Good and bad things about this book?

What are the good things and what are the bad things about this book in your opinion? First write some of the best things with this book, and some of the bad things. I'll start:

Good: :D

All the Pevensies are in this book!
The Beginning with the island chapters: I love them!
The flashback about Caspian: So interesting chapters!
Many characters! Both new and old.
Trufflehunter! My favorite character!

Bad: :mad:

The Romp and that whole chapter: I don't like that part of the book...
To short; (a problem all the books have)
 
Prince Caspian is one of my favorite chronicles to read, probably second only after The Horse and His Boy.

I love that all the Pevensies are in it. As we unravel that they are in Narnia, we get a unique dual-perspective. They have returned to Narnia, as kids, after only a year; but they also had spent several years in Narnia during the Golden Age. I like how their character attributes carry over from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Peter is a noble and natural leader. Susan is practical. Edmund is courageous. And Lucy is pure. I like how Lucy sees Aslan and the others hesitate to trust her, just as they hesitated to trust her with the wardrobe. I found Susan's patronizing attitude toward Lucy hilarious. I guess I was laughing at the correleation: that some people are very adamant in their disbelief.

I especially like how we learn so much about Narnia from Prince Caspian. Cair Paravel, the Great River, Beruna, Glasswater Creek and the woods all play an important part. We see how places like Cair Paravel, the Stone Table and Beaversdam have changed since the Pevensies' last visit. We learn the names of many new planets, mythologically-based creatures, and lords of Narnia. We become personally acquainted with numerous endearing animals. We glean important historical information about the origins and legacy of the Telmarines in Narnia.

I love the theme of Prince Caspian, that of Renewal and Restoration. I thoroughly enjoyed the climax of the story, when the Narnians defeat the Telmarines, when Aslan and the girls traverse the countryside, and when Aslan coronates Caspian. I thoroughly appreciate every aspect of the ending, including the celebrating and taking of "refreshments." I'm not so much concerned with a literal interpretation of this as I am with its symbolic significance; the immeidate growth of grapes from the ground represented Aslan's renewal of the land.

Perhaps the only thing I didn't completely like was Peter and Susan's dismissal. It's too bad they couldn't come back, but it's cool. It just increased my longing for their characters!

I love Prince Caspian. It's an awesome book. There's so much in it to savor!
 
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I like how their character attributes carry over from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Peter is a noble and natural leader....


Absolutely!! The original book, AS ACTUALLY WRITTEN BY LEWIS, had all it needed to make a fine movie, with only such cinematic alterations as would still have been harmonious with the book. There was NO NEED to change it into "Beverly Hills 90210," and no need to change Peter into a stupid narcissist who couldn't deliver the goods. Those who argue, "But it made him HYOOOO-man," are missing the point. Even in the fallen state of mankind, a person does NOT have to be wrong about everything all the time to qualify as human.

And yes, leaving out the parts like the fast-growing grapes was a great loss for the movie. Just as the extra intrigue with Sopespian was worked into the movie before the climax, Adamson COULD HAVE worked in views of Telmarine civilian life that would have led up to the "romp" near the end. But no, Adamson chose to sacrifice EVERYTHING else in favor of his true and intentional goal: mocking and ridiculing whatever is noble, as he did in the shallow Shrek movies.
 
I also liked how Caspian's nurse came back into the plot at the end. It was a nice touch
 
Looking at the book as a writer, I can see why some find it difficult going. Starting a story and getting the readers engaged is one of the hardest things about any work (ending it well is another), and in Caspian Lewis effectively does it twice: once with the Pevensies and the Island, and again when he begins the "story within a story" of Caspian's upbringing, flight, connection with the Old Narnians, and rebellion. Then he has to tie the two stories together with the section in the middle where the Pevensies and Trumpkin make it from the ruins of Cair Paravel to Aslan's How.

Still and all, the tale is a good one, especially once Aslan gets involved. There are all sorts of rich themes of renewal and restoration, especially in The Romp, which over the years I've come to see is the central incident of the book.

I completely agree with CF about the movie's violation of the central principles of the story. I could have understood if they'd wanted to rearrange the story line to avoid the clumsy "double-start" (though movies do handle flashbacks better than books), but the superimposition of alien themes (e.g. the Romeo & Juliet theme, the Hamlet theme) did a terrible disservice. However, there are other threads to make those complaints, so let's keep this thread on the book.
 
One of the best things in the BOOK was like a distant echo, for children's benefit, of what Lewis had done in That Hideous Strength. The disruption, by Aslan and His mythological followers, of Telmarine secularist routines, was a gentler version of the doom that fell upon Belbury.
 
In addition to what everyone else said:
1, I loved Edmund sticking up for Lucy;
2, I loved Caspian reuniting with his nurse;
3, I loved Caspian fan-boying Peter;
4, I even loved Susan's disbelief - in retrospect, it is excellent foreshadowing for what we find out in LB;
5, I loved, loved, loved Lucy's reunion with Aslan - I had a string of bad summers when I was a teenager when reading that scene was the only thing that could uplift my spirits;
6, I loved Caspian's first meeting with the Narnians - how they accepted him as their king and the dance of the fauns that first night;
7, I loved the story about how the Telmar men came from our world into the world of Narnia - pirates! (I don't want to beat a dead horse but why, oh why didn't the movie dramatize that?!)
8, I loved that instead of the typical dead-mother syndrome, we find out a bit about Caspian's mother and that she was kind to Cornelius (and probably kept his secret);


and lots and lots more!

What I didn't like:
1, Whatever happened to Queen Prunaprismia and her son, Caspian's cousin? That was a very long, very dangling plot thread!
 
