on the dark is rising

[cimorene]

reading kestrelsan's dir fic summer's men, and bunnies having to do with the arthur legend and the magic of cooper's universe keep trying to push their way through some kind of vague covering. i can feel my ordinary trains of thought about the story (which is so far good, and comes recommended by two people) bumping up under their pressure, like that latex womb the uruk-hai bursts out of in lotr.

it seems to happen so often that writers, particularly children's writers, will create these universes based on our reality with their own intrinsic magics that could be quite fascinating, and then ... turn out to be not nearly so exciting in the execution as in the thought. i'd like to see cooper's Dark and Light explored--the nature of her multiple varieties of immortality, the power of arthur and what exactly he is. but what i really, really don't want to do is read the rest of her canon, because sometimes the bad was actually painful.

so it will probably never happen.

Comments

[phineasjones.livejournal.com]

this is probably some kind of sacrilege to tolkien fans but reading DiR reminded me of reading the hobbit. rambly and pointless with hey! that's neat! as the only pull from scene to scene. i think this would feel less true if i knew more about arthurian legend. however, except when they were really slashy (which the last two books frequently are) or when they dealt with isolated, intense, emotional moments, they bored the stuffing out of me. the people i know who love them have been reading them since childhood - same with the hobbit. i think that makes a big difference.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

oh, totally. tolkien was one of the people i meant with that last paragraph, but to a lesser extent.