The Grey King by Susan Cooper

[lightreads]

The Grey King by Susan Cooper

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The really upsetting one. I'd been calling it that in my head all along, but I didn't realize I didn't actually remember why. It turns out this upset me so much as a child that I literally blanked out the relevant details; I remembered about two pages before it happened, in the same horrible swooping lurch that Will experiences as he realizes something bad is about to happen. Animal harm, man, that shit fucks you up. /profound.



Anyway. I found this intensely interesting. It follows on very well from Greenwitch, like the next sentence in an argument. Which is how a series ought to work, in an ideal world.



My understanding of this book is filtered through two contrasting scenes. One is Will and Bran questing for the harp, coming before the three hooded powers and answering the riddles set them. There's something so constrained about that scene, so bloodless and controlled with the representatives of the polls of magic fulfilling their assigned roles. As a child, I found it hugely confusing that Merriman is one of the hooded figures; he's on their side, so why does he make them go through the song and dance? Because he has to, because the scripted magic prophecy says he must, and he is an Old One, so he does. (BTW, if anyone would care to educate me on what significance the three riddles have, I'd love to hear it. Their content, I mean -- they have always been entirely puzzling to me, and I did not stop to Google this time like I meant to).



Contrast that with the other scene of riddles asked and answered: Bran screaming at his father in the hut on the hillside, demanding to know who he is and where he came from. The complete opposite of bloodless and constrained. This book is like that -- the magic has that stilted, staged feel of predestiny, while the parallel human story is messy and wildly alive. The Grey King might roll out his menacing fog, and I'll grant you he's creepy. But the most profound, awful evil in this book for my money is purely human. And for all Will is the questing hero, the greatest kindness and bravery aren't his. They're John Rowlands's, and Bran's, and most profoundly, Bran's father's.



It all really works. See John Rowlands talking to Will about the coldness of the Light. This book really digs into what we've only seen in glimpses before about how the Light is fighting for mankind while being profoundly outside it. Try and picture Will screaming at anybody, demanding the secrets of his history. Doesn't work, does it?



Humanity has a range, a resonance in the book that the people of power just don't. Will's most profound moments for me come early, when he is still amnesiac and in a fundamental way, not himself, just a boy. Will gets his memory back and instantly steps out of the center of the emotional arc, which belongs almost entirely to Bran and his connections.



Which is another thing -- why the hell is Bran albino? I've always wondered, and I figured an answer would come to me on this reread, but nope. There's the obvious -- Cooper is using physical disability as a marker of strangeness. Bran's appearance works that way in the narrative -- it's code for a different level of strangeness, of out-of-placeness. But is that all? It's implied very very fleetingly in the next book that Herne the Hunter is actually an incarnation of Arthur, and that's where Bran gets his looks -- really not sure what to make of that.



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Comments

[kate_nepveu]

*nodding in agreement*

I just wish I understood why the last book drops the argument the way it does.

[cyphomandra]

Oh, I love this book - I actually read Over Sea, Under Stone a few times as a child before I realised there were any sequels, and so my experiences of The Dark is Rising are always overlaid with the disappointment child-me had at encountering a different character, but this book tipped me totally over into Will as a character, and it's lasted since (also, yes, Will and Bran were definitely one of those couples I slashed before I knew what it meant, although I am pretty leery of actually tracking down fic). I love the contrast between powers and humans and yes, the way humans can do so much more intimate damage.

Your review has many excellent questions to which I am mostly lacking answers. The riddles - the first two are Welsh Triads, groups of three things used as an oral tradition mnemonic to prompt stories (this is one version; I like the three powerful swinehers), and Will's comment about Arthur being more generous is also from one of the texts (previous post-read Googling, plus being trapped on holiday once with only a copy of the Mabinogion to read).

Bran as albino I'm also baffled by - he's not really albino, is he, with tawny eyes? I thought she was going for an owl comparison as well (which I think is explicit in the text), but it's such a distancing sort of marker to chose. Hmm. I've just hit the Herne the Hunter reference, flipping through Silver on the Tree. Is there an Arthurian connection somewhere, maybe?

[lightreads]

I, uh, might have some Dark Is Rising fanfic lurking back there. Hmm. I wonder how embarrassing that thing is now.

[ravurian]

This was my favourite of the series, and possibly my favourite book. A couple of years ago my boss bought me a first edition hardback of it, and I actually cried a little. The last line of this book slays me, still, all these years later, with its perfection. I once took a wrong turn on holiday in Wales, and I was in Tywyn, and then Aberdovey, and shortly afterwards I found my way to Cader Idris and I cannot tell you the emotional impact of finding myself actually in the novel so to speak.