What I didn't like:
1, Whatever happened to Queen Prunaprismia and her son, Caspian's cousin? That was a very long, very dangling plot thread!
This! One of the few things the movie managed to fix was to show us that they ended up on Earth-world. But yes, this was such a big thing to omit explaining.
 
A wonderful book! The only thing I didn't like, as Tirian_son_of Erlian also mentioned, was the fact that Peter and Susan were told that they could never come to Narnia again.
 
Peter and Susan's exclusion from Narnia

Yes. There is something dreary about the way the characters have to leave Narnia to go back to the mundane world. For me it takes away something of the escapism of the books.

I also think it seems inconsistent that Peter and Susan are apparently too old to go to Narnia, yet Susan is later condemned for losing interest in the place.
 
"I also think it seems inconsistent that Peter and Susan are apparently too old to go to Narnia, yet Susan is later condemned for losing interest in the place."

celest, Susan is condemned for treating her time in Narnia as a game of pretend. She refused to accept it ever happened. That goes beyond losing interest. She also was condemned for putting her social life ahead of everything else, presumably even her school work.

MrBob
 
"I also think it seems inconsistent that Peter and Susan are apparently too old to go to Narnia, yet Susan is later condemned for losing interest in the place."

celest, Susan is condemned for treating her time in Narnia as a game of pretend. She refused to accept it ever happened. That goes beyond losing interest. She also was condemned for putting her social life ahead of everything else, presumably even her school work.

MrBob
Add to that that Susan seems to think she is mature, because she is an adult, apposed to her brother Peter, who is mature because he knows better.
 
Telling her she can't come back because she is too old almost seems to imply that the whole thing is a game of pretend.

I sympathize with Susan. I think she is trying to deal with the pain of being excluded from Narnia, as well as the trauma of growing up and then being turned back into a child again after LWW.
 
Telling her she can't come back because she is too old almost seems to imply that the whole thing is a game of pretend.

I sympathize with Susan. I think she is trying to deal with the pain of being excluded from Narnia, as well as the trauma of growing up and then being turned back into a child again after LWW.
She's not barred from returning, she is just not allowed to return until Aslan calls her again. Remember Peter return to Narnia in the last battle. Aslan had fulfilled his mission for them, and wanted them to know he had not forgotten about them, but they had served their purpose well.

I don't buy the pain of exclusion, nor that of growing old, and then young again. Even if I were her , being the realist that she is, she probably would have guessed that Aslan would return them eventually. When exactly was the surprise. I do believe that Aslan wouldn't have sent both Peter and her, and later Lucy and Edmund, back because of age without the unspoken calming knowledge that it would not be the last that they see him. I think Susan's foolishness results in the mistake of believing that age equals maturity, and that Aslan was no longer a concern of hers, not unlike those today who don't need God because they are young, and successful 'without him' and are unable to understand that without him they would not be successful to begin with.
 
Actually, you can see the seeds of Susan's ultimate turn from Narnia already present in her behavior in Caspian. She was the complainer, the one who kept doubting Aslan's presence and provision. She kept choosing to believe the worst. She doubted not only His presence, but the word of the witness He'd chosen - a witness who'd proven right before. She actively fought against believing. She was the last one to see Him during the night walk. Aslan's first words to her, though reassuring and accepting, were a caution: she had listened to her fears. Remember that Lucy listened to His voice, and ultimately found Him. The implication is that Susan could have heard, too, if she'd silenced her fears.

So the blame for Susan's turning cannot be laid on Aslan for excluding her from Narnia. Lucy and Edmund were excluded in their time, yet they remained faithful. Susan's turning was her responsibility, and hers alone. She chose to keep listening to her fears, which is why she ended up where she was: desperately trying to cling to a youth that was slipping away. Having rejected Aslan, she put her trust in one of His gifts to her - her attractiveness. That got her attention and put her at the center of things, at least for a while. But in the end all gifts fade away.

Sadly, I know a real life "Susan" - a woman who is about my age, yet fears the advance of years. She works like a slave to maintain her "youthful figure", dresses like someone half her age, and is constantly obsessed about her appearance. She frequents nightclubs with her husband (who would be happy with a life led at half the pace) and "parties hearty". Yet the lives of her five children are scattered all over. It's tragic.
 
"I sympathize with Susan. I think she is trying to deal with the pain of being excluded from Narnia, as well as the trauma of growing up and then being turned back into a child again after LWW. "

celest, what about Lucy, Edmund, and Peter? they went thriugh the same thing as Susn, yet they turned out fine. Also, this is about learning to live in their world with all of the lessons learned from being in Narnia. Aslan presumably told Peter and Susan something similar to what he told Lucy and Edmund when it was theri time to leave Narnia. That being that by knowing Aslan in Narnia, they can know him more in their own world. By treating i as a game of pretend, she is denying Aslan ever existed, so therefore, she can't know him more there, the very reason for going to Narnia.

MrBob
 
I suppose that assumes she would want to know Aslan in this world. if I was Susan, I'm not sure I would.
But the thing is, that we aren't told that. We are told we does things that Aslan wouldn't approve of , vanity being one of them. Plus I'm thinking for someone who has seen Aslan face to face, to call him a 'Fairy Tale', is a little harsh and disrespectful if your searching out for me. However, if they ever do make TLB into a film, I would love for the filmmaker to show Susan's 'Come to Jesus' Moment after realizing that her siblings are dead and that she'd been a terrible fool. I've always imagined it as her finding out and rushing to a church to get some quiet, and then she would see/hear Aslan in something reflected in the Altar.
 
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