Because I listen to audiobooks when I’m in the car, I went for a drive yesterday evening just to finish this series. Time and gas well spent. Really enjoyed making my way through this series over the last month and a half. Some of the best children’s fantasy I’ve read. Wish I would’ve read it as an actual child. And with one notable exception (which I’m not sure would have actually changed for me all that much if I’d read it the old fashioned way instead), the audiobooks were an excellent choice.
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Review #53: The Book of Three
The Book of Three is not the most impressive book on first reading, even despite there being some things that set it apart, first and foremost its Welsh-inspired settings and characters of myth and legend. Mostly, it seemed a bit like a Tolkien clone with a plot barely even trying to be anything more. Collecting the group of adventurers. The beyond evil bad guy. Swords and sorcery, kings and princesses and princes. Wizards who commune with animals.
Right away The Book of Three did demonstrate a contradictory and rather cheeky sense of humor, with the main quest (at least for our main character, Taran) being a search for his white pig, Hen Wen, rather than the defeat of some evil lord or other (although that is a side benefit for Taran). Taran is an Assistant Pig-Keeper (a title that will follow him with persistence all the way through book five and beyond). It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that Hen Wen wasn’t just any old pig that evil beings wanted to kidnap. She is an Oracular Pig–she can tell the future. So yeah, let’s rescue her.
On his quest, Taran picks up many companions (and this is the bit that felt most like Tolkien): Gwydion, the Prince of Don, a warrior who looks very unlike the royalty he is; the bard Fflewddur Fflam, a former king who ‘gave all that up’, and whose harp has strings that break whenever he stretches the truth (which is quite a lot); Gurgi, the strange beast that is not an animal nor yet a man, who speaks in the third person and has obsessive tendencies about food and such (Gurgi especially felt like a Gollum clone to me at first, though he distinguishes himself–not necessarily for the better–pretty quickly after the first book); Doli the Dwarf, the obligatory member of the fair folk, who complains while doing anything; and of course, the Princess Eilonwy, who is a complete delight from the first moment we meet her. She’s probably the best thing that Lloyd Alexander ever created.
This is very much children’s literature, and the first book is the roughest of the five. Alexander has a tendency to give his characters one or two traits and have them stick to them like mad, but luckily Taran and Eilonwy especially are wonderfully fleshed out. In fact, after this book, Taran’s inner journey and growing characterization is the highlight of the series. The ending is also pretty sudden and felt rather convenient. No idea why it’s called The Book of Three, as the book actually gets more focus in future volumes than it does here.
So, not the best beginning of the series, with as much predictable fantasy cliche usage as there was turning of those cliches on their heads. I definitely recommend reading further in the series if you liked this one even in the slightest.
Review #54: The Black Cauldron
This book is the one that gave the Disney film from the 80s its name–you know, the one nobody saw that was a complete box office disaster–right before The Little Mermaid came out and ushered in Disney’s Golden Age. I saw the film once and wasn’t impressed with it. It bears almost no resemblance, aside from its characters sharing the same names and a few select characteristics, to the books.
As stated in my review for The Book of Three, I was not very impressed with this series to start off with, but about a third of the way in to The Black Cauldron, it became clear that Alexander had turned his storytelling around a little. Instead of focusing on plot movement and having things happen to the characters all the time, The Black Cauldron is instead a very character-motivated story. Most of the conflict doesn’t come from fighting bad guys, but instead from the difficult choices the characters must make.
Although, yes, there is a plot. Taran and his friends join the massive effort to retake the titular Black Cauldron from Arawn, Death Lord of Annuven, so that he may not make any more of his Cauldron Born warriors (basically magical deathless zombies). Only one problem: when they get to Annuven, the Cauldron has already been stolen, so the companions set off again in search of it, to prevent Arawn from making more Cauldron Born, so that when the final inevitable confrontation that is sure to come does occur, they may at least have a chance in defeating him. This search leads Taran to the the three enchantresses in the Marshes of Morva, Orddu, Orgach, and Orwen. They are honestly delightful (a great example of Alexander’s skill at combining humor and actual pathos) and more importantly, they pose Taran his greatest challenge yet. Taran, who wants to be a hero, but doesn’t actually know what that means.
This was probably my favorite of the five books, mostly because the enchantresses were so sassy, but also probably because it was such an unexpected improvement over its predecessor.
Review #55: The Castle of Llyr
I liked The Castle of Llyr better than book one, but not as much as book two. At first, it seemed like another case where all the main happenings would be physical. Eilonwy is sent away to learn how to be a proper princess (a thing which she despises–she’d much rather stay in Caer Dallben with Taran and act the scullery maid than learn to sew things and wear dresses and chat with ladies all day). But soon after the companions arrive at the Isle of Mona (they escorted her there by ship, accompanied by her betrothed, the incompetent but well-meaning Prince Rhun), Eilonwy is kidnapped by a treacherous Steward named Magg. He does so on behalf of the sorceress, Achren, who had kidnapped Eilonwy as a child, and who Taran and she had believed dead ever since they brought her castle down in ruins in book one.
