The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Edmund and Lucy Pevensie are spending the summer away from immediate family with their aunt Alberta and uncle Harold, and by proxy their horrible cousin Eustace (since Professor Diggory has (somehow????) fallen on hard times since then). But when a painting comes to life and drags them once more into Narnia, they'll sail beyond its eastern boundary in search of seven Telmarine lords, and Reepicheep's ultimate destiny.
I remember this book being my favorite for a long time as a kid, broken only by The Horse and his Boy as I matured. The movie disappointed me for adding Harry Potter-esque elements with the seven swords, but I suppose some disappointment is inevitable. Perhaps the movie would be better on a re-watch.
I think Lewis pulled back considerably on his bullshit in this book, and while it crops up occasionally, it's not nearly so pronounced, and the Christian allegories are subtler, better-integrated into the plot. That's not to say they're completely absent, in that there are two aspects that feel off.
First, Doorn and the Lone Islands. For the most part, everything works together neatly for an anti-slavery message for children, though I did hit upon a snag with the governor. He talks a lot about progress and innovation as justification for the slave trade, and Caspian dismisses his arguments as "going bad". I wasn't sure whether it was just a dunk on belief in progress or not; it's possible to read it as an anti-progress argument. But in the end, I think it was well-written enough that the governor doesn't believe any of his bullshit and Caspian is seeing right through it; mostly it's just the language and defense that I thought were weird.
Second is Eustace, and this must come with a caveat because Eustace's arc in the book is a triumph. He's such a beastly little kid at the beginning, but being brought low and learning to like and be liked in turn forces him to grow as a person, though he retains enough of his snippy personality throughout that you know he's not quite done a 180°; more like 170°. No, it's that Eustace's bad traits are divided into three categories: bad traits that need to be reigned in; traits Lewis dislikes; and traits that feel autistic.
For the first, he's a bully and a coward at the beginning, he's a know-nothing know-it-all and he suffers a victim complex, traits that are awful-enough that I almost didn't write this section.
But for the second, we get things like his parents wearing a special kind of underwear, which is treated as just as odd as being vegetarians, non-smokers and teetotalers. After his arc at the end of his book, his mother thinks he's "commonplace and tiresome" (which should be taken as a compliment from an annoying person); he talks about feminism (without really understanding it, to be fair) and gets dismissed, and it's mentioned at one point that he didn't go to a school that used corporal punishment (in the context of Reepicheep slapping him with a sword, which Eustace definitely deserved). I get the sense that sometimes vegetarians or Republicans (anti-monarchists, not American conservatives) annoyed Lewis extensively, and I could see him writing a paragraph about gentle parenting that was just as inaccurate as your average Fox news host.
For the third, he has a pretty extensive knowledge about subjects he likes. Most of the books he reads are factual, strictly informative books, calling out mechanical engineering and botany as something he has extensive knowledge about (botany even coming up a few times throughout). These traits are often redirected to be useful in the story, which is a positive, but they're also used to demonize him, even when in mild amounts. (I do think it's pretty telling that Caspian and company are completely uninterested in engine mechanics or anything of the sort, which could tie back to an anti-progress message).
But for all of that weirdness, I think Eustace really works. He's a combination of interesting and terrible traits, and his time as a dragon brings him so low he has to learn to be more human than he ever was as a regular person, and his bond with Reepicheep especially made me misty-eyed. Even though their friendship isn't referenced as often after he's restored, the way he tries to be helpful is in imitation of Reepicheep (see: jumping and attacking a giant sea serpent with a sword), a growth that is surprisingly subtle for this series. And he has a few moments where he gets to be snide and snarky at the crew's current situation without be chastised for it, even after his arc is complete.
As for the other characters: I didn't get as much as I wanted. Caspian and Reepicheep both have the same motivation, that of love for adventure, but Caspian cannot fulfill it because of his duties, whereas Reepicheep is almost compelled to seek danger (although he does shame the crew at one point by calling them "peasants and slaves" which was very uncool of him). It's not much though, and it's moments in between Caspian acting like a rational person and Reepicheep demanding the most dangerous course of action (and occasionally being correct).
Edmund has less of a presence here. He gets to talk strategy but that's about it; Lucy is the POV character most of the time, and her spiritual connection to Aslan is on full display here. For the former, it's only a little for a character who was a lot; and for the latter, I was satisfied with what I got.
Truth be told, however, I don't really care that we don't have as many strong character arcs in this story besides Eustace, even with the loss of the dynamic and wonderful Reepicheep, because this books is packed full of the kind of magic that makes me sit back and go "Man... that was cool".
It's also not the kind of book afraid of getting dark or having an edge. The first sign of it is of course slavery, but as I remembered that from last time; my first new sign was when all the chickens were killed in a storm, which was so shocking I wrote down. But from there we have the Island of Darkness, Dragon Island and Deathwater island, all full of nightmare fuel that could drive a much darker story on their own. The Island of Darkness demonstrates that Reepicheep is more foolhardy than brave; and Deathwater and Dragon Island form an interesting chain about greed and gold that make for fantastic symmetry, and everything about Eustace being awesome as a dragon comes with the deconstruction that being a dragon would suck after a lifetime of being a human, and all of that came from a paragraph that describes Eustace's new experience. It's a chilling and cold experience to read these things and remember how scary that could be as a kid, and even an adult. And tag onto this at the end Pittencream and his fate, forever to be known as the crewman who chickened out before seeing what the end of the world held. It's such a weird, tragic fate for a character who got a name as an afterthought, and I can't stop thinking about him.
But it's not all darkness! Starting with the Dufflepuds and the magician, from there to Ramadu the star and the End of the World, the book brings all the fantasy of the world on strong towards the end of the book. I read these parts with goosebumps, because it painted such a wonderful picture of the kind of world Narnia could be. The description of the sweet water sits with me even still, and probably will for a long time.
And layered throughout, there's a level of subtlety and ambiguity that make the world really pop; did Octesian turn into a dragon, or did the dragon kill him? Combined with Deathwater Island, did someone discover the pool and start using it to make gold, and thus turned into a dragon? What crime did Coriakin commit that caused him to be exiled? Why do Ramadu and his daughter sing in the morning? What are stars in our world? What does it mean that Aslan would obey his own rules? What other spells were in the book Lucy read? What is the purpose of the magical objects? What did everyone hear in the Island of Darkness? What's the story Lucy read and loved? What is the purpose of a rubber duck? Why are little girls and Coriakin the only ones allowed to read the magic book? All of these questions are left unanswered, and in so doing it leaves the world feeling just that bit more alive.
The pervasive theme of this book is the love of the fantastic, the strange, the adventurous and the mysterious. The Dawn Treader set sail to find what was out there, and came back triumphant. For the bits I can nitpick about it, I cannot deny the wonder and fantasy of the setting called to me as the painting called to the Pevensies and their cousin, and where the emotions of the characters were described I felt them just as strongly. It's a wonderful reading experience, and a shining, silvery light of the book in my memory. A book I think could have been better, but even without is still great.
