This book overlaps slightly on some of the events briefly mentioned in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, but is a departure from those books in that the whole story is set in Narnia (or rather, the same planet, but a different part – called Calorman – and the lands between it and Narnia) – and the four main characters are all Narnian, not from our own world.
These characters are:
Shasta - a Narnian (or close) by birth, he has been brought up by a fisherman in a very harsh environment. When he gets a chance to escape his joyless life with Bree - a talking horse (from Narnia – but over in Calorman he has to pretend to be a dumb animal. The others two are (I won’t tell you when / how they enter the story as it would spoil things): Aravis - a spoilt rich brat from Calorman and her horse (also talking), Hwin. But a devious plan by the son of the Tirsoc (ruler of Calroman) threatens to ruin everything… and not just for Shasta et al.
As you would expect with a Narnia book, much of the narrative drive is given to the way the characters develop through self-realisation and an increased awareness and understanding of the world around them. However this is done in a subtler way than in The Magician’s Nephew or The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, and thus seems more a natural part of the story and less a moralistic subtext. The religious connotations are also kept down, as the story focuses more on an oppressive regime than anything else. For most of the book I was rather disappointed at the lack of symbolism, but in just a short passage near the end of the book, there’s enough symbolism to keep anyone happy for a while – instead of the normal fairly obvious approach, there’s several layers of symbolic meaning and referencing to biblical events piled on top of one another in a way that defies you to understand all of it on first reading! (Okay so this may not be your sort of thing, but I thought it was great.) This doesn’t hinder the plot development in the slightest however, so children won’t be struggling to understand it – they’ll just read it as a natural part of the story.
The characters are more fully developed here than in the previous books, with a bit more in the way of characters having both good and bad qualities. (Apart from the real baddies.... they’re just bad.) The style of prose is excellent, and while children will enjoy it as a fun story, adults will again find little nuances that make them smile inside. The camaraderie between Bree and Shasta is portrayed superbly, and Bree’s little worries about social ettiquette – such as “Do free horses in Narnia still roll in the grass?” – add to the the depth of Bree’s character which, considering he’s a horse, is pretty deep. The female characters are slightly disappointing but still perform their role in the book reasonably well - since they’re really secondary main characters it doesn’t detract from the book too much.
The plot is well developed and, for a children’s book, is actually fairly complex - I would say that younger children might need help to keep up with what’s going on (and would still lose the significance of some of the passages anyway – though this wouldn’t mar their enjoyment of the book). The ideal age group for this book is probably about 10-14, though I was 27 when I read it and still enjoyed it!
Overall, this is better than The Magician’s Nephew (the opening passages of which had to be endured rather than enjoyed – at least by adults!), and while many will be appalled at me saying this, far better than The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. It’s one of the best books for children that I’ve ever read (including the ones I read when I was a child!!). This is the book that really whet my appetite for reading the whole Chroniles of Narnia series .
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