Taking Sides: Narnia vs Prydain

anthony hates narnia yet = Xtian
ten million other ILErs LOVE narnia yet = atheist

Chris: why would Pern need scale when dragons can go b'twee? I mean, between?

Somebody was mocking McCaffrey? I CURSE YOU. Though I agree the series went on a couple of books too far.

Can I repeat that people *must* read "Taren Wanderer" and "The High King" stat.

I'm going to the library on Tuesday to find these books. Book of Three, Black Cauldron, Castle of Llyr, um, some long dullish one that I remember fondly somehow, and a scary one that I liked but only read once. WOW I really miss these books right now.

so great, seriously.

but what about THE WHEEL OF TIME?

Upthread I said:

I have to think that Prydain lingers with me more, especially the final book, which is all about crushing losses, one after another, though shot through with a sense of where things can go next.

And while a reread will have to confirm that, I'm pretty sure I'm right -- there's no sense of full redemption or eschatalogy in Prydain, though there are mystic fields beyond those we know (located in the West, of course), and death is vividly final. Other fantasy series might get into this more, but -- especially for an ostensibly 'juvenile' audience -- I think Prydain beats out almost anything for dealing with death, especially in what at times seems to be a hopeless, doomed-to-failure struggle, the more so because so many characters don't make it to the end.

So yeah, like Ian said, they ruled the shit out of Narnia, and I still like Narnia at various points. But Lloyd A. ended up hitting the higher marks in the end -- to just pick out one instance, the moment where Fflewddur Fflam has to sacrifice the wood of his harp for a fire to ensure he and his friends do not freeze to death, and what then happens as a result, combines everything from the blunt realities of survival to honest-to-god magic and an astonishing sense of how to portray moments of emotional Armageddon by means of externally described action instead of internal monologue or dialogue. Quite something.

Earthsea over either, though.

But she's not the topic under the discussion. ;-)

But has anyone read any of the Alexander books recently? Do they hold up?

Yeah, I don't know. My heart is with Narnia but the story plays a very dirty trick on poor Susan. Her "growing up" is specifically sexual, she discovers lipstick and boys and begins to live up to societal expectations for her gender and as a reward she is SCREWED and barred from imaginative life. Alexander is poetic and stark and admirable and Ned is right about the part with the harp, but I think at a certain age I needed the Narnian/Christian reassurance that all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.

EMBRACE THY INNER GOTH, ALL IS DOOM. Of course Prydain ISN'T all doom in the end, but it's all about conditional rewards, how you don't have everything (and never can) but out of struggle you can have something.

xpost -- Dan and I agreeing on something? What a thought! ;-)

anyone ever read the first two lives of lukas-kasha?

I think the Narnia universe is devastatingly well-imagined, but re-reading them last year the actual nuts and bolts writing seemed a bit flat and sloppy.

Off topic, but I'm reading Elidor just now and I keep being impressed at how little Garner talks down - there's words and ideas in there that I have trouble with NOW. It's great. Completely terrifying as well, with so much left unsaid. Makes the magic in Harry Potter look kind of tame.

Love Cooper too - my fat Dark is Rising omnibus fell apart never to be salvaged :(

Yeah, if there's one thing Garner does well (and he does lots of things well), it's the feeling of the creeping horrors...

I must have just started with the wrong book or something. (Honestly, I can't remember which one I did start with -- all the more oddly, though, I actually read The High King first of all the Prydain books and then backtracked...)

We are talking years upon YEARS ago, Laurel -- early eighties? I can't remember. This was around the time I first read Alexander as well, had already read Narnia. Cooper didn't connect and I can't remember how or why, thus the eventual need for a reconsideration by my thirty-four-year-old self. But do not question my eleven-year-old self, as you can't go back in time and change his mind. ;-)

Also, there's some movement on a 'Dark is Rising' cable series, last I heard.

prydain was pretty harsh for a little kid. also, the verb "cried" is used too much to describe taran's speech in the first one.

riddlemaster of hed totally rules.

That's exactly it, Arch, Will Stanton could be any one of us, when DARK IS RISING begins he IS one of us, he's no one but a slightly thoughtful 13 yr old. And the same is even more true of Jane/Simon/Barnaby, because they're not even Old Ones but each has his or her particular wisdom and part to play.

