2022 Catch-up Review: The Horse and His Boy

The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My sons and I are reading The Chronicles of Narnia in chronological order, and we're enjoying the series together as I discover it for the first time with them.

The Horse and His Boy is the third book in order. Our main character is a young boy called Shasta. He is the adopted son of a fisherman, and lives in a country quite far from Narnia and where the latter is just a rumour. He finds himself, unwittingly, in the middle of an adventure with a talking horse called Bree. Along the way, Shasta and Bree collect another horse and its rider, on their journey toward Anvard and onward to Narnia. Queen Susan, King Edmund and Queen Lucy make cameo appearances; and there is a case of mistaken identities and a battle.

It was slow-going for a long while, and my boys and I had to sort of 'push onward' at a particular stage in the storytelling. To be honest, we had dropped the book for awhile, and only recently picked it up again to finish it. However, it was when we picked it up again that we came to the events that made the rest of the story move swiftly to its conclusion.

The allegorical nature of this particular book lies in the quiet, unassuming, yet protective and pro-active nature of Aslan. More cannot be said without spoiling the whole.

My favourite thing about this story is when Shasta asks Aslan about something he had done to his female companion, Avaris, and Aslan tells him that it is not his story to know. That is such a tangible truth! Each of us has our own story, our own spiritual journey, and it is for us to know ours and for us to not poke our noses in the journeys of others. A beautiful truth!

I do believe, it is this exchange that bumped my stars for this book up to four. Otherwise, I was going to leave this at three.

The boys and I are now looking forward to Prince Caspian!