I love it, Hobbit! 🙂 I would love to hear the tune that goes with it. And I've been consistently delighted and impressed by all your drawings this whole challenge. I think the one with the Albatross and the dragon prow is my favourite of all. (in close competition with Clipsie)

Thanks so much, Swanwhite! 😀 Of course, you can do the thing I'm not much good at at all: being able to draw a copy of another person's picture. I've tried so many times and have failed every time.

Here's the tune (for the first verse; it's a slightly different beat in each verse of course).

Thanks, Hobbit 🙂

I read the last two chapters yesterday, and was almost in a reverie over them. I don't think I'll ever get tired of how Lewis describes the wonders of the last sea, sitting on the edge of other worlds that you can't quite reach, living on drinkable light, cutting through a sea of lillies and leaving a line of dark green behind them. And then there is the revelation that is much to us as to the characters, that we can know Aslan by another name in our own world.
I have a little more to add to my reflection, but will have to do so later. Although small in numbers, this has been a really great summer challenge, and I'm honoured to have voyaged with you, my friends.

I've always adored the last two chapters of VODT. For some reason they always seemed so real, and so much like a preview of heaven. 🙂
My last bit for the sharing thread is a fanfic, and it's not quite finished, but I'll probably post it in the fanfic section of the forum once it is.

Congratulations, everybody who made it through! This was great. I love the reading challenges.

Apparently he was requested to make the changes to the US version because people thought children would think all the things they were afraid of would just disappear if the island of dreams did.

That makes sense. I actually felt a little hollow? disappointed? at it completely disappearing, and liked the vanishing into the distance (which I've only heard for the first time when you posted it) better. Also it's kinda ironic that in the version where it vanishes Lord Rhoop asks not to be taken back but when it's still there his request is different 😛

I also finished reading yesterday (actually Monday night) and started getting my thoughts down while I was sitting in a queue for two hours waiting to speak to someone from university scholarships. But I'd written it on my ipad which I'm unused to typing on and it wasn't written too well and I didn't get a chance to fix it up and finish it yesterday. So here goes:

Day 8
Chapters 15 & 16
The Utter East

These last chapters of VDT remind me a lot of the end of The Last Battle. To some degree, they are so beautiful and contain so many gems that it is actually hard to talk about them at all. They speak for themselves and analysis might actually ruin them (which as you will see, I proceed to do anyway 😉 ).

First a thought on the merpeople:

We've spoken before about Lewis leaving us hints about stories and adventures that he doesn’t elaborate on. Here we get one of his most interesting potential adventures yet – a whole under-sea community of merpeople with castles and forests and royal hunts. I said I imagined most of the world East of the Lone Islands as uninhabited (in reference to Burnt Isle) but I knew I was omitting the merpeople. I forgot just how detailed and intriguing these people were. I almost wonder if Lewis had considered at one point having the crew of the Dawn Treader have an adventure with the merpeople, but then though better of it because of the practical complexities it would have involved.

In a way, one could say, there was an adventure between the Dawn Treader crew and the merpeople and it was potentially more dangerous than all those previous. Only the crew of the Dawn Treader had no idea of the grave peril they were in (all it would have taken was one sailor sighting them and telling the others and the Dawn Treader crew may have been doomed) and the merpeople never quite found out what monstrous object was invading their space (I wonder if they viewed a siting like the Dawn Treader as we view UFOs?). As it was, Drinian was incredibly wise to forbid Lucy and Reep from telling the sailors about what they had seen, and it says much for Drinian's own character that he withstands the temptation himself. Reep notably accepts this order and abstains from his usual talk of taking on any adventure and showing no fear. Perhaps he now recognises Caspian's earlier admonition "there are some things no man can face", but it may also be the nearness of having his own dream fulfilled that sobers the mouse.

This whole episode makes me think a lot of Odysseus and his sailors’ adventure with the Sirens (which is actually quoted later in the book in a different context) except in that case the men would be tempted by the song of the sirens, here they may have been tempted by the mere sight of the merpeople. It is interesting that they don't even tell Caspian what they had seen. I wonder how he would have responded and if he could have resisted the temptation.

