The Horse and His Boy (By Steph)

Title: The Horse and His Boy (The Chronicles of Narnia #5)

Author: C.S. Lewis

Year of Publication: 1950

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Synopsis: Shasta is a young boy living in Calormene with a cruel man who claims to be his father. One night he overhears his "father" offering to sell him as a slave, so Shasta makes a break and sets out for the North. He meets Bree, a talking horse who becomes his companion. On their way they encounter Aravis, a high-born girl escaping an arranged marriage, and her talking horse. Despite their differences the children and horses learn to work together to reach the freedom they long for. In the meantime, they uncover a Calormene plot to conquer Narnia.



STEPH SAID

Rating: 


Review:

*This review contains spoilers.*

This book was a pleasure to read. It has a nice change in pace and scenery from the other books from The Chronicles of Narnia. It is a fast pace, action story with a little bit of drama.

In this story Shasta is the main character, an orphan raised in Calormene as a slave. Calormene is the total opposite of Narnia: people’s values and clothes are different, their accent, their transportation vehicles, even the skin color. The way people are described, Calormene feel like an Arab country or maybe ancient Persia.

The story progresses just like in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and Prince Caspian: the protagonist of this story needs to move from one place to another to fight in a battle at the end of the book. However, this story differs from the ones mention above because Shasta is not moving from one place to the other to fight in a battle. Shasta, along with a talking horse, Bree, are escaping their life of enslavement on Calormene in the hopes of living free on Narnia.

The pace of the story is also different; it has a faster pace. Again, Shasta is not just moving from one place to the other, he is escaping. Lewis made sure the reader felt Shasta’s anxiety and expectancy by putting Shasta in situations in which he could get caught. On top of that, Shasta had to escape wild animals on various occasions, making the whole story feel like a race against the clock.

To leave Calormene, Shasta had to go through a city called Tashbaan. Many adventures were lived in that city. In one of them, Shasta was confused for a prince from Archenland by none other than Edmund and Susan. (Mr. Tumnus makes an appearance too!) Shasta got to live like a prince for a few hours and, afterwards, met the actual prince of Archenland: Corin, a boy that looked just like Shasta. At this point, the reader is lead to understand that Shasta and Corin are twins. At the end of the book this is explained to its entirety and Shasta, actually named Cor, takes his place as prince of Archenland and heir to the throne.

All of this was really good, but what I love the most about this story was the ending: Rabadash’s ending. A prince so obsessed with having Susan as his wife, he even began a war to force her into marrying him. When Rabadash was beaten, nobody agreed on what to make with him. Then came Aslan to save the day. He turned Rabadash into a donkey, which was one of the most hilarious things to ever happen in a Narnia story. To become human, Rabadash had to stay close to a certain temple in Tashbaan, which put an end to Rabadash’s reign and made him unsuitable to become the next Tisroc. It is the perfect ending because he wasn’t murdered or imprisoned, he was shown mercy and still he received what he deserved.