Scan barcode
A review by danilanglie
The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis
3.0
I definitely miss having the Pevensies around, I'm not going to lie. Eustace feels like a character with a bit of an aimless purpose in this story, because he was the spoil-sport who needed to learn a lesson in the last book, but he did learn his lesson so he can't be that again this time, which means that I guess Jill is the disagreeable one, but she's not, really, she's just kind of scared and confused sometimes? So I don't know.
I also really felt the Christian message bonking me over the head in this one. Like, yeah, you've always got Jesus Lion and it's all allegory or whatever, but the part in this book where it was like... "it's better to believe in a wonderful thing and behave as if it's true, than to just keep your head down and live your dreary life without hope" was just... very on the nose. I always find that such a bizarre Christian argument because it seems to carry the implication that the world sucks and we all agree that the world sucks, so the only place to look for hope is in the afterlife? And I reject that premise, I think it's limiting and a giant bummer.
Anyway.
I did like the comedy of Puddleglum and his constant pessimism, I liked the creativity of the different settings, the giant city and the words carved in the ground, the underground world with its giant lake, etc. It was cool that the book was a journey out of Narnia to see other places in the world, although kind of odd that this book and the last were both quests to go rescue presumed-dead noble people in faraway places.
C.S. Lewis's politics were leaking all over this one, not just the religious stuff but also his obvious distaste for the liberal-minded school that Eustace and Jill attend, which I thought was mildly amusing even though I know I wouldn't agree with Mr. Lewis about most of the shit he seemed to hold as true. I liked the simple friendship between Jill and Eustace, the way he was willing to share Narnia with her to just give her a bit of hope and boost; it actually makes him a better ambassador of Narnia that the Pevensies ever were, because Lucy and Edmund definitely didn't take Eustace with them by choice in the last book, did they?
Anyway - it's been fun to revisit these, I'm kind of trepidatious about the last one because I remember it making me very angry when I read it a while back. We'll find out!
I also really felt the Christian message bonking me over the head in this one. Like, yeah, you've always got Jesus Lion and it's all allegory or whatever, but the part in this book where it was like... "it's better to believe in a wonderful thing and behave as if it's true, than to just keep your head down and live your dreary life without hope" was just... very on the nose. I always find that such a bizarre Christian argument because it seems to carry the implication that the world sucks and we all agree that the world sucks, so the only place to look for hope is in the afterlife? And I reject that premise, I think it's limiting and a giant bummer.
Anyway.
I did like the comedy of Puddleglum and his constant pessimism, I liked the creativity of the different settings, the giant city and the words carved in the ground, the underground world with its giant lake, etc. It was cool that the book was a journey out of Narnia to see other places in the world, although kind of odd that this book and the last were both quests to go rescue presumed-dead noble people in faraway places.
C.S. Lewis's politics were leaking all over this one, not just the religious stuff but also his obvious distaste for the liberal-minded school that Eustace and Jill attend, which I thought was mildly amusing even though I know I wouldn't agree with Mr. Lewis about most of the shit he seemed to hold as true. I liked the simple friendship between Jill and Eustace, the way he was willing to share Narnia with her to just give her a bit of hope and boost; it actually makes him a better ambassador of Narnia that the Pevensies ever were, because Lucy and Edmund definitely didn't take Eustace with them by choice in the last book, did they?
Anyway - it's been fun to revisit these, I'm kind of trepidatious about the last one because I remember it making me very angry when I read it a while back. We'll find out!