I love Cooper, too, for being so...er, I don't know anything about lit crit so I'm just throwing this out there..."synthetic", like in a WINTER'S TALE-kind of way. All these different elements of myth & legend & theater are just spilling out of her head and they come out as these stories full of singular images, it's like a crazy quilt of half-remembered ancient history and myth and dilemmas of modern life & character. Cooper has a really terrific book of essays out called, oh dammit, what's it called...DREAMS AND WISHES in which she talks about some of the influences.

SO SO GOOD

hee hee - never considered this, but then I was prolly 7-9 when I read the Cooper books (which do indeed rule). So proto-goth at best.

Given where-all this conversation's been, surprised no mention yet of L'Engle...

"WWWWWEEEEE AAAAAARRRRRREEEEEE HHHHHHEEEEEERRRREEEEE!!!"

That last one is a little odd - that whole section with the Drowned Cantref,* and the section where a steam engine randomly turns up and takes all the main characters back in time. On the other hand, some of its passages are the best-written scenes in the whole series - the archaeological dig where the belt of symbols from The Dark Is Rising was hidden, or the scene where Will takes away Stephen's memory of the Old Ones.

I agree with Archel in that part of the attraction is the realness of the landscapes. I've been to Aberdyfi, Tywyn and the Dysinni valley a couple of times, although I still haven't visited the lake with the lake monster that appears in Silver On The Tree.

(the Bearded Lake is in the centre of this image - Aberdyfi is at the bottom, Tywyn on the left, and the Dysinni the river estuary at the very top left)

(were the Cornish books actually set in a real place like the others? I don't know Cornwall well enough to comment)

* I can't remember if that's what it's called in the book, but I think that's what it's usually known as elsewhere.

-- anthony (anthonyeasto...), November 20th, 2001.

OTFM.

Narnia always seemed to be the books the good little middle class kids would read. And it eventually became a bit too obvious - even for a Catholic kid like me.

The Prydain books struck me as having more to say to the working class black kid who was not especially good at anything the world around him seemed to respect. "The High King" is probably the first book I read where the consequences of everything going horribly wrong did not appear to be trivial.

That said, I do much prefer Alan Garner's "Alderley Edge" stuff, which I read at pretty much the same time. a) It's set just up the road, so I could relate to it & b) it dealt with the Celtic/Arthurian stuff I was into at the time. Something it has in common with Susan Cooper's "Dark is Rising" sequence. Garner's writing doesn't seem to talk down to kids - and I do love the claustraphobia of the underground journey in "The Wierdstone of Brisingamen" and the whole feeling of desperation that pervades the climax of "The Moon of Gomrath."

I do kinda wish I'd read Phillip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" as a child, I've a feeling they'd have been pivotal parts of my childhood reading.

That actually brings up a good larger question for this thread, though -- in general, do you prefer fantasy (or sf or myth) anchored specifically in The World We're In or does that even matter?

Guess I've answered that question already. Maybe I'm just not romantic enough, but without some kind of springboard from my own world - however tenuous or personal - I can't seem to stay engaged.

But I don't think it's humorless -- the scene where Ged has to walk up to the wizards' building is both a serious test and wryly funny, for instance.

"Dingbot Pullpud then reappeared from behind a bush. 'Hahaha, I had to use a fizzletree leaf.'"

Also let us not forget this: I have just read the wrongest scene in a fantasy book ever written.

Dur-hey, it was the Belgariad.

I am somewhat annoyed with myself for reading The Malloreon because I was starved for material.

I also missed reading Patricia McKillip's "RiddleMaster of Hed" series as a child. The 10 year-old version of me would probably have got a kick from them.

The thing I like about Le Guin's writing for children is that it doesn't actually seem all that much different from her writing for adults (stylewise that is). And she doesn't indulge herself in that broad style of comedy that children's writers often succumb to. The humour - and there is some - is fairly subtle and understated.

I take my fantasy in both flavours (secondary world and real world based)

Yeah, that's for sure. At least he owned up to it in his essay starting The Rivan Codex -- that actually might be the best bit of writing he did!

Did you read LeGuin's piece on the reaction to the TV version of Earthsea that came out? Great stuff and cuts right to the heart of what you're talking about:

A Whitewashed Earthsea --
How the Sci Fi Channel wrecked my books.

