Monday, May 22, 2006

The Horse and His Boy

I just read The Horse and His Boy (book 5 in the Chronicles of Narnia) cover to cover in one sitting (well, almost, I read less than a chapter of it a couple days ago and I did get up once to make myself some hot cocoa). How delightful. So many quotable pieces, I'll just choose two.

Shasta meets Aslan:
"Who are you?" asked Shasta.
"Myself," said the Voice, very deep and low so that the earth shook: and again "Myself," loud and clear and gay; and then the third time "Myself," whispered so softly you could hardly hear it, and yet it seemed to come from all round you as if the leaves rustled with it.
Shasta was no longer afraid that the voice belonged to something that would eat him, nor that it was the voice of a ghost. But a new and different sort of trembling came over him. Yet he felt glad too.

(in the context of the story and becuase of it's beautiful descriptive force this passage nearly brought me to tears).

And this one made me laugh:
Aravis also had many quarrels (and I'm afraid even fights) with [Shasta], but they always made it up again: so that years later, when they were grown up they were so used to quarrelling and making it up again that they got married so as to go on doing it more conveniently.
Oh good old Clive! Always a bachelor at heart!

1 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

Pamela,

Yes, the batchelor shows through in that passage. Yet he is not pessimistic about marriage. What he says is accurate as far as it goes. The arguing and making up do go on year after year. The loving and serving also goes on and grows deeper and deeper. The joy that marriage brings is as inexpressible as the joy of holding our babies when they were born.

Love,
Dad

7:14 AM  

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