Some books I have recently read: Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, Prydain, Goldstone Wood, Paksenarrion

I have recently re-read three or more books by each of four different authors.

Let's go with the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books first.  The Late Betty MacDonald was the author. These are children's books (or maybe parent's books) about children with various common childish flaws, such as not telling the truth, quarreling, not putting toys away, bullying, losing things and not wanting to go to bed. The list goes on. In each case, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle persuades the child to behave more positively, sometimes just by portraying a character herself (a queen who demands absolute neatness), by animals (a parrot that answers back faster than the child can say something nasty, such as "whose the boss around here."), or by minor magic. MacDonald is a genius at inventing funny names for children and their parents. Pergola Wingsproggle, and Enterprise Beecham, for example. The books show their age in spots -- all the mothers are housewives without outside employment, and no one has a TV, for example -- but they are still funny, even laugh out loud funny, and make us wish that we had a child-loving fairy godmother type to help us with our children's, grandchildren's, or other child's behavior. Human nature doesn't change. Most libraries should have these books.

There's a dark side of fantastic literature. Anne Elisabeth Stengl is the author of the Goldstone Wood books. (There is a Wikipedia page for her, but it's not very informative. If you are want more information, try the GoodReads Tales of Goldstone Wood page.) These are fantasies. Evil fairies (there are some very good ones, too) appear in these books. There seems no doubt that Stengl is a believing Christian (she has won two Christy awards) but the books aren't preachy. They are well written, with many characters, some through the series, and more in just part of it. To summarize in a phrase, the books are about conflict between good and evil. The evil is a dragon, or more than one dragon, as evil, intelligent and malevolent as can be. There is a Christ-figure, a high lord or prince, the Prince of Farthestshore, but he appears seldom. A recurring character is a speaking cat, sometimes. At other times, he is a fairy, and a knight of Farthestshore. The religion of the books is complex. There are elements of paganism, with priests and temples, practiced by some of the people in these books. There is also more than one good deity, or, if not multiple deities, powerful good beings. The moon, the sun, and the North Star are personified in one or more of the books. There is also a thrush, who calls characters back to goodness, repeatedly. One of Stengl's inventions, or, if she didn't invent them, she uses them a lot, is paths. Paths are hidden, except for those using them, and allow characters to travel rapidly from place to place without harm, so long as they stay on such paths, even though they may go through some dark places. Why did I start this paragraph with "the dark side?" Because the personalities of the dragons are so utterly evil. But there is good, too. This is a well-written series, and I recommend it to readers interested in fantastic literature. I have previously posted about some of Stengl's work: Veiled Rose here, Starflower here and Heartless here.

Another series is the Chronicles of Prydain, a series for middle- and high schoolers (and adults) by the late Lloyd Alexander. There are five books, namely The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron, The Castle of Llyr, Taran Wanderer and The High King. As the Wikipedia article on the series says, the series is a Bildungsroman -- the story of how a young person, in this case, Taran, grows up, emotionally. The Black Cauldron was a Newbery Honor book, and The High King was a Newbery winner. The books have swords and sorcery, and good and bad wizards, elves, and humans. There are some really well-drawn characters, some of them more than a little strange, and not all of them human. Alexander was especially good at dialog. Several of his characters have clearly distinct ways of speaking. One of them scarcely every stops talking. There is no explicit religion of any kind in these books, but there is certainly a struggle between good and evil, and it is clear which side Alexander was on. I posted, in more detail, about these books, a few years ago.

The last series is the Paksenarrion books, by Elizabeth Moon. They are sword and sorcery stories, well told, with some characters readers can identify with, and some evil ones, too. Moon pays a lot of attention to ordinary soldiers, and their lives, and what it takes to have an army move to a battle site. Here's an excerpt from the Wikipedia page on these books. (There are 10 novels in these settings, and they are tied together in various ways.):

The Deed of Paksenarrion has an engrossing religious theme. The world is presented as henotheistic; there is a "High Lord" followed by supposedly lesser deities and saints, such as Gird, Falk, etc., who serve it. There are also several references to the World tree and other animistic aspects of the natural world. This work encompasses themes such as "Hero as Redeemer" and "Hero as Saint" as described in Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces. The trilogy also deals with the concepts of absolute good versus absolute evil, the death of friends and loved ones, and an enlightened look into the origin of courage and fear.
One of the most significant themes of The Deed of Paksenarrion is the balance of gender and the role of women. Women are portrayed as powerful leaders and strong fighters. They are accepted and praised as much as men. The book's protagonist is female, as is the Marshall-General of the fellowship of Gird, the book's primary religious sect.

