Full spoilers for the entire book below. Proceed with caution.
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Title: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Author: C.S. Lewis
Publication Date: 1952 (novel), 2003 (audio)
Publisher: Harper Audio
Narrated By: Derek Jacobi
Recording time: 5 hrs and 50 mins
THE PLOT
via wiki:
The two youngest Pevensie children, Lucy and Edmund, are staying with their odious cousin Eustace Scrubb while their older brother, Peter, is studying for an exam with Professor Kirke, and their older sister, Susan, is travelling through America with their parents. Edmund, Lucy, and Eustace are drawn into the Narnian world through a picture of a ship at sea. (The painting, hanging neglected in the guest bedroom in which Lucy was staying, had been an unwanted present to Eustace’s parents.) The three children land in the ocean near the pictured vessel, the titular Dawn Treader, and are taken aboard.
The Dawn Treader is the ship of Caspian X, King of Narnia, whom Edmund and Lucy (along with Peter and Susan) helped to regain the throne of Narnia in Prince Caspian. Also present on board are the Lord Drinian (the captain of the Dawn Treader) and first mate Rhince.
Peace has been established in the three years since then, and Caspian has undertaken a quest in fulfilment of his coronation oath to sail east for a year and a day to find the seven lost Lords of Narnia: Argoz, Bern, Mavramorn, Octesian, Restimar, Revilian, and Rhoop. He mentions that Trumpkin the dwarf has been left in charge of Narnia as Lord Regent in his absence. Lucy and Edmund are delighted to be back in the Narnian world, but Eustace is less enthusiastic, as he has never been there before and had taunted his cousins with his belief that this alternate universe had never existed. The Talking Mouse Reepicheep is also on board, as he hopes to find Aslan’s Country beyond the seas of the “utter East”. When Eustace teases Reepicheep, much is revealed about the mouse’s pugnacious character.
They first make landfall in the Lone Islands, nominally Narnian territory but fallen away from Narnian ways: in particular the slave trade flourishes here, despite Narnian law stating that it is forbidden. Caspian, Lucy, Edmund, Eustace, and Reepicheep are captured as merchandise by a slave trader, and a man “buys” Caspian before they even reach the slave market. He turns out to be the first lost lord, Bern, who had moved to the islands and married a woman there after being banished from Narnia by Miraz. When Caspian reveals his identity, Lord Bern acknowledges him as King. Caspian reclaims the islands for Narnia and replaces Gumpas, the greedy governor, with Lord Bern, whom he names Duke of the Lone Islands. Caspian also declares that slavery is forbidden in all his dominions and that all slaves are free.
At the second island they visit, Eustace leaves the group to avoid participating in the work needed to render the ship seaworthy after a storm has damaged it and hides in a dead dragon‘s cave to escape a sudden downpour. The dragon’s treasure arouses his greed: he fills his pockets with gold and jewels and puts on a large golden bracelet; but as he sleeps, he is transformed into a dragon. In his new guise, he becomes aware of how bad his previous behaviour was; he attempts to shed his dragon skin without success. It is only with the help of Aslan that he is able to become human again, though the process is very painful. Caspian recognises the bracelet: it belonged to Lord Octesian, another of the lost lords. They speculate that the dragon killed Octesian — or even that the dragon was Octesian. Aslan turns Eustace back into a boy, and as a result of his experiences, he is now a much nicer person.
The crew narrowly escape being sunk by a sea-serpent and stop at Deathwater Island, so named for a pool of water which turns everything immersed in it into gold, including one of the missing lords who turns out to have been Lord Restimar. Then they land on the Duffers‘ Island, where Lucy removes an invisibility spell from the Duffers (later Dufflepuds) at their request and befriends the Magician who cast it. Next they reach the “Island Where Dreams Come True”, called the Dark Island since it is permanently hidden in darkness. It turns out that the “dreams” that come true there are not necessarily nice dreams and Lord Rhoop, whom they rescue there, has been tormented for years by his nightmares. Eventually they reach the Island of the Star, where they find the three remaining lost lords in enchanted sleep. Ramandu, the fallen star who lives on the island with his daughter, tells them that the only way to awaken them is to sail to the edge of the world and to leave one member of the crew behind there. Lord Rhoop wishes to “sleep without dreams” beside his friends until they wake and everyone agrees before they set out again.
