Prince Caspian

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.