The above paragraphs apply to all of the books. (For more on the books, see this page, which Moon, herself, is responsible for.)

I have previously written on the question of whether or not Moon's fantasy works are Christian novels. My conclusion is that, in some ways, they are, in others, they are not. A student once told me that his high school English teacher had said that every story has a Christ-figure. I'm not sure that I agree with that, but Paksenarrion is, in many respects, such a figure. She is celibate (except for being raped under torture), she sacrifices herself for others in a terrible and prolonged way, and she is vindicated by the High Lord. And she becomes a paladin, fighting evil.

Moon has also written some science fiction, set in the present, or the future. Her Remnant Population was a Hugo Award nominee, and her Speed of Dark won the Nebula award.

Thanks for reading. Read Stengl, Alexander, MacDonald or Moon, or any other good books. And re-read something.

 

Lloyd Alexander's Prydain books

I recently re-read the five Chronicles of Prydain, by the late Lloyd Alexander. The books, in order, are The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron (which was a Newbery Honor book), The Castle of Llyr, Taran Wanderer, and The High King (which won the 1969 Newbery medal). If you are interested in plot details, the previous links are to the Wikipedia articles for each book. The series is loosely based on Welsh mythology, but, at its core, it is a coming-of-age story.

There are some real characters in the books, which are easily distinguishable by their voices. Fflewdur Fflam, a minor king who prefers to travel as a bard, but has never met all the requirements for being one, has a harp with strings that break whenever he exaggerates. He exaggerates a lot. He also says "A Fflam is always ... (ready, brave, loyal, etc.)" on all sorts of occasions. Gurgi, a strange creature, perhaps something like Sasquatch, or an intelligent ape, or a very hairy human, uses rhyme most of the time (sneakings and peekings, crunchings and munchings, etc.) The Princess Eilonwy talks a lot -- she rattles on and on. Taran, the central character, is an Assistant Pig-Keeper, and of only one pig, and Eilonwy keeps reminding him of that, in a friendly way. Other characters remind him of that as an insult.

There are many other characters, not so prominent, but also clearly drawn. There is Dallben, who is over 300 years old, and "meditates" (sleeps) a lot. But he is an enchanter, with real powers. One of his powers is to interpret the oracles of the pig, Hen Wen, who points to sticks with symbols when she is predicting the future. There's Doli, a dwarf, and one of the Fair Folk -- fairies -- who hates turning invisible, because it makes his ears hurt, and is good-hearted but consistently grouchy. There are Orddu, Orwen and Orgoch, the three fates, or three norns, of the story. They have considerable magical powers, have lived forever, or at least for a long time, but don't help anyone very much. There is Gwydion, the brave and selfless warrior champion of the aged high king, Math.

There's plenty of maturing, on Taran's part. As I said, this is a coming-of-age series. Taran starts the books as a kid who longs to be a hero, like Gwydion. But he decides that being an Assistant Pig-Keeper, and of good character, is not such a bad thing. He also learns to appreciate the work of craftspeople, in particular a potter, a weaver, and a smith, as much as he honors swordsmanship.

There is a lot of conflict between good and evil, and it's clear who is good, and evil, although there are a couple of bad characters who redeem themselves. The worst character, Arawn Death-Lord, doesn't really appear in person, although his influence lasts throughout the books.

The setting is typical sword and sorcery material -- before the introduction of gunpowder and the internal combustion engine.

Our local library classifies these books as "J," juvenile. They are suitable for such readers, but, if you have never read this series, it's a good read, no matter what your age. There's no bad language, except for Fflewdur's frequent "Great Belin" -- whatever that means. There's no sex, although Taran does decide that he wants to marry Eilonwy, and she makes a similar decision. There is some violence, and some characters die.

Thanks for reading this post.

