When evil comes to Narnia, Jill and Eustace help fight the great lastbattle, and Aslan leads his people to a glorious new paradise.
In my last review, I mentioned that Netflix will be creating live action adaptions of the Narnia series made famous by its most popular book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I have already reviewed the prequel The Magician’s Nephew. Now I will review the final book of the series The Last Battle. Where the Nephew novel discussed the creation of Narnia, the Battle book describes its destruction. This novel did win the Carnegie Medal.
The book begins with the greedy ape named Shift and the donkey Puzzle. Shift tricks Puzzle into wearing a lion costume and posing as Aslan the Lion so that they can receive special favors. They encounter the Calormenes who are the Narnians’ sworn enemies. The Calormenes believe Puzzle is one of their warlike gods Tash. The Narnian King Tirian, a descendent of King Caspian from the previous novels becomes involved and is called to determine who this Aslan pretender is and to rescue him from the Calormenes. King Tirian is captured by his enemy but he enlists the aid of former characters from previous novels like Jill Pole, Eustace, Digory, Polly, and three original heroes from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe-Peter, Edmund, and Lucy. Susan doesn’t get to return to Narnia since she is now older and no longer believes in the fantasy world. What ensues is a grand battle which ends in the destruction of Narnia but has everyone travel to the original Narnia, the world they were living in being just a copy of the true world, “which goes on forever, and in which every chapter is better than the one before”.
The plot of this novel I find does get a little complicated especially when characters from other novels are introduced in addition to a whole slew of new characters. I do find this tale has much more action then some of the previous books in the series. The ending is spectacular though a little sad and a tad morbid especially since the three children from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe must sacrifice their lives in order to journey to the new Narnia. The novel will have you engrossed until the spectacular breathtaking ending.
- Van, Reference Librarian