The Perilous Gard
Dec. 4th, 2005 01:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avreliaI keep filling up the lacunas in my readings. Of course not so much as serious classics (I am used to feeling guilty about famous books I haven’t read and not planning to), as fantasy books I should have read 10-15 years ago, and would have read if they were available in Russia.
This time it was The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope, and I adored it. I still want to hug the book, and call it “Squishy”, and never return it to the library.
The previous books I read in the same category (Books I should have read before) Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin and Emma Bull’s War for the Oaks I liked with some reservations.
The Perilous Gard I loved without reservations, and I cannot find anything there that I wish would be different. It is not the best book ever, but as it is, it is just right.
The language flows smoothly, occasionally reminding us that it happens in XVI century, and not in XX with a certain turn of phrase, or a word naming something we don’t have a use for, but never descending into ElizabethanSpeak. I can – with difficulty –read actual Elizabethan prose, but have no patience for nowadays remakes – even the closest to authentic. Elizabeth Marie Pope sets the time with just enough historical details and just right linguistic means.
The characters – main and secondary – are imperfect, but interesting. The main characters are adorkable and squishy. I mean they made me care about their doings and cheer for them and smack them with the herring in some cases.
The Fairies are interesting and believable. Well, as believable as fairies can possibly be. I loved that Kate is trying to find a reasonable explanations for their doings and I loved even more that her explanation is as close to reasonable as possible. I was in a good kind of shock learning that they really do live in caves and hollows of the hill, not in a magical land or any kind of wonderful palaces. It made sense – as their pride in that way of living. Lady inspires curiosity and awe and animosity and sadness at the same time.
And finally I would like to note the perfect mood in the book – just dark enough with the sparkles and the lightness that is coming from the characters themselves.
Squishy!
This time it was The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope, and I adored it. I still want to hug the book, and call it “Squishy”, and never return it to the library.
The previous books I read in the same category (Books I should have read before) Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin and Emma Bull’s War for the Oaks I liked with some reservations.
The Perilous Gard I loved without reservations, and I cannot find anything there that I wish would be different. It is not the best book ever, but as it is, it is just right.
The language flows smoothly, occasionally reminding us that it happens in XVI century, and not in XX with a certain turn of phrase, or a word naming something we don’t have a use for, but never descending into ElizabethanSpeak. I can – with difficulty –read actual Elizabethan prose, but have no patience for nowadays remakes – even the closest to authentic. Elizabeth Marie Pope sets the time with just enough historical details and just right linguistic means.
The characters – main and secondary – are imperfect, but interesting. The main characters are adorkable and squishy. I mean they made me care about their doings and cheer for them and smack them with the herring in some cases.
The Fairies are interesting and believable. Well, as believable as fairies can possibly be. I loved that Kate is trying to find a reasonable explanations for their doings and I loved even more that her explanation is as close to reasonable as possible. I was in a good kind of shock learning that they really do live in caves and hollows of the hill, not in a magical land or any kind of wonderful palaces. It made sense – as their pride in that way of living. Lady inspires curiosity and awe and animosity and sadness at the same time.
And finally I would like to note the perfect mood in the book – just dark enough with the sparkles and the lightness that is coming from the characters themselves.
Squishy!
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Date: 2005-12-04 06:36 pm (UTC)I hear ya! I feel the same way. Where was N.Gaiman, T.Pratchett, C.S.Lewis when I was younger? (well, I read the first Narnia book in translation, but I had no idea there were more) Hell, I just finished my first Lymond Chronicles book by Elizabeth Dunnett (historical fiction/fantasy set in medieval Scotland). I would have loved this back when I was devouring Dumas and Jules Verne.
So many books, so little time. Grr-Argh.
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Date: 2005-12-04 07:07 pm (UTC)So many books, so little time. Grr-Argh.
Exactly. And it is not that I didn't read enough at that time - I read a lot, books that much more adult, and there was a deluge of s/f and fantasy published (old here, but new for us), but still some books are better read at certain age.
::sigh::