An impulsive dare one evening almost sends teenaged Dick Dodds rushing out to sea on a (ahem) borrowed rowboat. Rescuing himself at the last minute, hAn impulsive dare one evening almost sends teenaged Dick Dodds rushing out to sea on a (ahem) borrowed rowboat. Rescuing himself at the last minute, he plods through the fenlands back to dry land, and passes a trail in the mud that makes him feel “Like cemeteries opening up. I was amongst the dead…”
Investigating the trail — which leaves the fenlands for dry land, but which Dick can still somehow feel, even if he can’t see it — he meets Helen Johnson, who witnessed something moving past her father’s farmlands on the evening of Dick’s misadventure, something “like a man all tied up, no legs and no arms. But it kept moving. Sort of gliding…”
Investigation of the trail leads them to a well-off but superstitious young widow, Mrs Knowles, who feels that her house stands on the borderland between the “bad” river, and the “good” Silver Fields (which she sees glinting in the sunlight of a morning), and whose relationship with a local solicitor, Mr Miller, may be entangling her in the search for a cursed treasure said to be lost among the fens.
This may make it sound like something of a Scooby Doo escapade, but The House on the Brink is as much interested in the sensitivities of its teen protagonists as it is in their investigation of the supernatural. Dick is a typical mid-teen boy, driven by the need to prove himself with little tests of bravery, and to make his mark in a class-conscious and constraining adult world. His growing relationship with Helen is as full of typical teenage ups and downs as it is of spooky mystery.
It’s a well-written book, in the terse poetic style that seemed to blossom in late 60s/early 70s YA, doing a good job of capturing, in intense little disconnected details, the feeling of being on the verge of adulthood and getting a glimpse of some of the grown-up world’s darker mysteries....more
Tia and Rabbit are different from the other children at “the Base”, a post-apocalyptic, hunting and farming community kept in check by a strict hierarTia and Rabbit are different from the other children at “the Base”, a post-apocalyptic, hunting and farming community kept in check by a strict hierarchy, with the Major at the top, men who have fathered a child just below him, and women and children at the bottom. But Tia and Rabbit have dreams in which they talk to a man and woman from a far different community, one that’s more technologically advanced, and where everyone can do openly what Tia and Rabbit must keep secret in order to survive in their primitive world — communicate telepathically.
Children of Morrow is basically a rerun of John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids, with its telepathically-linked children living in a repressive community that would kill or banish them if it knew what they were. Here, there’s more of an emphasis on the adventure of the escape and chase than Wyndham’s (which lingered more on the children’s discovery of their abilities, and their trying to stay hidden).
Hoover’s good at letting us see, through the children’s at first uncomprehending eyes, the ruins of our civilisation — a collapsed and overgrown city, for instance, or their first glimpse (and smell) of the sea. She keeps the pace up and the pressure on just enough to provide a tense and satisfying conclusion....more
To the village of Cormundy comes the mysterious Mr Bogle, there to engage in ‘light tutoring’ duties for fifteen-year-old Harry Longshaw, who’s out ofTo the village of Cormundy comes the mysterious Mr Bogle, there to engage in ‘light tutoring’ duties for fifteen-year-old Harry Longshaw, who’s out of school after an illness has left it difficult for him to walk. Mr Bogle has a goat’s foot inkstand, a gown made of tabby cat fur, and a keen interest in the phrase inscribed over the fireplace in Harry’s room: “Arise, thou avenger to come, out of my ashes”. Harry’s family home was, Mr Bogle tell him, a site where witchcraft was once rooted out with fire. Harry takes an instant dislike to Mr Bogle, who is soon to be found consorting with the resentful, out-of-work males of the village, leading them in a revival of the ancient ‘Horn Dance’…
I came to this 1970s YA book after reading (here) of similarities between it and two other recent reads, Penelope Lively’s The Wild Hunt of Hagworthy, and William Rayner’s Stag Boy, both of which are about clashes between the old ways and the new in English villages, published around the same time. In contrast to the Lively and Rayner books, Poole’s lacks the evocation of paganism as a wild, ancient and amoral power, dangerous to mess with but an essential part of life. Here, Mr Bogle is simply the Devil, and his Horn Dance is a pied-piper call to the village men to rise up and cause trouble. The final confrontation takes place, fittingly, around a church where, the next day, Harry’s sister (who is of old village stock) will marry Rupert Musgrave (newly arrived, and wanting to modernise the village’s old ways with new farm machinery), whereas Mr Bogle wants to paralyse everyone with a nostalgia of old superstitions and no progress.
