Greenwitch by Susan Cooper

[lightreads]

Greenwitch by Susan Cooper

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The eerie one, as opposed to the intensely disturbing one, which for me will always be The Grey King.

I remembered this as a slight, inconsequential book. The weird-shaped one in the middle where the kids meet each other on vacation before we get really serious. I didn't remember -- or likely didn't understand -- just how serious this little book is.

Here's where it crystallized for me. Simon and Jane have a brief run-in with Will's American aunt, who is delighted with all the 'natives and their quaint customs' (Simon's phrase) of Cornwall. And Jane points out to Simon that it's not like he's a native, they're from London.

"But I'm not so much outside it all as she is. Not her fault. She just comes from such a long way away, she isn't plugged in. Like all those people who go to the museum and look at the grail and say, oh, how wonderful, without the least idea of what it really is."

And the whole thing came together, and surprised the heck out of me. This book is not at all what I expected from the woman who wrote the end of Silver on the Tree, with the thing. You know the thing. I have been surprised all along by how obvious and inevitable that end seems now, not just because I know what's coming, but also because these books have been arguing about it all along. As a child the end came out of nowhere and utterly enraged me; it still does, but I think I mischaracterized it in anger. I thought it was about the fragility of humans in the face of the larger powers. But that's nonsense. No one who could write this book could also write a story about that.

Because Simon and Jane (and to a lesser degree Barney), they're the tourists in this book. As holidaymakers in Cornwall, but also as mortals in Will and Merriman's quest, in the work of the Old Ones. They're only ever given a tiny slice of truth, just enough for a good pantomime. They're carefully coached to turn away from anything too magical, and when they're hit in the face with magic -- well. There's an awful lot of foreshadowing here. It's not just the Light, either -- there's that absurd incident of dognapping. Dognapping! because the forces of evil, that's totally their go-to strategy right there. And it becomes clear later that the Dark was merely putting on a show, calibrating their whole global evil thing down to fit Barney's young sensibilities because it's not like he'd understand the true scope of the Dark anyway, doncha know.

Except it doesn't work. This book is all about the magic of mortals. Barney's small gift of sight, of course, which is treated perhaps as a symptom of his larger gift for art. And then the Greenwitch, who is the wildest of magic, so wild that Merriman and Will are frightened of it and have to appease greater powers to even think of approaching it. That Greenwitch. Made by mortal women over one long night of companionship and tradition and casual use of old, old power. Mortals make the Greenwitch without knowing what they're doing, most of them. The Light and the Dark do not have a monopoly on power. And the central argument of this book is carried by Jane, quiet little Jane. The Light and the Dark bring terrifying powers down on Trewissick, they have a fucking opera out there by the sea. But it all comes down to Jane, who has no magic at all unless you count a little compassion.

Yeah. I was not expecting that. It's an ego check for power, and for the Light in particular. And considering what's to come, it's really, really interesting.

Other random thoughts -- I remembered that the Greenwitch was not feminine. That apparently made a huge impression on me as a child. This is why I like Cooper's paganism: she commits to it, there isn't any surprise Christian fundamentalism lurking back there. And it's not just candles and chanting and vagina-shaving parties. It's women raising ungendered wild magic out of the night and the sea and the wood and the fire.




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Comments

[cahn]

This is a really interesting, thoughtful review that made me think about it differently. I cannot wait for your review of the last two books.

This is why I like Cooper's paganism: she commits to it, there isn't any surprise Christian fundamentalism lurking back there.

Yeah, this. And it's not paganism that's defined by its relation to Christian fundamentalism, either. I still remember the shock of reading The Dark is Rising and the bit where Will is talking to his pastor, and it's just so clear that the poor pastor is out of his depth, because he's just not really relevant, you know?... Greenwitch is even more so, of course, but I remember, having been raised extremely Christian, that bit of Rising really affected me in ways that I didn't even realize at the time.

[metaphortunate]

Love this review.

[lightreads]

Yes! That moment in DiR stuck with me too for very similar reasons, even from my lapsed Catholic household.

I keep chewing my pencil over Grey King, since it turns out the reread did not answer a question I was really hoping it would. I.e. why it's so important that Bran is albino.

[ravurian]

I just wanted to add that this book is also the loophole book. If anything could undo the events at the end of The Silver on the Tree, it's the events of Greenwitch. It establishes that the Wild Magic is outside the scope of the Dark and the Light and not bound or beholden to them, and that it is the force by which birds flock and fish school and so on, and it is therefore intrinsic to the world and not apart from it. The Dark and the Light cannot stand before it, but a young girl may be touched by it, and influence it, and be a part of its gestation and transformation, and be translated by it. Were I going to fic TDiR (though I know I never will), I would start here, because the Greenwitch would not care why Jane had lost her memory, and the making ceremony might conceivably draw Jane back because she has been altered by experiencing it, and time is meaningless to the Wild Magic in any case. I'd undo the end of SontT by making Jane the Greenwitch. Possibly. Probably. Though I do understand the reason for the Thing at the End of the series.

The other loophole, of course, is in The Grey King, at the end of the riddle challenge, when Merriman hints that the Light has a contingency plan in the event it loses. These two things together suggest that the Greenwitch, and Jane, and Barney - though never explicitly Simon - are part of that contingency. In my opinion, anyway. Ugh. Now I must reread them all again (again).

[lightreads]

Jane, and Barney - though never explicitly Simon -

Yeah, that, and why is that? Barney, the youngest, the artist, seer. Jane, the -- uh. The girl. I'm being glib, her access to power is not really through her gender, except how it sort of is. Then Simon. The practical one. The one most outside what happens to them. And the oldest, most likely to be playing stupid dick-measuring games with Bran and/or Will while everyone else is all, "....What are you doing, weirdo?" Is he most outside because he's oldest? I wouldn't have thought so -- this series is not interested in any of the usual myths of youth. It's not Narnia, for crissake. And yet. Simon. What's he for?

[ravurian]

I've been thinking about this all morning, and I had a glib answer - he's the token ordinary-ordinary (hu)man, distinguished by order of birth, a longing for the rational and practical, by a desire to protect his siblings (and by extension, mankind), and because he has already begun to pull away and move on at the end of the series; he demonstrates the desire to put everything behind him and strike out into whatever world awaits (his comment that everything needed to wrap up soon or they'd have different school holidays and would be difficult to schedule; his desire to study medicine; etc). He's the human leader, isn't he? Will is at one end of the scale, Bran between (being of neither and both), Simon at the other end. I sometimes wonder whether Simon was supposed to fulfil the role that John Rowlands did in the last book... But none of that is a really satisfying answer, is it?

(I sometimes wonder what led Merriman to try using children in his plans. There are obvious answers, of course - gullibility, malleability, plasticity of thought and belief, and the chance that they would be overlooked - but the timing was only critical by virtue of Will's coming of age and the blossom on the Midsummer Tree (and since time travel was an option, that doesn't seem all that critical really). I mean, maybe Merriman had already tried it with them all as adults and it had failed? Or tried it with other ordinary non-Drew people, and it had failed. Or. Oh god, I need to stop now.)