This instalment of the Dalek Game is for C.S. Lewis’s The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and most particularly for Reepicheep (the bold, the indomitable, the vain, the… always reminded me very slightly of Hercule Poirot?) Dawn Treader is not my favourite of the Chronicles of Narnia, and yet it has so many of my favourite scenes – falling into the painting, Lucy in Caspian’s tunic, Eustace crying to the moon, Goldwater, the lily sea. And it does have one of my favourite first lines, out of so many: “There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.”
Each of the novels has so much its own feel – the odd, mannered Edwardian fantasy and fresh discovery of The Magician’s Nephew, the childlike, wish-fulfilment, occasionally dark, myth-steeped allegory of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the untouched-by our world, desert-city-mountain, 1001-nights pursuit of The Horse and his Boy, the midnight, lost-heir, cloak-and-dagger battles (and that taste of adult loss) of Prince Caspian, the salt-air and white-sails episodic quest (within quest) Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the death, betrayal and depression of The Silver Chair, the sweeping, contained, final beginning of The Last Battle. And Pauline Baynes’ illustrations catch each style with such perfect, consistent flexibility.
This is how I most like series, I think. Linked, locked into each other, yet each complete and Its Own Story. Diana Wynne Jones did this as well, although in a more extreme fashion across fewer books. It satisfies my desire for more story, while not ruining my memory of an already-perfect tale.
August 20, 2012 at 7:04 pm
Where wind and water mate,
Where the waves may slake,
Doubt not, Dalek Eight,
To find all you hate,
And there exterminate.
August 20, 2012 at 8:00 pm
Heheh!
August 21, 2012 at 6:39 am
Love this so, so much.
August 20, 2012 at 10:23 pm
What a great insight – for both Lewis and Jones – about the series made up of related but different stories, each its own universe with its own flavor!
August 29, 2012 at 9:28 pm
I love the way it sends the world kaleidoscoping out.
August 21, 2012 at 6:41 am
You will be unsurprised at this comment. I love this, of course, as I have much more affection for brave, daring, hopelessly self-absorbed Reepicheep as an adult than I had as a child. And you’re so right about Narnia. Eventually I will get to Jones, too…
August 29, 2012 at 9:29 pm
Yes, yes, yes!
August 22, 2012 at 4:02 pm
This is an excellent blog K, well done!!
August 29, 2012 at 9:29 pm
Stefanie! Thank you
August 22, 2012 at 10:17 pm
He looks so noble, regal, cleans up quite well. :)
August 29, 2012 at 9:29 pm
:)
September 12, 2012 at 8:54 pm
Actually … ‘The Voyage of the Dawn Treader’ was my favourite of the Narnian books, even if it was the most episodic. I’ve always loved the idea of the book in the library that held all those lovely magic spells, the the monopods, the the Star’s Daughter, and the wave at the end of the world that Reepicheep disappears over at the end of the book. I adore this image.
September 16, 2012 at 10:04 pm
Oh, all that! Yes!