Greenwitch by Susan Cooper

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.




View all my reviews