reading them together. I appreciate this book so much more now than I did when I took a class on C. S. Lewis in college! It's great fun to read along with my son and watch as he picks up on different parts of the story and connects it back to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Truly a classic, and well worth the read at any age.

I read [b:The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe 100915 The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (Chronicles of Narnia, #2) C.S. Lewis https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1353029077s/100915.jpg 4790821] as a child, but never went on to read the whole series. I finally decided to try this one yesterday out of mild curiosity, and I quite enjoyed it. It's an amiable fantasy tale with nothing really disagreeable about it, I like the way it starts, this time none of the children behave badly, and there's a conventional villain instead of the bizarre White Witch. But it's a slight book that seems to be over quickly, and the story could be summarized quickly and simply.It makes another little adventure for the Pevensie children, but a very much briefer adventure than their previous one, and they don't really have anything important to do in it. The forces of the bad king are basically overcome by Aslan, who could have done that at any time he chose, with or without the Pevensies.Revealing himself initially only to Lucy seems like pointless teasing.It also seems rather odd of Aslan to assert that Narnia can be ruled only by a human, although its native inhabitants aren't human. The Narnia books are known to be written from a Christian point of view; are they also written from an imperialist point of view?I might have given this book three stars but for its slightness and the way Aslan sweeps in and makes the struggles of the other characters seem irrelevant.At the end, Aslan tells Peter and Susan they're now too old to return to Narnia. Why? Because these are supposed to be children's books? Seems pretty arbitrary. Especially as they all grew well into adulthood in Narnia during the previous book.

Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy are on their way to boarding school a year after their return from Narnia when they are abruptly pulled back to the land they once ruled as kings and queens. Much time has passed here and a wicked king, Miraz, now is in charge and the old tales and magic is forbidden and the Old Narnians have been forced to hide for their lives. There had been hope that Prince Caspian, the nephew of Miraz, would eventually rule, but when the wicked king has an heir, Caspian is told his life is threatened and he must flee. Caspian joins the Old Narnians, and they attempt to face Miraz and his troops, but they are greatly outnumbered. In desperation, Caspian blows Susan's horn, and the four children arrive in answer to its call.

Sometimes I almost think I remember trying to read these books when I was a child, and the things that bother me as an adult are probably the same things that bothered me as a child. What makes Miraz wicked, other than the scheming and killing he did in order to obtain power? And how is his killing different from the killing of the Old Narnians against the forces of Miraz? Why must it come down to a battle? Is killing off the wicked the only way to restore good to power? Who ruled Narnia after the four children left? Did they leave someone in charge? And why did that not work well?

I can see that I need to do more background reading on the series.

7.5/10

I'm reading these books in publication order and enjoyed this way more than the first book.

Caspian feels fleshed out and has motivation to fight his war. My main complaint is still the very fast pace though. There is a lot of build up to a war between two interesting factions, and then this war i a decided in less than half a chapter. This feels a little unfulfilling to me.

It's worse than the first part and really boring.

It has the same flaws, and instead of rectifying them, the author goes on describing every single detail in the story, like the color of the grass, etc.

I liked the reason why the children were brought to Narnia. I was a great set up. But, I would say I only liked that part from the entire book.

Just for the convenience and the story to progress, our characters (who are children in school!) carries electric torches and matches. I mean, who would if you are just a child ?

I thought the final battle would be good, but it disappointed me as well. Just a spar between Peter and Miraz, and that's it. The end of the book.

Next to nothing happened in this one. It was almost like a book between adventures except at the end they were like, “our adventure is over! Guess we're going home!”

I want to keep reading this series and probably will because there's so little time commitment but you kind of expect with series like this the world evolves and expands over the course of it; not so here. This one felt less substantial than the first, which already felt a little light. Will the kids ever actually do anything? They're mostly just experiencing everything so far.

Summary: A return to Narnia by the original four children, for them a year later.

After I read My Side of the Mountain and thought it wasn't quite right as a read-aloud for my kids, I picked up Prince Caspian. I have previously read The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, and we started, but they got bored with, The Horse and His Boy.

Prince Caspian has never been my favorite of the series, and it has been a long time since I have read it. The four Pevensie children were on their way back to their boarding schools roughly a year after their original trip to Narnia, and they were “called” back to Narnia. They discover eventually that it has been hundreds, if not thousands of years since their glorious reign. The country is now governed by a caretaker King who is part of a line that invaded Narnia and killed off many talking animals and magical creatures and who have largely lost the memory of the golden age.

Caspian is the rightful king in the line of the invaders. But his uncle is trying to take over. We discover that Caspian's father was killed by his uncle, and now that his uncle has had his own child, he plans to kill Caspian as well. But Caspian's tutor helps him escape. Their private tutoring sessions about the real history of Narnia have prepared Caspian to seek out the magical creatures. And together, they attempt to rebel against Caspian's uncle and recreate the type of kingdom that it was before. Much of the understanding of magic has gone. And Aslan has been largely forgotten, even by the Dwarfs and magical creatures.

In some ways, this feels like a story of the adoption of Prince Caspian into the story of Narnia. Caspian's family were invaders. They were not of the line of humans that have been part of Narnia. But Caspian is grafted into the line of the human kings. The imagery of adoption into the story feels like the adoption of Gentiles into the Jewish story. But there are problems with this reading. Narnia requires a human as ruler. So it feels to me like there is a level of supersessionism if this is the intended imagery of the story. I also tend to think that reading this with a post-colonial lens means that the talking animals and other magical creatures are often treated like colonized people who are incapable of self-rule and probably never will be because of a lack of capacity.

Caspian is a better story than I remember. I enjoyed it as a quick read to get me out of a reading slump I have been in. It is a good reminder that reading old books has benefits and problems. But there is value in being reminded of both.