The Last Battle

by

I finished the last book in the Chronicles of Narnia.  While I loved all of them, the seventh and final installment, The Last Battle, could easily be my favorite.

The imagery of the final battle on earth and the depictions of heaven are simply glorious.

What I loved most of all is that my son, Obadiah, and I read them together.  I was normally a few chapters ahead.  But a little after his ninth birthday, he had read them all.  I told him how he was surpassing me because I just finished it when I was 35 – just think how far ahead of the game he is than me!

Book Overview

During the last days of Narnia, the land faces its fiercest challenge—not an invader from without but an enemy from within. Lies and treachery have taken root, and only the king and a small band of loyal followers can prevent the destruction of all they hold dear in this, the magnificent ending to The Chronicles of Narnia.

Favorite Quotes

  1. Would it not be better to be dead than to have this horrible fear that Aslan has come and is not like the Aslan we have believed in and longed for (30)?
  2. He’s not a tame lion (83).
  3. By mixing a little truth with it they had made their lie far stronger (116).
  4. This fruit was so beautiful that each felt “It can’t be meant for me…surely we’re not allowed to pluck it” (156-157).
  5. “I’ve a feeling we’ve got to the country where everything is allowed” (157).
  6. “In our world too, a stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world” (161).
  7. There stood his heart’s desire, huge and real, the golden Lion, Aslan himself, and already the others were kneeling… (167).
  8. “Come further in!  Come further up!” he shouted over his shoulder.  But who could keep up with him at that pace (181)?
  9. “But that was not the real Narnia.  That had a beginning and an end.  It was only a shadow or a copy of the real Narnia which has always been here and always will be here…” (195).
  10. …there is a kind of happiness and wonder that makes you serious (195).
  11. “I have come home at last!  This is my real country!  I belong here.  This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now.  The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this.  Bree-hee-hee!  Come further up, come further in!” (196).
  12. …they found themselves facing great golden gates.  And for a moment none of them was bold enough to try if the gates would open.  They all felt just as they had felt about the fruit – “Dare we?  Is it right?  Can it be meant for us?” (202).
  13. And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them.  And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after.  But for them it was only the beginning of the real story.  All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before (210-211).