lightreads (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lightreads) wrote2012-03-27 09:53 pm
lightreads) wrote2012-03-27 09:53 pm
Entry tags:
The Dark Is Rising
The Dark Is Rising by Susan CooperMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
The one of my heart. But not entirely a book of childhood. Unlike the rest of the series, this one is layered all through young adulthood for me. I read it countless times as a wee thing, of course, but it was also my book on a horrible flight home from Oxford after Trinity Term, and what I read the week I retired my first guide dog, and what I read in tiny pieces in the month after I lost my eye. Looking at that list is one of those foreheadslap moments where you notice that narrative refrain isn't something that happens only in fiction. 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.
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. Straight up, he stands still and holds up the signs and waits. And this is textually celebrated as extraordinary, because the Old Ones have always needed their minds to beat back the Dark, but now they have things. I stopped reading there and blinked a lot, because you just don't see formulations like that in fantasy, and it was confusing because I remembered this book as being so much about the mind.
That's because it's not about the quest. It's about Will. And it's all about his mind. 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. And the other is the Old One, the overnight adult who alienates Will from his family and community. Coming into power -- and into symbolic adulthood -- is a process of endless loss for Will (though of course it doesn't really ramp up until Silver on the Tree). This is the only book in the series to take place at home; all the others are on holiday. It has to be at home, because you have to be home to lose home.
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.
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.
Onward to Greenwitch.
View all my reviews
no subject
Because when Will sits in a meadow with his oldest brother and lets the butterflies sweep away his memory of magic, Will is the saddest, oldest person in the world.
no subject
no subject
no subject
Therefore I have already read part of Dark is Rising to the Junebug. He's not missing out on this, goddammit.
no subject
But I approve of your plan!
no subject
I'm one of those rather rare adult readers who is 100% gullible - I make no judgments about what I'm reading, it all goes straight in. I won't even notice how dreadful the prose is, or how unlikely the plot is - as long as the characters feel deliciously complexly human or the world-building feels like there was an entire culture out there that someone really *knew*......I won't have any criticisms till I'm done, at least :D OTOH a book that has 2D characters or terrible world building, and I won't be able to wade through it even if it's a multiple-award winner, so there's that too :D An awful lot of mid-century writing falls into that category....
no subject
*rereads & realizes this might come off as boasting....* This is kind of a PITA quality to have, really, cause I get taken in by every prank and practical joke, miss out on every innuendo and double entendre....I'm the perfect audience - I cannot bring my critical faculties to bear during
lifethe performance..... makes me look quite a fool far too often :Dno 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
no subject
I have tipped off a whole household reread, and the shocking discovery that
no subject
So what is the nature of the Doodle's angst with the cat? Dog-to-cat translator sounds a fruitless job :D
no subject
And the Doodle lived for a year when I very first got her with a cat who smacked her around a bit. So she has learned to be respectful and careful of cats and their reach, with a healthy mix of 'play with me!' in there. But poor Rufus, he is just so inconsistent from one day to the next that he's stressing her out. He'll hiss at her one day, then meow a friendly hello the next, because he honest-to-God doesn't remember who she is half the time. I think she'd probably feel better if he was mean all the time; as it is, she seems to be wailing 'what do you want?' at him.
...So she destresses by disemboweling his plushy mice. I find this unhelpfully hilarious. "Stop that! ....ahaha doggie passive aggression."
no subject
Aww! Poor Doodle! She's a relationship sophisticate (humans being rather complicated creatures....) being forced to deal with the feline equivalent of a domestic-violence-via-emotional-abuse chronic history revisionist:
"What?? I didn't yell at you yesterday! You must be imagining things, you always do that!"
[next day....]
"Didn't I tell you never to do that - NEVER TO DO THAT AGAIN? WHY DON'T YOU EVER LISTEN TO ME!"
That kind of shit drives humans crazy, a dog as smart as the Doodledog is no less susceptible, I'm sure!
...So she destresses by disemboweling his plushy mice. I find this unhelpfully hilarious. "Stop that! ....ahaha doggie passive aggression."
ROFLMAO!!!! I find this to be an excellent form of revenge and much approve :D
no subject
(I think what you say about the story is fascinating, because yes, plot coupon with the signs; but it's so much more than that! A lot of it is I think not just the sense of home, but the sense of place - not a dimly illustrated fantasy world, but a real community, from Will's family outwards - and again that's all what he'll have to give up)
no subject