Your thoughts on, "The Last Battle."

[The Ace]

I have often wondered about this.

Many teachers (and, I suspect the BBC) tend to ignore the final 'Narnia,' novel because of its ending.

In your opinion, is the ending of this book a simple desire by Lewis to remove the possibility of sequels or a fulfillment of the purpose of the series ?

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

If there had been a demand for more Narnia books, he could hardly have used the ending of The Last Battle as an excuse for not writing them. He had already written one prequel and one story that takes place during (part of) the same time period as another story, so readers could very well have asked for more of the same. Not that I think he would have worried about that kind of pressure; he didn't make his living writing children's stories, and was under no obligation to fulfill readers' or publishers' expectations.

But all this aside, I think the internal structure of the stories indicates that the ending was, as far as Lewis was concerned, the most appropriate conclusion to the series. Whether it was foreseen from the beginning it's difficult to say (unless someone posting here has a quotation from Lewis to that effect), but it's hard for me to imagine that by the time he was writing The Magician's Nephew with the creation of Narnia he didn't have the final apocalypse firmly in mind.

I think this now. When I first read the books as a teenager, I heartily disliked the ending and could not think why he would have chosen it.

 

[j d worthington]

It has been ages since I read the Narnia books... in fact, I no longer have my copies. However, I recall quite lacking The Last Battle myself, and feeling that the ending was a satisfying conclusion; whether I'd still feel that way or not... I can't really say....