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儿童读物:《纳尼亚传奇Ⅳ银椅》The Chronicles of Narnia Ⅳ The Silver Chair
纳尼亚传奇Ⅳ银椅(The Chronicles of Narnia Ⅳ The Silver Chair)简介:
The Silver Chair is part of The Chronicles of Narnia, a series of seven fantasy novels written by C. S. Lewis. It was the fourth book published and is the sixth book chronologically. It is the first book of two in the series in which the Pevensie children do not appear (the other being The Magician's Nephew).
The story starts when Eustace Scrubb, introduced in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, meets classmate Jill Pole at their school, Experiment House. At Eustace's suggestion, they ask for Aslan's help while trying to escape from a gang of bullies, and blunder through a gate that leads them into Aslan's Country. Shortly before, Eustace had told Jill that he had been "out of this world" to a land called Narnia, and his experiences there had been the explanation for a change in his behaviour that everyone had noticed.
Jill shows off by approaching a high cliff's edge, and Eustace falls over the edge while trying to pull her back. Aslan then appears and saves Eustace by blowing him to Narnia, then charges Jill with helping Eustace find the Narnian Prince Rilian (who had disappeared some years prior) -- and gives Jill four "Signs", to guide her and Eustace on their quest: of these Signs, the fourth and final is that at a key moment they will be asked to do something in Aslan's name. Aslan then blows Jill into Narnia, where she arrives a few moments after Eustace -- just as an elderly and frail King Caspian X sets sail east to search for Aslan one last time. The Lord Regent, Trumpkin the Dwarf, gives them room in Cair Paravel. Once there, they are aided by Master Glimfeather and a Parliament of his fellow talking owls (a pun on Chaucer's Parlement of Foules, but also a nod towards the use of the word "parliament" as a collective noun for owls, as "exaltation" is for larks). The owls explain that Rilian disappeared while searching for the green serpent that killed his mother, and is under the spells of an enchantress.
Jill and Eustace journey toward the far north of Narnia with a gloomy but stalwart Marsh-wiggle, appropriately named Puddleglum. The three cross the River Shribble, which marks the boundary between Narnia proper and the lands of the giants. The first giants they encounter do not notice them (fortunately), but are playing: they are throwing huge boulders at a rock-cairn near the trio. Narrowly escaping from these giants, they continue north to a deep and sinister canyon. The sole route across this barrier is an enormous sinister bridge, many times larger in scale than anything a human might normally use.
After they cross the bridge, hungry and suffering from exposure, they meet The Lady of the Green Kirtle, who encourages them to proceed northward to Harfang, a castle belonging to the "Gentle Giants". Jill, Eustace and Puddleglum are given a warm welcome by the giants, who are in active preparation for Harfang's "Autumn Feast". Refreshed by a sleep in shelter, they look out the window and see the words "Under Me", which they recognize as Aslan's third Sign. Upon discovering that the giants are planning to eat them for the Autumn Feast, Scrubb, Pole, and Puddleglum escape from the castle, force themselves into a small nearby cave and slide down a long dark slope to the Underland. They are in darkness, battered and bruised; but they have, at least, now followed the Sign that said "Under Me".
They are soon found by an army of gnomes, whose leader instructs them to come with him. They eventually board a boat and row across a "Sunless Sea" to the city ruled by the Lady of the Green Kirtle and a young man being raised by the Lady as a protegé. The young unnamed man treats the travellers pleasantly but does not seem to be right in the head; he himself explains that he suffers from nightly psychotic episodes. During these episodes he must, by the Lady's orders, be bound to a silver chair; if he is released, he will turn into a deadly green serpent and kill everyone in sight. The threesome determine to witness the youth in his torment, which they sense could be a key to their quest.
As Pole, Scrubb, and Puddleglum witness the young man tied to his chair, his "ravings" seem to indicate desperate health within an enchanted captivity. Finally, after launching a battery of dire threats, the youth begs his companions to release him in the name of Aslan.
Recognizing the fourth Sign, they do so. Far from killing them and turning into a serpent, the young man thanks them and reveals himself to be the vanished Prince Rilian, kept underground by the Lady of the Green Kirtle for sinister purposes. His rescuers introduce themselves, and the next thing Rillian wants to know is whether his father is still alive. Puddleglum informs Rillian that his father still lives, but is old and frail.
The Green Lady then returns and tries to bewitch them all into forgetting who they are and where they are from. The barefoot Puddleglum stamps out the enchantress's magical fire and breaks her spell. The enraged Lady transforms into a green serpent after Puddleglum berates her, and Rilian realizes that he has been enslaved for all these years by his mother's murderer. Rilian kills the serpent,[1] and leads the travellers in their escape from the Underworld. The gnomes, who were also magically enslaved by the Lady and are now freed by her death, disclose that they have been kidnapped from their home even deeper in earth, a land named Bism. The gnome shows the party a route upward out of the Underworld, before returning to his native land below. Rilian returns to Cair Paravel as King Caspian returns home and meets his long-lost son just before dying.
Aslan appears and congratulates Eustace and Jill on achieving their goal, then returns them to his country at the stream where Jill first met Aslan. The body of King Caspian appears in the stream and Aslan instructs Eustace to run a thorn into the lion's paw. Eustace obeys, and Aslan's blood flows over the dead King, who is revived and returned to youth. Aslan explains that when Jill and Eustace return to their own world, Caspian will go with them briefly, to help set things right there. At the portal between the worlds, Aslan roars, and part of the wall surrounding Experiment House collapses. Caspian, Eustace and Jill cross the wall and frighten the school bullies away. The beaten bullies run back towards the school in terror, having also seen Aslan. In the confusion Eustace and Jill sneak back into the school building and change into their school clothes while Aslan and Caspian return to Aslan's country.