The Last Battle

Reading every book in this series has been a struggle to a certain extent, so I find it only fitting that the final one was called The Last Battle. I found that this book was essentially divisible into three unique and separate parts. Its beginning and set-up were clever, well-crafted, and enjoyable enough. Then the entire middle section, in which the titular "battle" took place, was a discombobulated mash-up of irrelevance. The white Narnians defeated the pseudo-Islamic "Darkies" (surprise!) and with nearly no segue at all we find ourselves in the third and final act of the seventh and final book. I typically refrain from posting spoilers, and even less often alert all two of my readers that spoilers will be coming, but, well, brace yourselves, because here's the ending of the book (and series) in a nutshell. With the Narnians decimated, but the battle won, Aslan appears and all the Narnians, both dead and alive, gather around him. It's essentially Judgment Day, and one by one the people and animals of Narnia are either allowed to pass through a special door or turned away from it. The door leads to heaven - I mean, "Aslan's Country" - and those left behind in Narnia witness the end of the world as the sky goes dark, the stars fall from the sky, the vegetation dies, and the seas rise up to cover the dark, desolate, barren remnants of Narnia. Basically, it's the Apocalypse. The Tribulation. I didn't mention it before, but there was a clear false prophet and Anti-Christ character responsible for starting the last battle in the first place. Eventually the children ("Sons of Adam" and "Daughters of Eve") from our own world find themselves in Aslan's Country with all of their old friends from the previous six books. We learn in the final paragraph or so that they had all been killed in the real world (London) in a train crash, and thus, were allowed to remain in heaven - pardon me, Aslan's Country - for all eternity. So yeah. Deep stuff. Definitely not my favorite of the seven Chronicles of Narnia, but easily the deepest and most religious and philosophical narrative of them all. I found it to be a fitting finale. It contained the best and the worst of C. S. Lewis, from the deepest and most moving plot to the deepest and most biting racism. With all seven now complete, I suppose I can rank them. My favorite of the seven is still The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (5) for reasons not wholly known. Second on the list is probably The Magician's Nephew (1), although it's hard to be certain because I read it ten years ago. This book, The Last Battle (7), comes in third because I appreciated both its complexities and its sense of ultimate closure. The next spot has to go to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2) based mostly on its status as a classic. It's followed closely by The Silver Chair (6) and Prince Caspian (4), two boring and predictable books differentiated only by the fact that I found one of them just slightly less boring and predictable than the other. Finally, finishing in a distant, distant last place is The Horse and His Boy (3), a terrible book whose only message seemed to be that white Christians are superior to everybody else. The lack of any decent plot, likable characters, or originality didn't help its case, either. So, am I glad I'm done with this series? Yes. But am I disappointed I read them? No. They're simply a collection of short and easy children's books that happen to be borderline classics. Plus, I was the one who read them; I wanted to. I wanted to finish every book that I own and that goal would have been impossible had I skipped out on these. What comes next on my reading list? I have no idea. I'm still in the middle of American Lion, but that's one slow read, so I sincerely doubt that'll be the next book you see my post about here. I suppose only time will tell. Forever's gonna start tonight.