Moving on to the remaining story:

Even more than in the previous chapters, we see just how different our world is from Narnia. It is as through Aslan's country merges with the real world or rather leaks out into it so that some of its holy characteristics are seen and felt: the brightness, the clarity of the water, and more importantly the almost magical (though perhaps "divine" is a better word) properties of the water. Then there's the whiteness of the lilies. And the endless wave (which I've always struggled to picture though the movie helped a bit with that) and the mountains of Aslan's country and the beach and Aslan himself. There are so many beautiful images and, as Lewis does best, they are so subtle, you wonder if they were intended or not.

The water makes me think of Jesus's words to the woman at the well: "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life." (John 4:10, 13-14)

The narrow current that pulls them inexorably along to the end of the world makes me think of "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6) but also "Small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." (Matt 7:14)

And then there's the lamb scene. I mentioned that the albatross scene is probably my second favourite scene in Narnia. This is almost certainly my favourite. That image of Aslan as the lamb on the beach like Jesus when he came to his disciples after his resurrection (also meeting them on a beach with fish cooking) and then his revelation (as Swan described) as not only Aslan but as having another name in our world is just so beautiful and powerful I just want to brim over with joy when I read it. I was really annoyed that they didn't have the lamb part in the movie (I like Kristi's idea of them using at least the shadow of a lamb that turns out to be Aslan), I am eternally grateful that Douglas Gresham for fighting hard to get the "there I have another name" line in the movie, which they were apparently planning to leave out.

Wanted to share these pictures that remind of VDT.

This is the painting of a ship that hangs on my bedroom wall. 🙂 My Dad painted it of his sailboat when he was in high school. In the bottom corner in small writing it says "Alone with God."

This is a broken compass I found on a canoeing trip just before the summer challenge. The whole trip reminded me of the voyage of the dawn treader in several ways. Traveling by water to different camp sites and Islands, exploring and what not... arriving on land and feeling like finding a comfortable rock to sleep on instead of helping to set up camp. We even tried sailing a little by holding up one of our tarps 🙂

I am eternally grateful that Douglas Gresham for fighting hard to get the "there I have another name" line in the movie, which they were apparently planning to leave out.

They planned to leave THAT out?

@Swan, the pictures are beautiful, thank you so much for sharing!

Thanks and congratulations to everyone that took part in the challenge. It was good fun even if our numbers were down. If there are enough people who didn't take part 'cause the week didn't suit them but wish they had, please feel free to set up your second round. We'll leave the threads open for some time.

Today I decided to watch the Fox/Walden VDT movie for comparison since the book was still fresh in my mind. I must say I haven't enjoyed the movie this much since I first saw it in the cinema (this was only my fourth time watching). Two things that especially struck me were 1) That is was really beautifully made: the Dawn Treader herself and the settings (the sea and islands) were well chosen and executed. It felt and looked like we were seeing the world in which the book is set. 2) Although they basically rewrote the storyline, there was a lot more faithfulness to the book than I tend to give it credit for. There were a good many little scenes and quotes that showed that the script writers were working with the book in front of them, even though they weren't following it directly. A lot of quotes popped up in the wrong place, but they were still there. I think it's easier to appreciate the movie if you think of it as a loose retelling or a story inspired by Lewis' book than as an actual adaptation of the book (I might add some more specific comments in the appropriate discussion threads where the discussion can continue in a more general sense).

I never got an answer on the question in an edit earlier.

"EDIT :" both Drinian and Pug placed Eustace on a ship where he didn't really care to be, what was the moral difference?

In a previous existence on older site, I asked "who put Eustace on the Dawn Treader?"

I got answers:

1) Drinian, since he was drowning
2) he himself, since he had been foolish about the painting.

But whose decision was it that his folly with the painting should have such a consequence?

Aslan's - that is, acc. to his name in our world, Jesus Christ's, God's.

If Drinian had found him in his room and thought "he needs a lesson, I'll take him on a journey with men who don't like his style, Rynelf and a few more should be able to tell him what he's worth" - then Drinian would have been acting like Pug.

Reason I mentioned this, I think part of the blocking's I get against my projects, which result in my staying on street (unless I were to look for an employer, which I think would be ridiculous when I have over 3000 articles on my blogs and continue writing), might be from people thinking of themselves as such a "Drinian" (and not being the one of the book) and of their associates as "necessary lessons' Rynelf types". Not accusing anyone in particular, just venting frustration.