The Dark is Confusing

Because he who walketh in the darkness knoweth not where he goeth.

(For a little while) Walk while you have the light/See, you can see the light/Go, lest the doom of darkness be on you . . .

Sorry. That was a random flashback to a children's choir song from back in the day. Very Joplinesque, but with KJV words, which ended up sounding kind of dumb. At the time we thought it was evil, but that's another story . . .

. . . though this one is about darkness and evil. About The Dark is Rising, to be precise--a series with a lot that's good, a significant bit that's bad, and too much that's confusing. (Some of this will be mildly spoilery, so if you're planning to read the books soon you might want to come back later. But I'll try to avoid major plot details.)

The Good

Susan Cooper writes well; her use of British mythology is fascinating; and The Dark is Rising (book 2 in the series) works well as an introduction to a fantasy world. The conflict between Will's two identities--as an eleven-year-old boy with a family he loves, and as an immortal Old One who must help save the world--provides dramatic interest. The Grey King is even better; it has the tighter plot and better character development than the other books, and is most successful in weaving Arthurian myth into the plot.

The Bad

Like the Harry Potter books, these books take place in our world, imagining a magical reality under its surface which only a chosen few can understand. Unlike the Potter books, though, they do ask whether this magical reality is compatible with the religions found in the real world. The answer, given by Will to his family's priest, is that the conflict between Light and Dark predates Christianity. A Christian church holds some of the power of the Light, apparently; but this power does not come from God. Significantly, it's Will's ancient Sign, not the cross, which holds the Dark at bay.

This comes up again at the end of the series, when Will's mentor Merrriman (Merlin) charges the children to work for good in the world. Now that the conflict between Dark and Light is over, and the Dark has been driven from the world, they're on their own:

"For Drake is no longer in his hammock, children, nor is Arthur somewhere sleeping, and you may not lie idly expecting the second coming of anybody now, because the world is yours and it is up to you. Now especially since man has the strength to destroy this world, it is the responsibility of man to keep it alive, in all its beauty and marvellous joy."

My other objection is more philosophical. When ordinary people discover something about the conflict between the Light and the Dark, the Old Ones make them forget. Sometimes it's because they feel the person can't handle the knowledge, and is better off not knowing; sometimes, it's because *they* can't handle the person knowing. When Will's brother Paul starts to realize who Will really is, Will erases the entire conversation from Paul memory--because he can't stand the way Paul is looking at him.

The implicit assumption is that the Old Ones have the right to control other people's minds--and, consequently, that the Old Ones are inherently superior to ordinary people. Which I find morally, theologically, and philosophically troubling. (The same thing, of course, occurs in Harry Potter, and I find it problematic there as well; it bothered me more in these books, though, because it's more prominent.)

The Confusing

There's a lot that's good about the series, but unfortunately there's also a lot that simply doesn't add up. For one thing, it feels disjointed as a series. (The first book is about three siblings who aren't Old Ones, and who don't figure in the second book at all. Everyone comes together in the third book, but then the three siblings disappear entirely for the fourth book; and then we finally get everyone in the fifth book.)

For another, there's time travel. The Old Ones can travel through time and space at will; but they're constantly saying things like "We have to find the Thing of Power in two days, or it will be too late" or "I missed the one moment when I could have done x, and now it's too late."

Thing is, they can travel through time. So all they have to do is go back in time to the one moment when he can do x, and everything's fabulous. But they never seem to think of that.

The set-ups and payoffs also leave something to be desired. The set-ups consist mostly of cryptic prophetic poetry; and the payoffs seem somewhat arbitrary, since they haven't been established apart from the cryptic poetry. The final book was particularly disappointing--most of the payoffs I expected and wanted, based on earlier books, simply weren't there.

Conclusion

As a series, it leaves a lot to be desired--the whole is pretty much just the sum of its parts, and the sum is kind of a weird fraction. But some of the parts are really good; and even with its faults it's much superior to a lot that passes for fantasy these days. "The Grey King" is a good story in its own right (and one of the very few modern-Arthurian stories that really works). So, there you have it. Happy reading, or not-reading; and if you have read the books, I'm curious what you thought of them.

I'm alive!

(Despite all blog-evidence to the contrary.)

Nothing terribly exciting to report, though. Except that I did willfully, intentionally, and with malice aforethought skip a class this morning. But I had a good reason. Well, sort of . . .

One of my required music classes is Skills, and every couple of weeks there's an audit (a mini-test on rhythm or sight-singing). And I had a singing audit today, but as I spent most of my weekend studying for a music history test Monday (and the rest reading The Dark is Rising), I couldn't work on my singing stuff in advance. So I was going to do it Tuesday and Wednesday . . .

But then Tuesday I had Legacy for a couple of hours (which *never* happens), and Wednesday I forgot. Until I got home, and realized I hadn't opened Ottman (the sight-singing book) once all week.

So this morning I willfully, intentionally, etc. skipped Linguistics to practice for my audit. (Which wasn't so bad, since the Linguistics professor gives meandering disorganized lectures, and the class feels interminable.) And the audit went fine (I only had to do half, which helped; the Skills professor always saves the audit till the *end* of class, and then gives second and third chances to all the kids who crash and burn because they've practiced less than *I* have. Resulting in half the audit left for next time.)

So there you go: story of my week. Oh, except I left out the part where I thought I hadn't studied enough for the music history test, and was genuinely worried, and then it was easy. Multiple choice and stuff. Kind of disappointing, really.

The Dark is Rising was interesting, though, so I didn't waste the whole weekend. (I probably spent more time on it than on music history, actually . . .) It's a series of five books, and the title of the second book is also the title of the series. I read three of them Saturday and Sunday, and am finishing up the last one (sort of a prequel) now.

I've been vaguely meaning to read them for years--young adult fantasy classics, Newberry Awards, that sort of thing. I actually picked one up at the library maybe ten years ago, and read a couple of pages. I was fascinated, but had a vague impression that they were probaby "bad," so I never read them.

But the impression of that scene lingered . . . I remembered that the main character was British (possibly Welsh); that there was some sort of epic mysterious conflict between good and evil; and that there was a magical book which the kid could read, despite it being in an ancient lost language, because he was destined to help in this epic conflict. And there was a general atmosphere of grandeur and mystery.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I saw the movie trailer. The kid, Will, was American; there was no sign of a magical book anywhere; and there were lots of silly-looking effects and random super-powers. (Will has telekinesis. "Cool," he says to his mentor. "Can I fly?").

Yeah, not what I remembered. So I thought maybe my two pages had given me an inaccurate idea of the book, or the intervening ten years had muddled my memory . . or that someone had done a worthy book a terrible disservice. Wouldn't be the first time.

So I read the books. And it turns out my two pages ten years ago gave me a better idea of the story's tone than anything in the trailer. Of course, trailers can be misleading . . . but a bit of poking around online suggests that the people behind this movie didn't bother to read the whole first book, much less the whole series--much less get in touch with its living author. And they don't mind saying so. Apparently they're quite happy to be making "Potteragon of the Rings and the Lost Signs," and don't care that they're destroying a high-fantasy quest with its own atmosphere, a unique and unusual brand of magic, and the gravitas of the oldest Celtic and Arthurian myths just around every corner.

The books aren't perfect (more on that later), but they've got a lot going for them (especially "the Dark is Rising" and "The Grey King").

And for Susan Cooper's sake, I sincerely hope the movie doesn't make enough for sequels.