Treading the Dawn

When I wrote this list, "read 8 books" was supposed to motivate me to read NEW books. Well, not new to the world (see my treatment of Eight Secrets from back in the ooooh-yeah-that-was-awkward mid-90's), but new to me. Actually, I have a list of books I've been meaning to get to, most of which are intended to help me unravel the mystery wrapped in an enigma that is my second-born, and that's where the 8 books came from.

But here's the thing. I'm having trouble motivating myself to read those books. I need to, and I will, but I keep getting distracted by the shiny objects that are the other-books-I-don't-need-to-read-right-now.


Case in point: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. We went to see the movie this week, an outing to which I have been very much looking forward. We saw the first two Narnia movies with our friends Rick and Patsy (of flat-tire-changing fame...and why can I not stay away from the long-strings-of-hyphenated-words phenomenon today? Hmm.), so we waited to see it until they got past the I'm-a-pastor-and-it's-Christmas insanity (see?). Then they waited while Mark was away. This week we were able to get there, and the planets aligned in such a way that a babysitter was actually available. But if the movie franchise ends here because of a poor opening weekend, blame us.

***Here's where I deleted several LONG paragraphs wherein I waxed rhapsodical about The Chronicles of Narnia. I have to watch myself on this subject. It distills down to this: I love literature and I LOVE these books with great passion. And you should read them in the original order. And if you haven't read them already, I feel deeply sorry for you. That is all.***

Dawn Treader is one of my favorites from the series. I've probably read it a dozen times since the age of 8 or so, but it's been a few years, so I decided to read it again before the movie. Somehow, though, in the holiday craziness, I lost track of time, and the morning of our double date arrived without my having read the book.

Now, I like a challenge. (At least when it's related to books or music or school stuff. Challenge me with something that involves a ball and I will probably start to cry.) And I'm a pretty fast reader. So I gave it a shot and pushed my reading speed hard, and I managed to re-read it that morning while I got the house back in order. This should tell you two things: first, that it is a really easy read, and second, that I am somewhat prone to showing off. (Sorry.)

Since my last reading I'd retained most of the plot, but I'd forgotten about the warm charm of the humor, the wit and accessibility of the dialogue, the tender firmness of Aslan's leadership, and (as always) the movingly matter-of-fact depiction of courage in the face of impossible danger. Love. It.


I've walked into each of the movies telling myself that there's no way they could ever live up to the love I have for the novels. There's no way they could capture the complexity of the stories or the poignant spiritual truths that periodically sneak up on you. And once I repeat that to myself enough times, I've really enjoyed each of the movies. This one was no exception. They added some HUGE things that weren't in the book, but they weren't terrible things. They sort of flattened out Eustace's character arc, but I really enjoyed Will Poulter in the role. They took the almost-Arthurian episodic nature of the adventure, condensed it, and created plot devices to artificially tie the episodes together, but I get why that was necessary. Also, there was what I can only describe as a crazy shout-out to Ghostbusters, but I'm in the process of moving from eye-rolling to laughing about that. The effects are spectacular, the plot gets loving (and really pretty faithful) treatment, and the story is good enough that even a decent rendition of it made for a great film.

If you haven't seen it, you should. If for no other reason than that I LOVE the next book and can't wait to see what they do with it. (They won't make it if this one doesn't make money, so go buy a ticket.)

BUT...and here I'm circling back around to my original topic...the book is better. Way, way better. You should read it. Seriously. In fact, you should read all 7 books in the series.

In their original order.

Somebody stop me.

Hurried or not, re-reading Dawn Treader enhanced this year-of-being-39 for me, so I'm counting it as one of my 8. It makes me want to be brave.

Man, I can't WAIT for Joy to read this book!