A review by electric_whelk
The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis

4.0

 

Having battled over and over against witches and tyrants, Narnia falls to a grifter. The novel opens on Shift and Puzzle planning their con, which must, to the first generation of readers, have felt like such low stakes on which to open the final book. It rings subtly true, as the plot follows the increasingly evident incurability of a spirit-deep rot beyond what swords can beat back. In the absence of grand military stakes, much of The Last Battle is devoted to philosophizing on false gods, demagogues, modernity and faith, and bursts with vivid symbolism: four-armed Tash rotting the grass on which he walks, a miracle in a stable that none emerge sane enough to describe, and the final collapse of Narnia into psychedelic apocalypse at Aslan’s decree. 

With the themes so richly concentrated, it’s unfortunate that The Last Battle is also where the persistent mean-spiritedness of the story metastatizes into outright hatred. CS Lewis passes his final judgements here: Susan, distracted by boys and dances, gets no hero’s welcome into Aslan’s country. Neither do the Calormenes (save one - described as much handsomer than his other dark-skinned countrymen), who, unlike the Telmarines who conquered Narnia previously, get no Prince Caspian figure to lead them towards responsible stewardship: the world is better ended than left to them. 

Narnia could have gotten a better ending than the Last Battle, but it couldn’t have gotten a more perfect one. All these books have, to some degree, been characterized by plain-spoken wisdom, unpatronizing honesty, and small-minded English contempt. For good and for ill, The Last Battle is the wisest, most honest, and most contemptuous of them all.