The Last Battle: Chapters Ten - End

  At the conclusion of a lengthy description of an intense battle with the Calormenes, Jill, Eustace, and Tirian are all finally captured and thrown into the stable into the presence of the horrible figure of Tash. Then the threatening Tash suddenly disappears and the seven Kings and Queens of Narnia appear: Peter, Jill, Eustace, Lucy, Edmund, Polly, and Diggory, all figures who have had prominent roles in the prior Narnia Chronicles.  Susan, we are told, is not present because she has dismissed Narnia as mere child’s play and has pursued a life of worldliness. 

The episode in which Lucy and King Tirian confront the dwarfs is an excellent illustration of the principle that all people see according to their natures:  good natures tend to see a good world, and evil natures see an evil world.  In spite of the astounding fact that Aslan himself appears to them, in their complete self-centeredness,  they vehemently misinterpret his presence as so much “Humbug.”  Aslan explains: “You see. . . their prison is only in their own minds. . . .” 

To Peter and his cohorts’ amazement, they meet the noble and upright Calormene  warrior Emeth, who recounts his meeting with Aslan.  When Emeth asks Aslan, “Lord, is it then true . . . that thou and Tash are one?” Aslan growls so that the earth shakes and explains: “Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou hast done to him.  For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. . . .”  The statement has large implications for Lewis’s view as regards basically upright people of other religions.

At Aslan’s command and in an atmosphere of overwhelming joy a complete cosmic transformation occurs, with and the old Narnia disappearing, stars falling and becoming a horde of people, and all evil beings vanishing.  With Aslan’s cry “Further up and further in,” a completely new Narnia appears, too breath-takingly colorful for words; it is the real Narnia, as different from the former, just as the reality of something is different from its shadow.

Without becoming in the least tired, they all run and fly with utter delight, immersing in a hugh waterfall and soaring over the mountains, until they come to golden gates. There they are filled with delight as the gates are opened by Reepicheep, the talking mouse of prior adventures, and inside they meet all the characters of prior Narnian tales.  Also, inside they see the England transformed:   “. . . the England within England, the real England. . . . and in that inner England no good thing is destroyed.”

HAVE YOU ESPECIALLY ENJOYED READING THE LAST BATTLE?  HOW SO?  EXPLAIN.

This concludes our work with Narnia.  After a brief respite we will turn to George MacDonald’s novel Robert Falconer.  I will post a schedule within a couple weeks.

I urge you to purchase the Cullen edition of the novel.  In it the editor Michael Phillips  has softened the Scottish dialect so that it is easy reading but still keeps the necessary flavor of realistic portrayal.  And the setting of the novel and some of the characters are quite like those of MacDonald’s own childhood.