The book has its moments, but never quite grabbed me as those other two (from Lively and Rayner) did, in part because the story wandered away from young Harry too much to make him the emotional centre of the story, but also because, lacking the sense that the pagan past is both dangerous and of value, it doesn’t catch its young protagonist in the same sort of complex emotional crux, which is something, I’d say, that forms the core of a really good book about being a teen. ...more
Returning to the Exmoor farm he grew up in, to convalesce after living in the city made him ill, 15-year-old Jim Hooper discovers an ancient, stag-horReturning to the Exmoor farm he grew up in, to convalesce after living in the city made him ill, 15-year-old Jim Hooper discovers an ancient, stag-horned helmet that allows him to share in, and even influence, the consciousness of a powerful black stag, the local hunt’s prime target. Meanwhile, his attempts to rebuild his friendship with local girl Mary Rawle are thwarted by her attraction to the well-off, 17-year-old Edward Blake, ‘tall and strongly made, a good rugger player and a first-rate horseman.’ Jim starts to appear before Mary’s window at nights in the body of the black stag, urging her to ride him, drawing her into a secret world of their own. But as much as he gains from contact with the stag’s natural strength and nobility, it also starts to infect him with its wildness, and draws him into its ultimate confrontation with the hunt.
Stag Boy is a short, powerful novel, with a lot of its strength coming from just how naked its central metaphor is: Jim’s contact with the stag is an expression of his adolescent sexuality. At first he’s caught on the edge of adult yearnings while trapped in a boy’s body; but as the stag’s influence makes itself felt, his growth in confidence tips into a dangerous arrogance towards both Edward (his male rival) and Mary, who becomes his one chance of redemption. But the supernatural element gives Stag Boy a genuine sense of the danger, wildness, and the power of both human feelings and the wider world of nature, giving it an honesty it perhaps couldn’t achieve otherwise....more
Lucy Clough goes to stay with her Aunt Mabel in the village of Hagworthy for the summer holidays. She has fond memories of previous stays, and of the Lucy Clough goes to stay with her Aunt Mabel in the village of Hagworthy for the summer holidays. She has fond memories of previous stays, and of the friends she made back then — sisters Caroline and Louise, and a boy called Kester — but that was five years ago, and now she finds Caroline and Louise mad about horses and little else, while Kester is caught up in friction with his uncle, the village smith, who wants his nephew to take up the family trade, while grammar-school boy Kester wants more from life. The village has a new vicar, ‘Frightfully nice man — full of ideas’, one of which is to revive the old Horn Dance of Hagworthy for a fête to raise money for the church roof. Oldsters in the village don’t like the idea — the Horn Dance ties in with legends of the Wild Hunt — but who listens to oldsters? Lucy senses something brewing, too, though, and when Kester’s playful banter with the village boys starts to turn more serious — and when those boys start to get a glazed look in their eyes when they’re practising the dance — she wonders if anything can be done to save Kester from a fate he seems only too keen on provoking…
The Wild Hunt of Hagworthy shares its main themes with Penelope Lively’s previous two YA books, Astercote and The Whispering Knights: a quiet English village becomes the setting for conflict between the old ways & modernity when something sacred is treated without the proper respect. But I think Hagworthy works best of all three. Partly this is down to the characterisation being a little deeper and more realistic (there’s a teenage moodiness about Kester and Lucy, of a sort not present in characters in the previous two books), and partly because the clash between the old & new, and its manifestation in the supernatural, is handled quite subtly (for most of the book, you can’t be sure there is a supernatural element at all). As with those previous two books, once the basic idea is established — that the Horn Dance is deeply linked with the supernatural Wild Hunt, but it’s going ahead anyway — the plot pretty much comes to a standstill. But where this was frustrating in previous books, here it feels as though the story is being given time to deepen its characters and build up the tension about what’s going to happen. That holding back of the plot didn’t feel like a flaw, here.
