The Horse and His Boy

I recently saw the trailer for Prince Caspian which comes out May 16th and pulled the full Chronicles of Narnia off my shelf last weekend to re-read it. Backstory on my copy of the Chronicles: Capitol Books is this amazing used bookstore in Eastern Market. You walk in and the guy is always like "fiction upstairs, nonfiction downstairs, poetry in the far back..." Then he'll insert something witty like "this is a recording, you are now free to roam." It has this old dusty book smell. You always have to watch where you're walking - one wrong step and you'll knock over a floor to ceiling pile of books. I'm telling you, book lovers paradise. So anyway the very first time I went in there was a illustrated hardback Chronicles of Narnia behind the counter and I just KNEW it was going to be mine. I never even leafed through it - it simply was MY copy that I didn't get to take home yet. Everytime I walked in I always looked to make sure no one had snatched it up. Sweeting and Muffin ended up being the snatchers and they gave it to me for Christmas last year. One of my best presents :)

Anyway so I pulled it off the shelf to re-read Prince Caspian and realized I never read Horse and His Boy which is the Chronicle after Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe and before Prince Caspian. I'm in the throws of Horse and His Boy right now. Other than the nostalgia that reading the Narnia series effectuates, I wonder why we as adults love to read or revisit fairytales. We love them so much more, perhaps, than even when we first read them as children.

C.S. Lewis thought about this too. He wrote the following dedication of Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe to his Godaughter Lucy:

My Dear Lucy,

I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand a word you say, but I shall still be

your affectionate Godfather,
C.S. Lewis

Sigh... The next time I check in, I will know if Shasta makes it to Archenland in time to warn that the Calormene army is coming to overtake them as a strategic entry point to invade Narnia if Cair Paravel doesn't give Queen Susan up to marry the evil, self-centered Rabadash. Until then!