In Which I Finally Read The Dark Is Rising
When I was little there was a sort of hierarchy among kids who self-identified as 'clever.' Which was code for 'we suck at sports and have no other source of self-esteem.' We would try to impress each other by reading clever books. Or by lying and saying we'd read clever books when we hadn't. One of the books I used to lie and said I'd read was The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper.
The horrible cover of new editions of The Dark Is Rising, by Susan Cooper
In actual fact it was too hard and my attention span was too short at the time. But not anymore. Now I can truthfully say I have read The Dark Is Rising.
I can see now why I had trouble with it as a kid. The language is way more ambitious and, like, literary than the Narnian fare I was used to. At the time this was just annoying. Now I like it. All that swirly snow in the first chapter -- you can really see what it would be like to be in a rural farming town small enough to get cut off in winter. The atmosphere in the opening pages is just incredibly dark and brooding and ominous. "The Walker is abroad," says the old farmer. "And this night will be bad, and tomorrow will be beyond imagining." Yes, Susan Cooper, yes! I want to know more!
Now I do. Lots more. There's lots of stuff to love in TDIR: the creepy carnival head, the Book of Gramarye, the squawky rooks, all the lovely Welsh mythology, the whole fantasy of being "chosen." In this case, 11-year-old Will finds out that he is an Old One, an immortal being destined to fight an endless struggle with the forces of the Dark. In other words, through no special effort of his own, he suddenly finds out that he is awesome. It's not un-Harry Potter-like.
And yet, even at my advanced age, I struggled to finish TDIR. I just wished I liked everybody more. Will is a bit of a chilly customer. A friend of mine described the book as all symbols, no characters, and I get what she means: there's a lot of very earnest talk about ultimate good and ultimate evil, but not a lot of warm human interaction. And Will's Gandalf/Dumbledore mentor/father figure, Merriman, got on my nerves a bit. Maybe it's just my Oedipal rage playing up, but it seems like he's always laying into Will for screwing up in ways that he, Merriman, could have prevented by just being a little less mysterious all the time. Like when Will first forms a circle with the other Old Ones, but then he let's go when he's not supposed to. Whoops! You just killed that beautiful maternal Lady-person you just met! Nice going kid. I hope you feel bad.
Not that there isn't a lot of primo good fantasy in The Dark Is Rising. But at the risk of sacrificing nerd cred by damning everybody's beloved childhood series, I probably won't go on to the rest of the books. Score one for the forces of Darkness.
p.s. Wikipedia trivia: Susan Cooper was married to Hume Cronyn. Freaky.
p.p.s. Apparently they recently made a movie of The Dark Is Rising, under the title The Seeker? I was not informed.
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1
Skip the movie - it totally sucked, but do read the other books. Especially Greenwitch and Over Sea, Under Stone.
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2
This was one of the series that my English Teacher dad had be read when I was eight or nine. I thought I understood it, but I don't actually remember anything from it, just five years later. The whole series is sitting in my room next to all those other books that ought to re-read now that I can actually understand them. But what am I doing instead? Re-reading Harry Potter for the fifth (on average. It varies for each book) time.
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3
OK, now you're just mocking us...
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4
I can't speak to how TDiR effects your nerd cred from experience- my guess is that it's not quite the universal knock that your indifference towards BSG represents. I did however have a similar experience in my own youth reading Nikolai Tolstoy's "The Coming of the King". I was a huge Arthurian nerd at ~12 years old, so I muscled my way through it, but damned if I knew what the hell I was reading about.
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5
Wow, this movie did not do well with the Critics. "Director David L. Cunningham's proffered chills are strictly of the lightweight variety: a menacing flock of ravens, a slimy skein of snakes and a couple of mall security yobs too fat or stupid to overpower even a spindly teenager." says Bruce Demara of the
Toronto Star.
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I think what's more impressive is that between your novel writing, marketing your book, reviewing and writing for Time, spending time with kid and wife, playing endless videogames, and blogging for us poor saps you still have time to read a very long and dare I say "boring" book? Do you sleep? -
6
@ dennitzio - Yes, he sleeps. And that's just more wasted time that could have been spent watching BSG and Lost.
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7
I liked the books, especially all the imagery out of Britain's mythical past.
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I couldn't help but feel there was a distinct lack of ass-kicking throughout the series, though.
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Bear in mind, I'd read the first five Wheel of Time books by the time I read these in middle school, so I was well acquainted with people getting their sh*t ruined with swords and magic. -
8
@Kemper,
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Ahhh, but that's why I liked The Dark Is Rising. It was nice and quietly mythical. Very British. When have the British ever loudly kicked ass? (Waterloo excepted. Maybe).
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And am I the only one who thought that the Wheel of Time kinda got overly clinical as the series went on? As I recall, pages were spent discussing the strength of different protaginists . "And x was the strongest user of Power in ALL HISTORY. Except for Y. Y was like, 5% stronger. Maybe 6.5%, if she'd had a protein shake." -
9
When have the British ever loudly kicked ass?
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Let's see...
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CS Lewis included some ass-whoopings.
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Tolkien.
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China Mieville regularly features asses getting whooped.
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Michael Moorcock.
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Alastair Reynolds.
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But you're absolutely right about the WoT series getting overly clinical.
- leverus @nebka it's in the works, from the great French publisher l'Atalante - http://l-atalante.com/ - 22 hours ago
- leverus @clarely p.s. that green band is in place to restrain the 3D treebranch that pokes out of the cover. suddenly it looks ridiculously phallic. - 22 hours ago
- leverus @clarely you're a huge dork! no DIE MAGIER yet. (it probably won't be called that. you can copyright titles in Germany, and MAGIER's taken.) - 22 hours ago
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