145. Title & Author: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis (228 pages)
Genre: Fiction--Fantasy & Adventure
Completed: 29 May 2010
Summary & Review:
In this final installment of The Chronicles of Narnia, the last King, Tirian, faces an unparalleled crisis. After a devious ape creates an imposter Aslan and shackles the residents of Narnia under his rule, all in the name of "Aslan," many begin to lose faith in the real guardian of Narnia. Tirian is imprisoned and the pagans of Carlomene invade the once free lands of Narnia. With the help of Eustace and Jill, featured in The Silver Chair, Tirian is able to break free and make a stand against the unbelievers.
It has been an inconsistent experience reading The Chronicles of Narnia. Some of the books, like The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, were full of powerful religious allegories and subtle, nuanced lessons and meanings. These books were appealing to me as an "older" reader because of the deeper elements under the surface fantasy storylines. Other entries in the series seemed more like placeholders or served only to orient the reader to the broader story. Books like The Magician's Nephew and The Horse and His Boy fell into this category. Without the layers of meaning found in some of the books, these books fell a little flat. The Last Battle was one that, to me, was of the latter type and was found wanting. Yes, it helped explain the end of Narnia and inform the reader as to what happened to all of the major human characters from the series (even Digory and Polly who appeared in book 1, The Magician's Nephew), but other than that, I thought that the story was fairly weak. Having an ape dress up a donkey in the guise of a lion as the catalyst for the end of Narnia, a land with millennia of history and mythology, was very unsatisfying and not nearly grand enough to close such a series.
Rating: 6.0
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