Eilonwy is the only known heir to the House of Llyr, a house known for birthing enchantresses, and Achren wants to use Eilonwy to gain access to those long-hidden powers. All of this happens while Taran deals with his newfound feelings for Eilonwy, which are compounded by the fact that he’s nothing more than an Assistant Pig-keeper. Taran, Rhun, Gurgi and Fflewddur set off to rescue Eilonwy, and have adventures in caves with giants and a giant mountain cat named Llyan who apparently wants to eat them, but also loves Fflewddur’s harp-playing.
A lot of the character growth in this one happens to Rhun and not Taran. The silly boy recognizes that his princely title does not contribute anything to their group, and he ends up offering himself up as a sacrifice, which in turn prompts Taran to feel really bad about disliking him. The whole thing ends up in a confrontation with the companions, Achren, and a bewitched Eilonwy, who does not remember the companions. This was the most heartbreaking part of the novel, the way Taran felt when his friend didn’t even recognize him, and him realizing in turn how much she means to him. It was just really well done. The ending is pretty great, also, but I won’t spoil it.
All in all, a fluffy but not worthless break from the main action of the series.
Review #56: Taran Wanderer
In terms of character development, Taran Wanderer is probably the most impressive of the five Chronicles of Prydain books.
There is no evil to overcome in this one, no one wrong to right, no one to rescue. Taran simply wants to know where he came from, and so he sets off from Caer Dallben with only Gurgi and his faithful steed Melynlass to accompany him and no idea of where to start looking for the secrets to his heritage. Of course, Taran also has some other motives going on here. Mostly he wants to know where he came from because he wants to be worthy of the Princess Eilonwy, because everyone knows only a man of noble birth can marry a princess. He knows deep down that he very well might find he is a person of no consequence, but a very large part of him does in fact expect to find out he’s some secret prince, or the long lost son of lord.
As Taran doesn’t know where to start looking, he goes to the only people in Prydain who might be able to point him in the right direction: the enchantresses Orddu, Orwen, and Orgach. After a bit of flim-flammery and misdirection, they tell him there is a mirror that if looked upon will show him who he truly is. And so Taran and Gurgi set off to find the Mirror of Llunet. Their journey, however, is quickly and frequently derailed by chance meetings, scuffles with local lords, and a crisis of confidence-inducing encounter with a sheep farmer in the Northern Commets, among other things. Every encounter Taran has (some with familiar faces like King Smoit and Fflewddur Fflam) leaves his preconceptions about the world and himself changed, shifted, or even erased. He learns more about himself in the looking than in the finding, as the three enchantresses had warned him.
What was really interesting to me is that all of the encounters Taran has seem specifically tailored by Alexander into shaping Taran as a man. He sees many examples of leadership and masculinity in his year of travels (I joked in a status update on Goodreads that everyone in this book either wanted to kill or adopt him), which enables him to see the type of man he is becoming, and examine whether that is someone he should aspire to be at all. The almost bleak nature of the questions the book asks of Taran frankly astounded me in places (I’m thinking particularly of his encounter with Craddoc the Shepherd). And the ending doesn’t go where you think it’s going to go, considering the premise.
If I ever have a son, he’s definitely getting these books as a present one day–you know, as like, a hint. Just really great stuff here.
Review #57: The High King
Aside from a couple of minor complaints, The High King was a really good ending to this series.
Arawn and his minions have stolen the magical sword Dyrnwyn from Prince Gwydion, tipping the balance of power in his own favor. Gwydion, Dallben and the kings of the realm all gather to form a plan to defeat Arawn before his huntsmen and Cauldron Born can take over the realm, but they are soon betrayed by one of their own, and Taran his companions are drawn into the fight. At this point, it’s pretty much a slaughter. Seriously, characters dropping right and left. Alexander doesn’t shy away from showing the consequences of war, but it’s very much not what I was expecting.
All of the companions, even Gurgi and Rhun, get their chance to be badasses. And even though I thought that ultimately the actual showdown between Taran and Arawn (because of course that was always going to happen) is kind of anti-climactic, it almost doesn’t matter because the focus isn’t so much on beating Arawn as it is in Taran growing into his own destiny (a destiny, I note, of his own choosing, which is the best kind of destiny in fantasy stories, as far as I’m concerned).
I was kind of soured on the ending–as fitting as it was, especially since it completes Taran’s arc so nicely, and also because the parts with Eilonwy are freaking adorable–because of the way it unnecessarily and beyond my powers of suspending my disbelief echoes the ending of Lord of the Rings, without any of the buildup that would have made it okay. To spoil the whole thing, because Arawn has been defeated, basically all magic and magical creatures and people (including Gwydion and the Sons of Don and Dallben) retreat to “the summer kingdom” where they will all live forever with no sickness and disease and peace, but Taran refuses the gift of coming along with them as one of the heroes who saved Prydain. He chooses to stay in memory of those who lost their lives and were never given the chance to go to the summer kingdom. He chooses to stay and rebuild Prydain, shepherding mankind into a new magic-less era. For this sacrifice, Dallben anoints him High King.
Like I said, that Taran stuff was good, but seriously, Alexander? The magical people had to go into the West into the summer kingdom? It was just too much copy copy, and felt extra weird coming on the heels of four stories that went out of their ways to make sure Taran and his companions spent as much time as possible together. If you haven’t read LOTR and aren’t familiar with how it ends, this story might play better for you than it did for me, but it was just too similar for me to enjoy myself here. But again, this was just the ending, a small part of a story that I overall very much enjoyed.
Oh, except for Gurgi. So annoying.