5.0
This is my favorite of the series so far!
It seems to me that it was the most character-based of the novels, but it also explored parts of the world we hadn’t seen yet, such as Calormen & Archenland.
There were points in this book where I even forgot it was reading a Narnia book at all.
There were subtle character dynamics between the main four that had me drawn in & fully engaged in their interactions.
To close up my actual review, I loved seeing a side story set in this world. It’s expanded my mind on the geography & the culture, in turn making Narnia more real to me than it was before.
Now, as for the claims of the “racist” depiction of middle eastern culture with the calormenes, I suppose that could be true if we use the made up definition provided by the sole mafia (who have tried to destroy enough pieces of art at this point).
Narnia was obviously used to depict Israel, who is constantly surrounded by enemy Muslim nations, so it’s pretty natural to use that culture as the enemies in this story.
It also shows that anyone is capable of good & redemption even if they’re in raised in this kind of culture. Both Shasta & Aravis are good the entire book & never stray from that alignment.
I’m sure Iraq, Iran, etc. have many, many, many good people living in them. However, their governments have proven to be dictatorial in nature & Lewis does a great job of capturing that.