Wood, bronze, iron, water, fire, stone
Apr. 22nd, 2021 04:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolorosa_12I'm feeling extremely run down and tired today, so I'll keep this post short and sweet — rather like the book in question:
22. A warm blanket of a book
I knew before I even began writing responses to this meme that I was going to select The Dark Is Rising for today's prompt. The second book in Susan Cooper's five-part fantasy series is not actually my favourite work of the bunch (that honour goes to the weird, melancholy, unsettling Greenwitch), but it is far and away the cosiest.
Cooper's series imagines an endless battle between the forces of light and darkness — waged both by ordinary people when they use their free will to choose between kindness, community, and construction, or violence, apathy, dogmatism and destruction, but also by a group of immortal beings with supernatural powers: the 'Old Ones'. Any person can awaken to become an Old One, although the process for how this happens is never explained. The protagonist of The Dark Is Rising, Will Stanton, awakens into these powers on the eve of his eleventh birthday: the day before the midwinter solstice.
These cosmic struggles are set against the ordinary activities of the days before and immediately after Christmas — the action takes place between 20th December, and Twelfth Night. We get to know Will's large family (he's the youngest of a veritable brood of children, and all the delightful messiness of a huge family Christmas shines through every page of the book), we read about all the delicious food, roaring fires, carol singing, and wintry decorations. Cooper does a wonderful job of contrasting the cosy, ordinary joys of the season with the supernatural menace and threat — and the natural world feeds into both, being at once the comforting landscapes of home, and an icy battlefield alive with unseen terrors. The whole thing is also interwoven with a thread of mythology and British folklore, and the resulting book has a great sense of the domestic set against wild, supernatural weirdness that is always threatening to break through.
The other books in the series end in a more questioning, ambiguous, or downright melancholy manner, but The Dark Is Rising is content for the seasonal light and warmth to banish darkness — at least for a little while. I highly recommend reading it around the solstice: it's like a warm blanket and cup of tea for the soul.
23. A book that made you bleed
24. A book that asked a question you've never had an answer to
25. A book that answered a question you never asked
26. A book you recommend but cannot love
27. A book you love but cannot recommend
28. A book you adore that people are surprised by
29. A book that led you home
30. A book you detest that people are surprised by
22. A warm blanket of a book
I knew before I even began writing responses to this meme that I was going to select The Dark Is Rising for today's prompt. The second book in Susan Cooper's five-part fantasy series is not actually my favourite work of the bunch (that honour goes to the weird, melancholy, unsettling Greenwitch), but it is far and away the cosiest.
Cooper's series imagines an endless battle between the forces of light and darkness — waged both by ordinary people when they use their free will to choose between kindness, community, and construction, or violence, apathy, dogmatism and destruction, but also by a group of immortal beings with supernatural powers: the 'Old Ones'. Any person can awaken to become an Old One, although the process for how this happens is never explained. The protagonist of The Dark Is Rising, Will Stanton, awakens into these powers on the eve of his eleventh birthday: the day before the midwinter solstice.
These cosmic struggles are set against the ordinary activities of the days before and immediately after Christmas — the action takes place between 20th December, and Twelfth Night. We get to know Will's large family (he's the youngest of a veritable brood of children, and all the delightful messiness of a huge family Christmas shines through every page of the book), we read about all the delicious food, roaring fires, carol singing, and wintry decorations. Cooper does a wonderful job of contrasting the cosy, ordinary joys of the season with the supernatural menace and threat — and the natural world feeds into both, being at once the comforting landscapes of home, and an icy battlefield alive with unseen terrors. The whole thing is also interwoven with a thread of mythology and British folklore, and the resulting book has a great sense of the domestic set against wild, supernatural weirdness that is always threatening to break through.
The other books in the series end in a more questioning, ambiguous, or downright melancholy manner, but The Dark Is Rising is content for the seasonal light and warmth to banish darkness — at least for a little while. I highly recommend reading it around the solstice: it's like a warm blanket and cup of tea for the soul.
23. A book that made you bleed
24. A book that asked a question you've never had an answer to
25. A book that answered a question you never asked
26. A book you recommend but cannot love
27. A book you love but cannot recommend
28. A book you adore that people are surprised by
29. A book that led you home
30. A book you detest that people are surprised by