All I know is that I was somewhat passively enjoying the series and then all of a sudden my mind snapped and I thought "IF I READ ONE MORE GODDAMN SCENE WITH THESE GODDAMN FUCKERS HAVING INAPPROPRIATE BANTER AROUND A GODDAMN CAMPFIRE ONE MORE TIME, I WILL HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO HUNT AND SLAY."

Then I bought the next series.

I drew the line at Polgara The Sorceress, though.

I think he says something in that essay I mentioned that if he can hook you into reading the first few pages of a story then he'll make sure you feel forced to read the rest. Which is kinda how I felt about the Malloreon.

Terry Goodkind is basically David Eddings sans asshat and therefore infinitely preferable.

Hey, there ya go. Why oh why didn't Card just STOP with Speaker for the Dead?

Now you know, I've never read Goodkind, I admit the cover art wasn't selling me (yay stupid bias), and there are so many fantasy series out there that I have to pick my battles. But a vast improvement over Eddings, you say?

OH YES.

I mean, granted, there are a lot of irritating fantasy tropes still in there, but Goodkind tempers them with having characters who, if they aren't necessarily more realistic, they are unrealistic in their strength of character. There is a good amount of banter but he had the sense to ground most of it in a sadomasochistic warrior caste who, given the way they're developed, actually make sense spouting off bizarre, ill-timed dark humor, plus (this is the important bit) most of the characters are actually horrified by them when they do this. Goodkind is also very good at imbuing allegedly-charasmatic characters with charisma, as opposed to Eddings' "this character is charming and not at all Steve Buscemi in a bad wig, honest" shenanigans.

Goodkind isn't world-changing but he is fun to read, and a couple of his later books do almost approach world-changing for those with easily-malleable worlds.

Interestingly my friend, who is himself white, had actually
forgotten, up until that point, that most of Earthsea's characters weren't. Which possibly makes Le Guin's point for her.

Please don't get me started on Colour Coding - although Diana Wynne-Jones covers some of it amusingly enough in "The Tough Guide to Fantasyland". In Tolkien's case, it's understandable; in the case of the Eddings, it's unforgivable.

Ah Goodkind! Someone stop me be for I go off on a rant about precisely the ways I hate him...

An absolutely wonderful book. Should be required reading.

Protagonist is a guy and as such is not supposed to use inherent magical powers, no-one around to teach him, cabal of magic-weilding women who might be able to help but all of them are self-involved machiavellian schemers and some of them are downright evil etc, etc,

Also I heard somewhere that his recent work is thinly veiled pro-republican anti-democrat propoganda.

Ow, I sprained my eyes from rolling them too hard.

Goodkind's story is similar in style to Jordan's only with maybe 90% fewer characters and much less political intrigue. Also, Richard does have a couple of mentors/advisors (Zedd, Nathan). Also, the whole "men's magic" thing ends up being tied up much more in his ancestry than it is in his gender.

Does she? (An honest question -- she's not in book four at all, and in book five she does seem a bit uncertain around Taran but then he seems uncertain around her!...and then more pressing matters come up.)

Eilonwy is already a princess, she's opinionated and self-assured, but lonely -- her maturation necessarily calls for different experiences. The whole sewing and socialization thing, when she's sent away to another court to hang out with the other princesses, could equally be seen as a lesson in how to treat others with whom you live in community, where everyone is equal and deserves respect. There's a human relationship-element there, E's lesson being that when you are kind to people you benefit from their friendship -- I do seem to recall that she was a little short on friends, orignally.

I'm probably missing a hundred other important points because I haven't read the series in years, but you take my meaning.

and laurel i kiss you for saying "helpmeets". a fflam is valiant!

Spoilers for The Book of Three? Well there's this pig that doesn't want to be a ham sandwich...

Its just that Eilonwy fits into this pattern that you see all the time of a strong, adventurous girl who ends up domesticated to represent her growing up.

Hmm...I think you have to draw a distinction (potentially very fine) between maturing and giving up. To quote Cheap Trick, "Surrender, but don't give yourself away." (Or if you prefer, Jarvis Cocker: "Its OK to grow up, just as long as you don't grow old. Face it you are young.")

That is, JUST BECAUSE girls are expected to be compassionate/gentle/etc ad nauseum doesn't mean those aren't important qualities FOR EVERYONE to develop (just as there are as many "masculine" qualities that everyone benefits from having), it just happens to be E's lot in life that she starts out impatient & self-centered and has to learn compassion along with her mending or whatev! Don't let's play identity-hobbyist, please!