The Dawn Treader continues sailing into an area where merpeople dwell and the water turns sweet rather than salty, as Reepicheep discovers when he belligerently jumps in to fight a mer-man whom he thinks challenged him. At last the water becomes so shallow that the ship can go no farther. Caspian orders a boat lowered and announces that he will go to the world’s end with Reepicheep. The crew object, saying that as King of Narnia he has no right to abandon them. Caspian goes to his cabin in a temper, but returns to say that Aslan appeared in his cabin and told him that only Lucy, Edmund, Eustace, and Reepicheep will go on.
These four venture in a small boat through a sea of lilies until they reach a wall of water that extends into the sky. Fulfilling Ramandu’s condition, Reepicheep paddles his coracle up the waterfall and is never again seen in Narnia. Edmund, Eustace, and Lucy find a Lamb, who transforms into Aslan and tells them that Edmund and Lucy will not return to Narnia. When Lucy becomes sorrowful and despondent about the prospect of not seeing Aslan again, Aslan tells the children that he exists in their world, too. Aslan adds, “There I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there”. Aslan then sends the three children home.
Back in the real world, everyone remarks about how much Eustace has changed.
My Review:
By publication date, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is the third installment from C.S. Lewis’s Narnia series, however, by chronology it is the 5th book in the series. As Lewis wrote and published them in a certain order, it feels prudent to read them in that order and to let the flashback novels fall where originally delivered. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader feels as though it picks up where Prince Caspian left off, so I had no issues understanding what was happening.
Derek Jacobi was the audiobook narrator and he did an excellent job. I took in his performance in two sittings, but had time allowed, I easily could have listened to him read the entire book in one sitting. Whether doing the voice for a swashbuckling mouse, or any of the other characters, I found the entire audiobook completely immersive. He was aided in his performance by the fact that this might be the best of the three volumes so far.
Dawn Treader is a bit different from the first two volumes inasmuch as there is not as clear a plot thread. The first book was about defeating the White Witch, and the second was about getting Caspian on the throne, but this was about the journey itself, with far less clear goals in mind. To some extent, Voyage is about King Caspian checking in on the sea parts of his realm and in another sense the purpose of their journey is to find the lands where Aslan resides, and it also just feels like they’re traveling to see what they can find. The book reads a lot like a series of compiled travel tales, but I think that format really works here. It reminded me of a Christian and kid-friendly version of The Odyssey, with each leg of the journey being mostly capable of standing on its own, but by the end working together to paint a bigger picture. In addition to that format being useful for parents who might want to read a chapter per night to their children, without as many cries about wanting to continue, this format also allowed the ensemble of characters each their individual chances to shine. A few chapters have a Eustace focus, one memorable chapter with a magician is Lucy focused, in another Edmund and Caspian take the lead, and at the end you come away feeling as though perhaps Reepicheep was the star of the book and its main character all along.
Voyage is an expansion of the world-building from the previous two books, with the introduction of “retired stars” and other creatures, as well as a various assortment of magical places unlike what we’ve seen before. In short, it’s fun. There was also something bittersweet about the way the story ends, with the ship reaching the end of the world, finding Aslan, and everyone going their separate ways. We learn at the end that Edmund and Lucy are now too old to return once more to Narnia. Thus, Voyage has a greater feel of finality to it than the two previous books. On the other hand, Aslan assures them that he exists in their own world and that there is a way to his lands from their world. (Again, Aslan is Jesus.)
Like the first two books in the series, this is kid friendly, with a couple of cautions before you begin. In the early 20th century, Brits called each other “asses” and there was no sense of that being a swear word. As a result, you see that in this book also. I also though the scene wherein Eustace became a dragon might be too much for some younger readers, with the main source of concern being that while a dragon, Eustace eats a dead dragon (and we do not learn one way or the other by the end of the section where that dragon had also once been a person, too.)
As I mentioned above, this is my favorite book of the series… so far, at least. The format of the book made the pacing really quick, without the moments of lag from which the previous two books sometimes suffered. I enjoyed Eustance’s bad to good character arc in the book, which was done more effectively than the one Edmund went through in book one, because we got to see that change through Eustance’s point of view to a greater degree. The reason I prefer this book to the previous two volumes though is that I like the character of Reepicheep more than anyone else we’ve met in the series thus far (Aslan notwithstanding) and his journey and conclusion were my favorite sub-story in the series thus far.
I definitely recommend the book and I look forward to seeing where the story goes from here.
Have you read The Voyage of the Dawn Treader? If so, what did you think?
