The Dark Is Rising

[lightreads]

The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper

My 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.





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Comments

[metaphortunate]

I think you have to have read these books young to appreciate them; Mr. E came to them late, and the lack of plot kills them for him. He just doesn't see the magic.

Therefore I have already read part of Dark is Rising to the Junebug. He's not missing out on this, goddammit.

[kate_nepveu]

I don't think I read them until . . . college? I didn't read them as a kid, certainly, but I'd already read them before I started the booklog in law school.

But I approve of your plan!

[ecaterin]

Heh heh heh - I've been reading The Dark is Rising to my boys as one of our annual Christmas books since they were born. IT'S MAGIC. YOU HAVE TO FEEL IT!

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....

[ecaterin]

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.

*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 life the performance..... makes me look quite a fool far too often :D