The Westmark trilogy, by Lloyd Alexander

The late Lloyd Alexander was notable for a goodly number of books, with his first offering, the Prydain books, probably being the best known. I have read them several times. I had never read the three books of the Westmark trilogy. I have now read them. They are good, and like the Prydain books in a few ways. One of them is that a boy's friends are important. Another is that there is a princess. However, they are unlike the five Prydain books in some important ways. All of the characters seem morally ambiguous -- no one is just plain good. I guess that's more like real life than the Prydain books, and many other books. (There are some characters who seem just plain evil.) There is no magic, either. No pig telling fortunes from sticks, no black caldron.

Q: Why do you write fantasy? A: Because, paradoxically, fantasy is a good way to show the world as it is. Fantasy can show us the truth about human relationships and moral dilemmas because it works on our emotions on a deeper, symbolic level than realistic fiction. - Alexander, being interviewed by Leonard S. Marcus, in Marcus's The Wand in the Wind: Conversations with Writers of Fantasy. (Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press, 2006) Interview is on pages 5-17. Quote is from page 13.

By the end of the first book, Westmark, Theo, the main character, has come to count Mickle, an apparent guttersnipe, as his best friend. They are taken to the palace, because Cabbarus, the chief minister, wants to deceive the king, having the ghost of the king's dead daughter tell the king to resign the throne and give it to him. (Cabbarus, in addition to deceiving the king, and trying to keep him powerless by maintaining him sickened and physically weakened, has had the court physician assassinated, and the printer who had taken Theo as an apprentice killed. The assassination didn't work, but that wasn't Cabbarus's fault.)

Mickle, when brought to Cabbarus's room for instruction, suddenly remembers that Cabbarus had tried to kill her, too, by throwing her down a chute into a river.

Theo knows all of this about the man, but he keeps him from falling to his death, and asks the king to exile him, rather than killing him. Perhaps Theo realizes that all of us have done, or could have done, some very bad things.

What bad things did Theo do? He came upon companions who cheerfully went about the country, selling dirty water as medicine, making people believe that they were seeing ghosts, and skipping out on debts. He actually encouraged them, and suggested ways to fool others for profit. Theo also took part in an uprising that saw several people killed on both sides. He considers himself to be morally ambiguous, and sees others in the same way.

Where is Westmark? It seems to be somewhere in Europe, perhaps during the late Middle Ages. There are kings, and dukes. No surprise there. But there are also printing presses and guns, even a cannon. I found no evidence of religion, or belief in a god or gods, by any of the characters.

The second and third books continue the themes, and make Alexander's case stronger -- war, and power, are terrible things. People, especially people in leadership, make some bad decisions, and compromise their own moral principles, to win victories of various kinds. Lest there be any doubt, Alexander was not writing veiled criticism of the Bush administration and the War on Terror -- the third of these books was published in 1984.

"Kestrel's dead," Theo flung back. "He died in the war, from the stink of too much blood. Yes, I was as much of a butcher as Justin. Worse. Because Justin never pretended he was anything else. I won't do it again. You want Marianstat. I'll help you take it, but not as a leader." "Do you want to see Cabbarus in power?" "No, of course not." Florian gave him a half-smile. "Then I don't see that you have any choice." (The Beggar Queen. New York: Dutton, 1984, p. 92) Theo was the Kestrel, a war leader, in The Kestrel (New York: Dutton, 1982) Florian was also a war leader, trying to overthrow any monarchies, on principle.

Alexander has done a good job with this book. It is written for young people -- they play the major roles in the book, being rulers, battle captains, propagandists, and other things. The adults are almost all incidental to them.

Thanks for reading.

Lloyd Alexander interviewed

Q: Why do you write fantasy?
A: Because, paradoxically, fantasy is a good way to show the world as it is. Fantasy can show us the truth about human relationships and moral dilemmas because it works on our emotions on a deeper, symbolic level than realistic fiction. - Lloyd Alexander, author of the Prydain books, and many other works of fantastic fiction, mainly for young people, being interviewed by Leonard S. Marcus, in Marcus's The Wand in the Wind: Conversations with Writers of Fantasy. (Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press, 2006) Interview is on pages 5-17. Quote is from page 13. Alexander died in 2007. He won the Newbery award, and the National Book Award.

I also learned, from this interview, that Alexander, born in Philadelphia, saw Wales during duty in World War II, and that this influenced his work on the Prydain books. Additionally, he told Marcus that he deliberately tried to write something different from these five books, rather than something like them.

Thanks for reading. Read Alexander.

P. S. Happy Birthday, Lewis Carroll!