Voyage of the Dawn Treader: by C. S. Lewis

In preparation for the third installment of the latest series of Chronicles of Narnia movies, Heather and I did what we've done before the previous two movies and read the book aloud with each other.

Edmond and Lucy Pevensie, along with their obnoxious cousin Eustace, are magically pulled into a picture on the wall and find themselves quickly aboard the Dawn Treader, a Narnian ship carrying King Caspian and a full crew, set out to find seven explorers sent east by Caspian's late father, Narnia's previous king. Their journey takes them beyond any cartographer's knowledge to the end of the world toward Aslan's home country.

Thus far, I have been generally pleased with the latest renditions of the classic children's books by Clive Staples Lewis, professor of medieval literature, philosopher, author and theologian. The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe movie was fantastic. Following the book almost to the letter, the only liberties the film makers took were to add a bit of flare and excitement to the popular novella's suspense and battle scenes. Movie two: Prince Caspian was good, yet Hollywood for some reason unnecessarily veered farther from the book's storyline. Adding a completely random (not in the book at all) castle besieging scene and changing the timeline, the movie was clearly from the book, but just not the same. In my opinion, the movie would have been just as great had it followed the book as closely as the first.

Having just finished Voyage of the Dawn Treader, I have some particular expectations for the movie. The book, to me, is the weakest of the first three, yet it still follows the same majestic and mysterious nature of Lewis' writing. The storyline follows the format of most adventure/quest novels. Readers are exposed to sight after sight of new and unpredictable obstacles and experiences through which the characters must stuggle.

The story starts a little slower than it's predecessors, but by the middle it kept Heather and I on edge daily waiting to read the next chapter before going to bed (our customary reading time). The writing is, expectedly, for kids and a little dated (as it was written some 5 decades ago), but one can't help being enchanted by the world Lewis has created with which most of us have grown up.

One of the greatest challenges the movie will have to overcome is only including two of the four original Pevensie children as High King Peter and Queen Susan have grown too old to return to Narnia. However, after a short bit of remorse over this fact in the first few chapters, I was distracted to their absence and caught up in the engaging adventure.

I believe the movie will be exciting, and I'm curious to see how the many fantastical and grandiose scenes are rendered on screen. I do hope the film makers stick close to the original story, but in the end, it will be difficult to produce a poor movie from such a wild and fun story. This book, in my book, (or should I say blog) is a recommended quick read for anyone.