Oh good, you're reading my blog. Most likely, the radiation levels from your monitor are giving you cancer.

I finished Dawn Treader, and now I'm working on The Silver Chair. After that it's The Final Battle, and then I get to read something else. Hooray! I'm told that in The Final Battle, the allegory really goes over the top. Apparently Aslan comes around and says "just in case you haven't noticed - I'm Jesus." Way to go, C.S. Lewis. What an amazingly subtle style you've developed.

But let's not go there yet, shall we? Dawn Treader, as it turns out, was not an awful read. I liked the courageous mouse Reepicheep, who insists that our adventurers seek out every challenge. The view from Chapter 7 is also pretty good in The Silver Chair. I like Puddleglum, the mopey host to the children from that Other World. He's the sort of character that says things like "here we go on our quest, though I expect nothing good will come of it. We'll probably argue along the way and kill each other with knives." See, that's what the other books have been missing, a guy who says "oh finally, a running stream. We so need a cold drink. Of course, I'm sure it's contaminated. We'll all die of dysentery, mark my word."

In the middle of reading Chronicles of Narnia, my progress really slowed down. That's because I became obsessed with the Series of Unfortunate Events on audiobook, and spent every spare moment I could afford listening to those. I think that, above all, describes my dislike for Narnia: I prefer the Beaudelaire orphans (children who are very smart and resourceful, although sometimes plagued by despair at the very awful situation they are in) to the various Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve (not very smart children, with an unrealistic amount of tolerance for starvation, exposure, and exhaustion). This is why the series is regaining my interest with good tertiary characters.