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Another two Narnia books from Flammarion, but under a different imprint: Du Chat Perche, or The Perching Cat, referring to, I suppose, cats’ habits of napping on the backrest or arm of the chair the reader is sitting in. These look like hardbacks, so maybe the series was split between the two imprints with the Castor Poche one being for paperbacks. I can see that.
The artwork is decent, but for the life of me I can’t see why the artist chose to depict the scene of Peter fighting Maugrim on LWW instead of the more evocative and colorful Aslan or White Witch. Maugrim wasn’t even a major character. Plus, it’s not even Winter. (On another look, I see a lion’s face in the clouds in the sky, but that’s not where Aslan belongs, dammit!)
The Silver Chair fares much better, perhaps because it looks done by a different artist. It has a paint-by-number set quality that is attractive and correctly depicts the desolate nature of the landscape, with pine trees, rock walls, and a sputtering campfire whose smoke is blown away by a chill breeze. The three look towards Castle Harfang, and that is depicted correctly as well though from what I remember it was snowing in that scene. Still it’s a nice rendering with castle’s windows glowing against the jagged mountains and the feeling of impending twilight.
