Catholic-ometer: 5 of 5
Enjoyability: 3 of 5
The third book published in the Chronicles of Narnia series is the Voyage of the Dawn Treader. As with the movie version, the book version of Voyage of the Dawn Treader runs the bases of Catholic moral teaching fairly well. Each major encounter at sea seems to be at least an examination of one of the major sins that we all believe in. A couple of them even go to the trouble of showing us what happens to a society that succumbs to the sin in question.
The slaver trader island with the lazy governor and mindless beaurocrasy is clearly sloth, and its inhabitants were too lazy to stop the slave trade that popped up in it, as well as to do anything about it when they were "conquered." The battle with the sea serpent; only winnable by not fighting, seems like a message about wrath. Vanity (a close cousin to Lust) dominates the predicaments found on the isle of the monopods, and deathwater is obviously a place of greed. However, the others are a bit harder to interpret than this.
People are tempted towards the island where dreams come true, out of envy of what others have, and the island with the banquet, where proper conduct around the food is required seems like it might be a message about gluttony. The lesson about pride, however, is more widespread, and found on most islands. It could be the dragon island, but that isle seemed to have as much to do with greed as with pride, if not more so, so the allegories are a bit muddled on this point.
Apart from this surface-allegory, the overall flow of the narrative covers a few other things as well. Reepicheep's quest is to reach the edge of the world, and not return, because he knows that he'll find happiness there. This is a bit like our own quests to reach heaven, although I admit that it comes off as a bit selfish when translated into fiction, if only because it's not obvious that Reepicheep will still be able to help them from the other side. This is one of the things that I would probably change about the story if I could.
On top of this, something happens to Eustace on Dragon Island, which involves a bath, which Aslan must help with, in order to cure him of his evil, which is a clear baptism reference. This pivotal element was left out of the movie, and it's one of the few pieces of the book that I'll say that about.
Here's the problem that I had with this book. As I said in my review of the movie, there's no overarching villain to the piece, so the nature of the threats they run into are really more disjointed and unrelated than in previous books of the series, and I just didn't find it as exciting. It just helps for a piece to have a villain, I feel, which combined with some of the more indistinct allegories, accounts for the low enjoyability score I gave it.
I've heard it said, however, that many people liked this book best out of the whole series. I admit to having a hard time understanding why. Without the presence of a strong villain to outline what's good about the heroes, the whole flow of the story really loses something important. You may notice me mentioning this element in some of the other books as an overall weakness, but I'm sorry. I just can't get over this. I really do feel that threatening villains are that important to any story.
Did I hate this story? No. Did I enjoy it? Well, not as much as Prince Caspian, but yes; I did. A few of the problems that the crew runs into are at least interesting, but in my opinion, it's far from the best of the series, nor does it broadcast the clearest messages. I do suggest you read it, because you might like it more than I did, but it may be a while before I read it again. I just don't think there was as much to this story as there should have been.
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