Trumpkin's Alliterative Exclamations: A Collection

From Prince Caspian:

1. Beards and bedsteads! (332) - trochaic 
2. Horns and halibuts! (345) - mixed (troche + dactyl) 
3. Bulbs and bolsters! (346) - trochaic 
4. Whistles and whirligigs! (347) - dactylic 
5. Soup and celery! (357) - mixed 
6. Thimbles and thunderstorms! (360) - dactylic 
7. Lobsters and lollipops! (361) - dactylic 
8. Giants and junipers! (365) - dactylic 
9. Tubs and tortoiseshells! (372) - mixed 
10. Bottles and battledores... (377) - dactylic 
11. ...bilge and beanstalks... (383) - trochaic 
12. Cobbles and kettledrums! (384) (in thought) - dactylic 
13. Wraiths and wreckage! (385) - trochaic 
14. Weights and water-bottles! (395) - trochaic 
15. Crows and crockery! (403) - mixed 

And, in loving mockery by an owl in The Silver Chair: Crabs and crumpets! (574)

I didn't notice much connection between the exclamation and the surrounding passage, with one rather significant exception.  When Aslan confronts Trumpkin, we get: 'Wraiths and wreckage!' gasped Trumpkin in the ghost of a voice.  So here we have alliteration both on the R sound and also on the hard G, and then the two alliterative pairs are connected semantically, if you will, with wraith and ghost.  I think this emphasizes the devastation Trumpkin experiences in encountering the very Lion in which he disbelieved.  One might say this is the last gasp of his former Aslan-free life; his disbelief has been wrecked on the body of Aslan, and if the smug skepticism at the center of his being has been killed, there may be nothing left of it but a ghost or wraith.

Edition:

C.S. Lewis. The Chronicles of Narnia. 1st American ed, HarperCollinsPublishers, 2001.

The Rule of Three

Just noticed something cool in C.S. Lewis's use of triads to bring readers around to a viewpoint they might otherwise resist.

Here's one from Prince Caspian (p. 355), where the approach is essentially point, counterpoint, and deeper truth:

'Pah!' said Nikabrik. 'A renegade Dwarf. A half-and-halfer! Shall I pass my sword through its throat?' 

'Be quiet, Nikabrik,' said Trumpkin. 'The creature can't help its ancestry.' 

'This is my greatest friend and the saviour of my life,' said Caspian. 'And anyone who doesn't like his company may leave my army at once.'

And another from The Silver Chair (p. 608), when Jill, Eustace, and Puddleglum realize they've been eating a Talking Stag and we're led further up and further in (so to speak) to a fully Narnian perspective:

This discovery didn't have exactly the same effect on all of them.  Jill, who was new to that world, was sorry for the poor stag and thought it rotten of the giants to have killed him.  Scrubb, who had been in that world before and had at least one Talking Beast as his dear friend, felt horrified; as you might feel about a murder.  But Puddleglum, who was Narnian born, was sick and faint, and felt as you would feel if you found you had eaten a baby.  

Only Puddleglum's comment is provided verbatim.  It's followed by: "And gradually even Jill came to see it from his point of view."


Edition:
C.S. Lewis.  The Chronicles of Narnia. 1st American ed, HarperCollinsPublishers, 2001.

The Right Books

Remember in The Voyage of the 'Dawn Treader' how unprepared Eustace Clarence Scrubb is for his dragon adventure because he has "read none of the right books" (p. 463)?  Indeed, he has "read only the wrong books" (p. 464).

Well, already in the first chapter of Prince Caspian we can see that Edmund Pevensie has (thank goodness!) read exactly the right books.  He and his siblings have been magically jerked out of a semi-deserted English railway station (with "hardly anyone on the platform except themselves") onto a deserted island.  They are taken by surprise and certainly ill-equipped, as they have only two sandwiches among them and all the wrong clothes -- and they quickly grow thirsty under the hot sun.  But fortunately:

'It's like being shipwrecked,' remarked Edmund.  'In the books they always find springs of clear, fresh water on the island.  We'd better go and look for them.'  (p. 319)

After their thirst is assuaged, they start worrying about food and "[o]ne or two tempers very nearly got lost at this stage" (p. 321).  But again Edmund draws on his book-learning:

'Look here.  There's only one thing to be done.  We must explore the wood.  Hermits and knights-errant and people like that always manage to live somehow if they're in a forest.  They find roots and berries and things.'  (p. 321) 

So, to summarize.  The right books involve dragons (p. 463), hermits and knights-errant (p. 321), and shipwrecks (p. 319).  The wrong books are "books of information" with "pictures of grain elevators or of fat foreign children doing exercises in model schools" (p. 425) and "a lot to say about exports and imports and governments and drains" (p. 464).

I can see how this might rub some people the wrong way, much like Lewis's quite useful distinction between the "literary reader" and the "unliterary reader" (despite the seeming whiff of snobbery in the phrase, the key is not what someone reads, but why and how they read; the tell-tale is re-reading).

Here, I think the crux is that the right books prepare you for an encounter with Narnia and the Deeper Magic, even helping you, perhaps, build resilience by developing imaginative and/or spiritual resources for the curveballs life may throw your way.  The wrong books can only prepare you for things foreseen.

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Postlude:
This is perhaps further underscored by the narrator's comment (p. 408): "The sort of History that was taught in Narnia under Miraz's rule was duller than the truest history you ever read and less true than the most exciting adventure story."

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Edition Referenced:

Lewis, C. S. The Chronicles of Narnia. 1st American ed, HarperCollinsPublishers, 2001.

Book-Larnin'

'I believe you once said you were taught Greek when you were a little boy,' said Stephen as he paddled gently back to the frigate.  

'To be sure I was taught it,' said Jack, laughing. 'Or rather I was attempted to be taught it, and with many a thump; but I cannot say I ever learnt it. Not beyond zeta, at all events.'

O'Brian, The Thirteen Gun Salute at 273

"Mr. Bilbo has learned him his letters - meaning no harm, mark you, and I hope no harm will come of it." 

Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring