This book recurs in my life the way Greensleevves recurs in the book. This is a book of departing for me, a book of loss. Which is not surprising, since that's kind of what it's about.
I, too, turn to this book when feeling lost and sad. It's a book about loss, but a book about loss where the characters can *deal* with it, have support for it. Makes me feel hopeful. I first read it at about 9yo and I can still remember the shelf on the library where it stood, the sound and feel and smell of the place (I have not a single other memory of that library).
(........insert an interlude here where Ecat goes to Amazon, tracks down all 5 books of the series in the library bindings she remembers, for low used prices.....and then can't decide whether or not to hit "buy!" :D)
It's true there isn't much of a story here. It has this treasure hunt quality to it, where Will shows up somewhere and magic happens and then he gets a prize. There's this one part where Will beats back the Dark by being a coat rack.
LOL!
He has this beautiful, sad, double-voiced narration. One voice is eleven and content with life, and then afraid and delighted by magic in turns.
Oh and so lyrically captured. The Christmas scenes, his delight in his early explorations of just following his nose through the extraordinary morning before he understands what's going on, the simple family interactions like getting food for the rabbits, and his visceral little-boy trust in Merriman....it all FEELS like childhood. And when the scary magic starts to intrude, it truly evokes that horrible stomach-dropping feeling you got as a child when you realized you were horribly out of your depth and there was no one to save you. Like getting lost in a crowd. Or being cornered by people intent on hurting you.
So of course I read it in times of loss. But not in the expected way. I loved Will as a child, fiercely and without reserve, like a totem. There was something hopeful to this sad, sad book. It's like Will reading his book of magic within this book and being granted power through reading -- that's what I wanted, and a little of what I got. That a child could be lifted out of childhood by knowing (and by reading!), that adulthood would come and take me into a new world, and even if it wasn't always a kind world, I would have power there and it would be mine and I could find my people.
And hey, look, here you guys are.
LIGHT, YOU'VE TOTALLY HIT THE NAIL ON THE HEAD. I bet for a great many of us who are fiercely devoted to this book, this is the overriding explanation for why.
Anyway. There's a whole hell of a lot more going on here, with Merriman's bitter lesson (through loss, of course) that mortal men will break if trusted too well, used too hard. And the connected tidbit that I don't really have anything to say about yet, but I want to flag it for myself, because I willneed it later I think: that a person must be born to the Light to be of it, but that the Dark is a thing any man can choose.
Oooo yes. *shudder*
Onward to Greenwitch.
The CREEPY one :D ....that shoulda been 3x as long. But that's just me. And I read too fast, as everyone keeps telling me :P
And now I have to decide whether or not to have 5 bits of my childhood-in-hardcover sent to me in a box :D
no subject
I, too, turn to this book when feeling lost and sad. It's a book about loss, but a book about loss where the characters can *deal* with it, have support for it. Makes me feel hopeful. I first read it at about 9yo and I can still remember the shelf on the library where it stood, the sound and feel and smell of the place (I have not a single other memory of that library).
(........insert an interlude here where Ecat goes to Amazon, tracks down all 5 books of the series in the library bindings she remembers, for low used prices.....and then can't decide whether or not to hit "buy!" :D)
It's true there isn't much of a story here. It has this treasure hunt quality to it, where Will shows up somewhere and magic happens and then he gets a prize. There's this one part where Will beats back the Dark by being a coat rack.
LOL!
He has this beautiful, sad, double-voiced narration. One voice is eleven and content with life, and then afraid and delighted by magic in turns.
Oh and so lyrically captured. The Christmas scenes, his delight in his early explorations of just following his nose through the extraordinary morning before he understands what's going on, the simple family interactions like getting food for the rabbits, and his visceral little-boy trust in Merriman....it all FEELS like childhood. And when the scary magic starts to intrude, it truly evokes that horrible stomach-dropping feeling you got as a child when you realized you were horribly out of your depth and there was no one to save you. Like getting lost in a crowd. Or being cornered by people intent on hurting you.
So of course I read it in times of loss. But not in the expected way. I loved Will as a child, fiercely and without reserve, like a totem. There was something hopeful to this sad, sad book. It's like Will reading his book of magic within this book and being granted power through reading -- that's what I wanted, and a little of what I got. That a child could be lifted out of childhood by knowing (and by reading!), that adulthood would come and take me into a new world, and even if it wasn't always a kind world, I would have power there and it would be mine and I could find my people.
And hey, look, here you guys are.
LIGHT, YOU'VE TOTALLY HIT THE NAIL ON THE HEAD. I bet for a great many of us who are fiercely devoted to this book, this is the overriding explanation for why.
Anyway. There's a whole hell of a lot more going on here, with Merriman's bitter lesson (through loss, of course) that mortal men will break if trusted too well, used too hard. And the connected tidbit that I don't really have anything to say about yet, but I want to flag it for myself, because I willneed it later I think: that a person must be born to the Light to be of it, but that the Dark is a thing any man can choose.
Oooo yes. *shudder*
Onward to Greenwitch.
The CREEPY one :D ....that shoulda been 3x as long. But that's just me. And I read too fast, as everyone keeps telling me :P
And now I have to decide whether or not to have 5 bits of my childhood-in-hardcover sent to me in a box :D