Lines I Wished I’d Written: The Storm from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis

When he was much younger I used to read to Matthew one book a year from The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis.  The Narnia series is comprised of seven books, and I read to Matthew the first four.  I was going in the newly prescribed sequence as they have been currently laid out.  This new sequence I have found out is actually controversial, and, if I had to recommend a sequence, go by the order in which they were written.  The newly prescribed order goes by chronological order of the time in Narnia.  This new order doesn’t always have continuity with the previous book of the sequence.  It’s not a big deal since the stories are relatively self-contained but a reader might miss a cue established in the previous book.  Be that as it may, I read them in the new order not knowing the logic of the sequencing. 

The fourth one, the last one I read to Matthew, Prince Caspian, we finished in 2021.  You can see the links above in my annual reads.  Matthew was ten years old at this point, and he rebelled.  He rebelled on the start of the fifth book, rebelled against me reading to him, rebelled against reading books in general, and rebelled against stories!  Was it me?  LOL, it might have been.  Reading to a child is supposed to be good for them.  And perhaps he have better grades if he didn’t rebel.

The fifth book was to be The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.  I decided I have to finish the Narnia series with or without him, and so it will have to be without him.  I started reading the The Voyage of the Dawn Treader a few days ago, and I’m about half way through already since I’ve had some forced time in bed.  The books are fast and fun reads.  This is the book that introduces Eustice, the Pevensie children’s distempered cousin.  The story begins with Edmund, Lucy, and Eustice looking at a painting of an old sailing ship at sea, and the painting soon becomes the portal into the Narnia world.  The three are sucked into the ocean in the image, rescued by the crew of the Dawn Treader, and find on board King Caspian of Narnia sailing on an adventure to locate the seven lost lords of Narnia.  The three children, despite Eustice’s objection (but what can he do) go on with King Caspian on this quest.

 

Early in the quest there is a storm at sea, and I felt this was just marvelous writing from C.S. Lewis.  Let’s look at it.

 

But this pleasant time did not last. There came an evening when Lucy, gazing idly astern at the long furrow or wake they were leaving behind them, saw a great rack of clouds building itself up in the west with amazing speed. Then a gap was torn in it and a yellow sunset poured through the gap. All the waves behind them seemed to take on unusual shapes and the sea was a drab or yellowish colour like dirty canvas. The air grew cold. The ship seemed to move uneasily as if she felt danger behind her. The sail would be flat and limp one minute and wildly full the next. While she was noticing these things and wondering at a sinister change which had come over the very noise of the wind, Drinian cried, "All hands on deck." In a moment everyone became frantically busy. The hatches were battened down, the galley fire was put out, men went aloft to reef the sail. Before they had finished the storm struck them. It seemed to Lucy that a great valley in the sea opened just before their bows, and they rushed down into it, deeper down than she would have believed possible. A great grey hill of water, far higher than the mast, rushed to meet them; it looked certain death but they were tossed to the top of it. Then the ship seemed to spin round. A cataract of water poured over the deck; the poop and forecastle were like two islands with a fierce sea between them. Up aloft the sailors were lying out along the yard desperately trying to get control of the sail. A broken rope stood out sideways in the wind as straight and stiff as if it was a poker.

 

"Get below, Ma'am," bawled Drinian. And Lucy, knowing that landsmen—and landswomen—are a nuisance to the crew, began to obey. It was not easy. The Dawn Treader was listing terribly to starboard and the deck sloped like the roof of a house. She had to clamber round to the top of the ladder, holding on to the rail, and then stand by while two men climbed up it, and then get down it as best she could. It was well she was already holding on tight for at the foot of the ladder another wave roared across the deck, up to her shoulders. She was already almost wet through with spray and rain but this was colder. Then she made a dash for the cabin door and got in and shut out for a moment the appalling sight of the speed with which they were rushing into the dark, but not of course the horrible confusion of creakings, groanings, snappings, clatterings, roarings and boomings which only sounded more alarming below than they had done on the poop.

 

And all next day and all the next it went on. It went on till one could hardly even remember a time before it had begun. And there always had to be three men at the tiller and it was as much as three could do to keep any kind of a course. And there always had to be men at the pump. And there was hardly any rest for anyone, and nothing could be cooked and nothing could be dried, and one man was lost overboard, and they never saw the sun.

 

The short declarative sentences, the sensory nouns, the active verbs all create a prose that puts the reader into the action.  The nautical terms give it a sense of reality.  I had to look up what “the poop” was on a ship—the rear deck.  I had to look up “reefing the sail”—folding the sail over to reduce the area of the canvas to reduce the force of the wind.  I had to look up “forecastle”—the raised cabin on the forward deck of the ship.  And by the way, it’s not pronounced “fore castle.”  It’s pronounced “folk-sul.”  I wonder how that came about.

The great valley in the waves, the great hill of water higher than the mast, the cataract of water over flooding the center of the ship, the listing of the ship, the spray of waves, the pelting of rain, and Lucy holding onto the rail struggling to get inside in the dark generates an intense scene.  The “horrible confusion of creakings, groanings, snappings, clatterings, roarings and boomings” adds sound to the visual imagery. 

This havoc goes on for three days: “And all next day and all the next it went on. It went on till one could hardly even remember a time before it had begun.”  One could feel the immense weariness that the characters had to undergo.  It’s such a well written scene.