I enjoyed Astercote and The Whispering Knights, partly because I gave them a bit leeway for being YA books from forty years ago; The Wild Hunt of Hagworthy, I enjoyed without having to give it that leeway — the characters, the setting, the slow build up to a tense and exciting conclusion, the connection with a genuinely wild and dangerous-seeming folkloric supernatural, all worked really well, for me....more
In the Cotswolds village of Steeple Hampden, Martha, Susie and William, bored in their school holidays, decide to boil up the classic witch’s brew — ‘In the Cotswolds village of Steeple Hampden, Martha, Susie and William, bored in their school holidays, decide to boil up the classic witch’s brew — ‘Eye of newt and toe of frog’ — in a barn supposedly once inhabited by an actual witch. Doing their best with the ingredients (they order a tin of frog’s legs from a London shop, but have to make do with pictures for the more difficult items), they succeed in awakening a long-dormant malevolence, Morgan le Fay. Little more than a vaguely scary force at first, Morgan eventually manifests herself fully and becomes the wife of a local factory owner, whose sudden decision not to sell his factory to make way for a new motorway threatens Steeple Hampden, which is the alternative route. Meanwhile the children are threatened more directly, as Morgan lures dreamy Martha away…
The Whispering Knights starts out a little less serious, and more Famous Five in tone, than Lively’s previous YA book, Astercote. The first half is episodic, with Morgan’s scattered attempts on the three children lasting no more than a chapter each, and being easily dealt with. It’s in the second half that things pick up, with Martha’s kidnap and a chase across a stormy, darkening landscape. There’s a real feeling that genuinely threatening supernatural forces are on the loose, with echoes of the long cross-country chases that make up Alan Garner’s first two books.
Like Astercote, it’s about the anxiety of modern encroachments (motorways, factories) on village life (Morgan’s supernatural evil allies itself with the worst of these forces of modernity). On the one hand, it’s the children’s half-belief in witches that reawakens Morgan — who ‘feeds on credulity’, and so gets her power from people believing in her — but then it’s this same belief that allows them to defeat her when more rational, adult-minded methods (a petition, letters to the local paper) fail. Definitely gets better in the second half, with the writing in chapter 9 (the main chase sequence) being particularly good, both evocative of the English countryside, and of a dark, difficult, isolated chase....more
Mair and Peter Jenkins, newly moved into the village of Charlton Underwood after their father gets a job as headmaster of the local school, befriend aMair and Peter Jenkins, newly moved into the village of Charlton Underwood after their father gets a job as headmaster of the local school, befriend a local oddball known as Goacher, an animal healer and guardian of what he only refers to as ‘the Thing’ in a local woods — a chalice which he and the villagers believe protected them in the past, and still protects them, from the Black Death, which destroyed the now-ruined and overgrown neighbouring village of Astercote. When ‘the Thing’ goes missing, the villagers start to get paranoid about a few coughs and colds, thinking the plague’s making a comeback. Chalk crosses (once used to mark houses shut off because of infection) are found on a few front doors, and the locals erect a barrier to keep away outsiders. The police and media think it’s quaint locals gone a bit doolally, but Mair and Peter know otherwise, and set out to put things right.
Or, they do eventually. Astercote’s a quick enough read, but I still found myself wondering, way past the midway point, when Mair and Peter were going to realise that they, as young adult protagonists of a young adult novel, ought to be not just sitting around watching things unfold but do something about it. ‘You know what,’ Peter says near the end of chapter 7, ‘it’s time someone looked for Goacher and brought the chalice back.’ And I thought, yes, it’s page 108 already, there’s only another 40 to go!
We do have an action-packed ending, though. I seem, in middle-age, to have developed an odd nostalgia for YA books from my own young adulthood that I never actually read. There’s something about the lost world of country villages, ghostly links with the past, and hints of mythical magic that books like Astercote conjure, which was lost a decade or so later. This was a moderately good example of the species (though the magic, here, is almost non-existent), enough for me to have ordered another of Penelope Lively’s YA books. I should say that I came to this novel thanks to The Heartwood Institute’s album, also titled Astercote, which provides a soundtrack to the book as if it were adapted for the TV of the time, along the lines of Children of the Stones and the like....more
The least satisfying of the initial Earthsea trilogy, The Farthest Shore begins nearly two decades after the events of The Tombs of Atuan, with Ged noThe least satisfying of the initial Earthsea trilogy, The Farthest Shore begins nearly two decades after the events of The Tombs of Atuan, with Ged now Archmage in Roke, and the Archipelago experiencing a new unity after the repair and return of the Ring of Erreth-Akbe. But things aren’t as unified as they should be: Earthsea still lacks a prophesied king, and at the edges of the Archipelago there’s a vague sense of wrongness, as wizards forget their spells and singers fail in their songs. So Ged and Arren, a young prince of Enlad, set out to find the source of all this ‘wrongness’.