I knew it was likely coming soon, but it is still very sad to note it -- RIP Lloyd Alexander. You were one of the best.

Sad. I've been meaning to reread Prydain for years, and now I will for sure.

That is a bummer, I was hoping this was just an ordinary revive. I loved both series and for different reasons I think - Narnia was much more clearly escapist and Prydain much more convincing as adventure. Ned and Stone Monkey OTM about the bleakness of Prydain, especially as it goes on - The High King absolutely captivated me as a kid, you really couldn't stop reading it because doom seemed always just around the corner for the characters. In general a more richly fleshed-out world despite telling a story much more focused on a few recurring characters AND largely skipping out on the established geography for two books. In Narnia's defense, it was pitched at a slightly younger age group, no? I read and re-read them all concurrently, but certainly Narnia is a little more 5th grade, Prydain a little more 7th?

The stuff I loved in Narnia were the little moments of specific intensity, the endings of the books especially. The climax of the Silver Chair (with the thrumming of the strings!), pretty much the entire second half of Dawn Treader (Deathwater Island!), and most of The Last Battle which has a little of that High King doom and gloom for a while and really only falls apart at the end IIRC. The problem is that all this sits alongside much more boring things like Prince Caspian, The Horse and His Boy, and The Magician's Nephew. Blaaaaaaaaaah.

Never read anything of Cooper besides The Dark Is Rising - I liked it, but it didn't stick with me or draw me in somehow. With Pern I at least finished the Dragonsong-Dragonsinger-Dragondrums sequence; unfortunately even as I was reading them I could feel the quality declining from book to book.

Harry Potter probably has too many threads of its own to justifiably get into it here, but they are very good books; flawed in their pacing and a little inconsistent, but really worth recommending. One of the best things about my old bookstore job was the way Harry Potter was bringing kids and their parents into the store in droves looking for more books "like Harry Potter." I moved a lot of the books under discussion in this thread, as well as Philip Pullman and some others...

Re: the humbling of Eilonwy - this seems like a bit of an Alexander trope. The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen was all about an arrogant prince losing his kingdom and wandering the world as a fugitive and learning some manners in the process..

That's really sad. RIP.

I've been wanted to revisit these for a few years now - need to get around to it.

Urgent and key to note: "Taran Wanderer" still best book ever. Well, close.

So why can't they make a film series out of that now, I wonder.

They made a cartoon of The Black Cauldron (prob mentioned upthread, but I'm super lazy)

The Prydain books were second only to Tolkien for me as a kid; I might even dare to place them above ol' J.R.R. these days. Love the characters to pieces.

Narnia sucks.

^^^ OTMFM

i will read these. last time i tried (black cauldron, i think) they were a little too dense for me. i think i was 7 tbf

The cover painting for The Book of Three sealed the deal for me as a kid:

http://www.lausd.k12.ca.us/Bethune_MS/BOM3/Cvr07_Jan03.jpg

The Horned King was cooler than the Nazgul. They didn't have faces, and his was a skull with horns!

disappointingly my library system seems only to have books 1 and 5. might try and buy this today, you've put the yearning in me

I bought a hardcover omnibus from the Sci-Fi Book Club in high school and I've read it many times in the 20-odd years I've had it. Should be in everyone's collection.

Ha, I have that very same omnibus in my bookcase now...

SFBC used to be great for that sort of thing. Sadly, it seems much less so these days.

There was a character like Gollum, only friendly. He was my favourite.

Gurgi!

Crunchings and munchings!

My nephews, ages 8 and 10, just started The Book Of Three. In fact, they are reading my old copy!

I need to reread all of them but I think I prefer them to Narnia (which I also like, esp Magician's Nephew and Horse & His Boy and Dawn Treader).

Yeah I like Prydain better too. Although Narnia are good too (strangely the first and last books are my least favorite).

a fflam is valiant!

― mookieproof (mookieproof), Thursday, October 13, 2005 10:03 AM (5 years ago)

I talked my wife into naming our next cat Llayn.

Or Llyan, even.

I really need to read these again some time.

What did Tom mean about the Jesuits up there?

wonder if my prydain omnibus survived the flooding at my mom's old house a few months back..

Crunchings and munchings!

