Book Review: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (Narnia Book 3) by C.S. Lewis

Title: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (Narnia Book 3)
Author: C.S. Lewis
Illustrator: Pauline Byanes
Published: New York: Scholastic, 1987 (1952)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 216
Total Page Count: 117,890
Text Number: 343
Read Because: rereading a favorite book, from my personal collection
Review: Swept back into Narnia with one unwelcome companion—their difficult cousin Eustace—Edmund and Lucy find themselves pulled aboard the Dawn Treader, which Prince Caspian sails to the Eastern edge of the world. This is my favorite of the Narnia books. Eustace delights me: I wish more correlation were made between his flaws and Edmund's, but his flaws are balanced by realistic yet transformative growth and ultimately sympathetic representation; he's always been the Narnia character I remember and love best. As for the rest, the book is numinous: the Dawn Treader travels through waters which are striking, surreal, and evocative; the book is emotionally rich, transportive, and vast. Its travelogue format limits its plot, thus it's not the most memorable or iconic of the Narnia books; it also has its low points, like the ineffective comedy of the Dufflepuds and the explicit, subtlety-destroying Christian allegory of the last page. But more often than not, it is the very best of what it is: a journey into the wonders of the unknown, leaving both character and reader forever changed. I love it beyond measure, and of course recommend it—although, for a first-time reader, the series is best read in order.

Review posted here on Amazon.com.

(I've reviewed Narnia as a collection before, but never addressed each individual volume.)

On cats: Gillian is healing, August is cute, autumn is here and there are cats and this is home.

Gillian is exceedingly frustrated. He's probably been an over-groomer for some time, which is precisely why he's wearing an e-collar now—so he can't groom his irritated skin and so make it more irritated and so make him want to groom it. The first few days of the e-collar were awkward, because he wasn't quite sure how to function with this odd addition to his body; now he's just a tail-lashing beast of frustration and misery, because the raw sections are scabbed and the scabbed sections are flaking and hair is growing back everywhere and I imagine it all itches like mad.

I'm reading a particularly enjoyable book which is perfect for bite-sized consumption, so I often go into the bathroom—we've moved him to the second-floor bathroom, which is larger and has a window and gets more use, so he gets more company—and sit on the floor and read a chapter or two. He used to be content to fall asleep in my lap, e-collar and all; how he paces and tries to groom and ends up licking the collar or the two inches of tail he can reach. If I go to leave, though, he makes a dive for my ankles and meows plaintively.

When I'm in there, August sticks her paws under the door. Sometimes she bats at any of his toys which are in reach. Always she mewls most pathetically. They've met under the door and through an almost-closed door and once when August managed to dart into the bathroom. Who knows how they'll get along, but he is desperate now to get out into the land of free-roaming cuddles, and she's desperate to get in to the magical off-limits home to the second bowl of cat food.

He's already learned to clear his dish twice a day because if he doesn't, the rest of the food goes away. In the long run I'll probably still feed him in a closed bathroom, since he takes about ten minutes and August takes three, and she will eat his food too given half a chance.

August has kept her cute level set on high for days now—maybe a bit of anxiety or jealousy, or maybe just a steady reminder that "I am also a perfect cat and you love me too right." And I do. It's finally truly autumn here: the overcast cool weather has held for days, and any sun that breaks it from now on will be a lovely crisp and bright autumn day, not a return to summer. August wants nothing more in the world (excepting the hours leading up to each meal) to sit on a microfleece blanket that is next to or on top of me and kneed it and go to sleep, and for that matter I would rather nothing more than same with addition of a video game or book.

About this time last year we were thinking how lovely Halloween would be with a beautiful black cat in the window. This year there could easily be two, and while August is certainly the more regal—she sits with her back arched and her tail wrapped neatly around her front paws—it does seem like particular happenstance to have a matching set. They're mirror-cats to one another: black and green but midsized fluffy bright-eyed; black and green but small short-haired pale-eyed. She meows in consonants and he in vowels.

This is not how I expected things to end up, and I spent a few days in a haze of disbelief—cultured by stress and the numbness that follows it—where he wasn't really a pet, just a project: a creature to be rehabilitated and taken to expensive vet visits. But he is, you know—a pet, I mean; a family member—and before long we'll be worrying about things like cat pheromones and peaceful first meetings and group socialization, and who knows how many black cats will be keeping watch come All Hallows' Eve.

And a black dog, too.

I noticed today, sitting on the front porch with Mamakitty, that the dark fur in her calico motley will make her look quite lovely against black.