The previous two books are coming-of-age tales, focused each on a single character’s battle with very personal forces of darkness. Here, the battle itself is rather vague, and the coming-of-age tale (Prince Arren’s) that much less intense. This is, instead, as much an ending of Ged’s three-part story (his coming of age and rise into full wizardhood in A Wizard of Earthsea, his heroic deeds in service to his society in The Tombs of Atuan, and now his final great deed), though this is just one strand of the book.
I first tried reading this book over thirty years ago, and perhaps it was the lack of focus, or perhaps it was that theme of the loss of magic (something my pre-teen self really wasn’t interested in), but, as much as I loved (and often re-read) the previous two books, it’s only now, in middle-age, that I’ve been able to finish this one. It’s got some threads of thematic interest, and some stories bubbling away (Ged and Arren’s parent-and-child-style relationship, for instance, something that’s absent from the previous two books’ tales of coming-of-age in isolation), but it lacks the intense focus and narrative drive of the previous two.
It does, however, really come alive — in brief flashes — whenever dragons appear. Pity the book wasn’t all about dragons, but perhaps that would have been far too dangerous, even for an inured fantasy reader like myself…...more
In a small village of the Kargish Empire, five-year-old Tenar is taken from her family to be a priestess at the Place of the Tombs of Atuan. Born on tIn a small village of the Kargish Empire, five-year-old Tenar is taken from her family to be a priestess at the Place of the Tombs of Atuan. Born on the night the previous First Priestess of the Nameless Ones died, she must be her reincarnation, for ‘All human beings were forever reborn, but only she, Arha, was reborn forever as herself.’
From that point on, her life is to be ruled by meaningless ritual and the petty politics of her fellow priestesses, her one freedom being the solitude of the Undertombs: the labyrinth of darkness and silence that lies beneath the tombs and temples, the realm of the Nameless Ones that she alone serves. Then one day she finds a wizard wandering in that sacred space, lighting its ancient darkness with sorcerous light. He’s everything she doesn’t know — a foreigner, a mage, and a man. The priestess in her is incensed by his blasphemous presence, but the young woman is fascinated.
This is my favourite of Le Guin’s Earthsea books. Arha/Tenar is a far more human central character than Ged, whose power and wisdom always kept him a little bit separate from me, as a reader. In addition, the story takes place almost entirely in one, well-defined location (whereas Ged’s adventures spanned the Archipelago), so the story feels fittingly like the labyrinth of the Undertombs themselves: close, and still, and safe. Ultimately, it’s a tale about the ending of solitude, about learning to trust another human being and so becoming more human yourself. Ged’s was a coming-of-age tale, Tenar’s is a becoming-human tale, not so much the story of rebirth as a resetting of this young woman whose youth has been wasted ‘in bondage to a useless evil’, back to the far more human ‘child coming home’ she seems at the end....more
Of all the books I occasionally re-read, this is the first that caught me. There’s a thrill in coming back to it, as I always know I’ll find a part myOf all the books I occasionally re-read, this is the first that caught me. There’s a thrill in coming back to it, as I always know I’ll find a part my younger self rushed that I can now take slowly and savour, or something I couldn’t have fully understood back then, but now can only nod to in agreement. Some books from childhood you re-read for nostalgia’s sake, or from curiosity; rare are the books that grow with you and keep giving. But this, for me, is one....more
Young Henry, having recovered from a month-long confinement to bed, is given the okay, at last, to get up — for a few hours a day, at most. He promptlYoung Henry, having recovered from a month-long confinement to bed, is given the okay, at last, to get up — for a few hours a day, at most. He promptly seems to forget about this, and is soon wandering the town all day, getting to know a pair of tramps he meets in the park. These are Josh and Caleb, brothers, and they’re no ordinary tramps - or ‘do-as-you-pleasers’ as they call themselves. They’re not from Here (our world), but from There — a place they can reach by summoning the Night-Train, which they can whistle up to appear on any railway line, at any time of night. The trouble is, they’re being stalked by ‘Them’, the Greeneyes, creatures identical to human beings apart from the startling clear green of their eyes, and the fact that they can only see at night (light blinds them).