Gurgi rhymes frequently occur to me but I assume they'll only be funny in my head so I usu don't share. Sad, really.

the wisdom of the pig-keeper

loved Prydain, never really gave a fuck about Narnia (altho as an adult I have come around to CS Lewis, at least as far as his sci-fi trilogy goes)

had these versions, which were alternately terrifying/fascinating:
http://www.artscatter.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/tcop-1024x302.jpg

i had these for the first two, which were pretty badass imo

http://www.longstoryshortpier.com/images/752.jpg http://heissufficient.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/the-black-cauldron.jpg

'i'm ambidextrous!' taran cried

we should poll these; i'd've said castle of llyr when i was of age, because it had ocean, but thinking back it is prob taran wanderer: neat diminished scale, unnerving yet eerily pitiable villain, father feelings. i like that the epic protagonist has to drop out for a book--work a summer, get disappointed, spend some time as a frog iirc unless that was fflewddur--before taking a run at the climax. altho v little eilonwy, right? that was the other thing abt castle of llyr. eilonwy on the ocean.

eilonwy feelings, apparently

escaping spiral castle w eilonwy is the ur-adventure

I read all of these out loud to my wife last year as bedtime stories and it was awesome to revisit everything

Eilonwy escaping from Spiral Castle is up there with Aerin's walking up the infinite stairs to confront Agsded and then falling back down in The Hero and the Crown. Best.

More on the anniversary

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-book-news/article/64185-the-book-of-three-marks-50-years.html

urgh, I really like the new hardcover edition but I already have a really nice copy!

http://www.vox.com/2015/8/18/9166631/chronicles-prydain-alexander

Nice take.

Yeah, I was excited by it but I have to admit that I don't actually remember what happened in the books.

As this was also a de facto Earthsea thread, this David Mitchell piece on Wizard of Earthsea is worth a read.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/23/david-mitchell-wizard-of-earthsea-tolkien-george-rr-martin

...okay, MAYBE.

http://variety.com/2016/film/news/chronicles-of-prydain-movie-disney-1201733058/

yeah I wouldn't be too optimistic

Yikes. This could be good or bad, or just kinda forgettable. To me the books are really bound up in the worn, homemade cragginess of the first-edition covers and Prydain as a world feels very earthy, musty, and beige - don't feel like any contemporary production could avoid a basic slickness.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9a/TaranWanderer1stEdition.JPG

Prydain as a world feels very earthy, musty, and beige

agree about this altho for me the definitive cover designs are these:
https://images.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2F3.bp.blogspot.com%2F-_qmkHtpoMVs%2FThgjixSIacI%2FAAAAAAAABhM%2FZ4vMAc-fJbI%2Fs1600%2FThe_Black_Cauldron-Dell-198109.jpg&f=1

there's definitely an almost creepy, moldy, weatherbeaten vibe to them

https://images.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fi.gr-assets.com%2Fimages%2FS%2Fphoto.goodreads.com%2Fbooks%2F1406590210i%2F244296._UY200_.jpg&f=1

actually i think i had a mix of all the book jackets, just from acquiring them gradually through the Book Nook and the Scholastic Book Fair and shit. but i loved the antiquey ones for 4 and 5 especially.

they shared a tone with LOTR imo, they're shot through with this dim awareness of a mysterious, not-too-distant past, and the world the characters inhabit is understood as a kind of shadow of its former self, with glimmers of its past glories occasionally shining through. There's a historical continuity implied, albeit one not really grasped by most of the characters (and certainly not as exhaustively detailed as Tolkien's). Also shares the obvious affection for the seemingly mundane and agrarian.

as I've said elsewhere, Narnia books would be more interesting if Peter had outgrown Narnia because he'd discovered lipstick and nylons instead of Susan

hwoinch!

lloyd alexander was born 100 years ago today

I love the Prydain books. couldn't really get into Narnia, we had all the books because my sister read them.

actually ended up reading the Prydain books in a roundabout way because of the Disney movie, although I've never seen it. when it came out I was about 9 years old and at primary school it was the thing for boys to collect football stickers, but I wasn't interested in football. to tie-in with the Disney movie they brought out Black Cauldron stickers and my mum got me some I suppose so I didn't feel left out. although I still was anyway because literally nobody else was collecting them so I had nobody to swap duplicates with. but anyway, since I was collecting stickers for this book series it made me want to read the books so my mum got me them. I never got round to rereading them though because at some point over the years I lost the Book of Three which is the first one. I just checked and unfortunately I got rid of the rest of them at some point because I don't have any of them now.