Henry spends some time with Josh and Caleb — Josh is writing a book about all the places he visits, while Caleb loves to rustle up wonderful meals. (For tramps, the two carry a surprising amount of stuff with them, in a pair of wooden carts.) But eventually the Greeneyes start to appear, and Josh and Caleb have to go. But Henry stays with them for as long as he can, and gets involved in a final adventure.
A short book, with very little genuine peril or fantasy, but nevertheless a quiet air of its own sort of magic, celebrating the outdoors, do-as-you-please life, and the feeling that an undefinable magic is all around, just waiting to be discovered....more
‘This where we live is a world of men, ordinary men, and although in it there is the Old Magic of the earth, and the Wild Magic of living things, it i‘This where we live is a world of men, ordinary men, and although in it there is the Old Magic of the earth, and the Wild Magic of living things, it is men who control what the world shall be like.’
Silver on the Tree is the fifth and final book in Susan Cooper’s Dark is Rising sequence. And what a strange book it is. What a strange series. The final confrontation between the Light and the Dark involves a train, a tree, a sprig of mistletoe and a sword of crystal, and on the way there we have a journey through a mirror maze, a kidnapping through time, a monster in a lake... Cooper’s story follows an imaginative logic all of its own, freaked with moments of high magic, and high significance, but also, always, with moments of humanity: the despair of the King of the Lost Land, for instance, or the decision of John Rowlands, which is key to the entire conflict.
I might have preferred more character development, and perhaps more understanding of how the two worlds — of the Old Magic and ‘ordinary men’ — work together, but ultimately, I think, the book works in its own strange way, through its startling imaginative power, if nothing else. It is, as one of the characters says near the end, ‘like the best kind of dream.’ To which Will Stanton, last of the Old Ones, says: ‘Yes it is. But don’t relax into it. You can’t trust what will happen.’...more
Staying with relatives in Wales while recovering from hepatitis, Will Stanton finds himself involved in his ‘first full quest as an Old One’: the searStaying with relatives in Wales while recovering from hepatitis, Will Stanton finds himself involved in his ‘first full quest as an Old One’: the search for the golden Harp of Light that will awaken the Sleepers, to aid in his battle against the Dark.
He befriends Bran, a local boy of his own age, an albino who, though he is not an Old One, has some awareness of their world of magic, or at least of the local legends and myths that relate to the terrible Grey King, who Will soon finds himself pitted against. Far more troublesome at first, though, is Caradog Prichard, a local grump who thinks Bran’s dog has been attacking his sheep. Mix this petty squabble with the mysteries of Bran’s lost mother, and you have the perfect handhold for the Dark to begin its evil work.
With no help from his usual mentor Merriman, this feels (much more than Greenwitch) like a proper sequel to The Dark is Rising, as it not only stretches Will’s abilities as an Old One, it develops the complexities of the battle between the Dark and the Light. We learn the effect the conflict can have on normal human beings caught between the two forces, or used by them as pawns: this is a world where ordinary people are much more vulnerable to the Dark, where lives have been scarred by brushes with magic in the past, and where the ‘cold white flame’ of the Light can be just as dangerous as the ‘great black pit’ of the Dark....more
In Greenwitch, Susan Cooper returns the series to the Cornish village of Trewissick, and brings together the Drew children (from Over Sea, Under StoneIn Greenwitch, Susan Cooper returns the series to the Cornish village of Trewissick, and brings together the Drew children (from Over Sea, Under Stone) with Will Stanton (of The Dark is Rising) to regain the grail, stolen from the British Museum by a servant of the Dark with ideas above his station.
It’s an odd book, bringing together, as it does, the light, Blyton-esque kids' adventure of Over Sea, Under Stone with the much darker, old English shamanism of The Dark is Rising. This bringing-together doesn’t quite gel, for me. Will Stanton feels rather distant — an Old One with no more to learn, quite at home bargaining with magical entities and using powerful spells, a child no longer. (He even feels a little smug, standing there in the background smiling quietly at the Drew children’s resentment of his involvement in their little adventure.) Meanwhile, the Drews, who get to witness magical events for the first time, don’t seem as profoundly affected by it as you’d think.
Where the two worlds really come together is in Jane, and her connection with the Greenwitch, a wicker man-like folk-offering to the powers of the sea by the women of Trewissick. A creature neither of the Light nor the Dark, but caught in the struggle between them, the Greenwitch is a boiling nexus of resentment and loneliness — a dangerous expression of the world of Wild Magic — that only Jane, through her earlier compassion for it, can appease. This book could have been the story of Jane’s initiation into the world of magic — and perhaps a gentler, more human one than Will’s in The Dark is Rising — but that strand is rather downplayed, being just one more step in the adventure story. But perhaps this is me, an adult reader, wanting a bit more character depth from a book that would have rushed me along with its welter of magical events, had I read it in my early teens....more
On the eve of Will Stanton’s eleventh birthday, his dad jokes ‘We should have some special kind of ceremony. A tribal rite.’ What follows is exactly tOn the eve of Will Stanton’s eleventh birthday, his dad jokes ‘We should have some special kind of ceremony. A tribal rite.’ What follows is exactly that, as Will (seventh son of a seventh son) is initiated into the fellowship of Old Ones — magical servants of the forces of Light who are locked in an eternal battle with the Dark.
The book itself feels both magical and highly ceremonial — like an extended initiation rite — as Will’s quest to bring together the six signs of power required to quell the Dark’s latest rising often feels more like a sequence of highly symbolic, ritualistic acts than a genuine quest. New to being an Old One, and to living in a suddenly magical world, Will ‘plays his part’ rather than taking an active, decisive role. This can make him less of a distinct character than I’d like, but the book’s deep and often very strange air of magic more than makes up for that. Steeped in British myth, Will’s experiences drench the South West of England with magic, as figures from the deeper reaches of folklore step onto the stage — most impressive of all being Herne the Hunter, owl-eyed, wolf-eared, deer-antlered, and riding at the head of his pack of ‘Yell Hounds, the Yelpers, the Hounds of Doom’. Even the novel’s being set around Christmas adds to its ceremonial air, as it's as much about the mundane world’s rites throughout the seasons’ twelve day period as it is about Will’s magical initiation.
The cover to the 1976 Puffin Books edition (Herne galloping towards the viewer, painted by Michael Heslop) haunted me throughout my childhood, though oddly I can’t remember reading the book at the time. Now, I’ve finally got round to giving the series a proper go, and I can’t help feeling this is a very strange book indeed, and one I wished I’d read back when I was eleven. For, whatever it lacks in terms of a directly engaging story (I never found myself trying to guess what would happen next — it was all too wild and strange), it more than makes up for in enchantment and deep, folky magic, conjuring a world infused with a secondary, secret, and very dangerous magical reality, which is just the sort of thing I’d have loved then, and still love now....more
Very much in the tradition of the YA adventure fiction of the time — kids go on holiday and get involved in a local mystery — Over Sea, Under Stone seVery much in the tradition of the YA adventure fiction of the time — kids go on holiday and get involved in a local mystery — Over Sea, Under Stone sees young Simon, Jane and Barney Drew (with occasional help from their mysterious Great-Uncle Merry) embarking on a quest for the grail, when they find an old treasure map. Of course, it's a race against time as other forces — headed by the tall, threatening Mr Hastings — are also after it. After a certain amount of clue-chasing and brushes with the baddies, the book builds to a genuinely tense final couple of chapters.
I've been meaning to read this series since happening upon it in a school library in the early 80s, and am now finally embarking on it. It's the second book, The Dark is Rising, I'm really looking forward to, which is when the fantasy element comes to the fore. Here, apart from white-haired Great-Uncle Merry (also known as Professor Lyon — the significance of whose full name should become obvious to the reader well before young Barney works it out at the end of the book) at one point maybe speaking some words of magic, there's no fantasy element. Still, a good story, particularly the ending....more
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