(I Wish I Was in) The Land of the Silver Apples
... not only are 'old times there not forgotten', but NOTHING is forgotten. Nothing in the mythic/legend line, at least. I don't really wish I were in the land of silver apples, but I got hit by the first really nasty day of this month of headache hell yesterday, and I don't think it's going to be as much fun as I'd planned on having somehow. Feeling okay but delicate atm, and want to start writing up some of the other January books read just in case I have to disappear for a while. (I wasn't expecting post-flu like symptoms of the 'I'm the most boring person alive and I'll never say or do anything interesting ever, ever again" invalid type before the rest of the 'fluish ones!)
Right, the book: it's Nancy Farmer's The Land of the Silver Apples, sequel to The Sea of Trolls, which![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dorianegray lent me and I loved. Sea of Trolls 'did' Norse mythology in 8th century Britain-and-beyond, and did it really well. I'm not so sure I can be as unequivocally positive about The Land of the Silver Apples, though there's certainly a lot in it to love - which might have been part of the problem: sometimes I felt it was too rich a mythic feast, and sometimes I felt the characterization was skimped on to make room for all the stuff (to use Eliot's literary term).
Jack and Lucy are back home in their village, where Jack is apprenticed to the Bard and Lucy is busy being a spoiled brat of the first order. The opening couple of chapters weren't that much fun, as there was so much readerly frustration in watching Jack's father let Lucy's spoiled brattery ruin a really important ceremony, and in Jack's begrudging response to the gratitude of Pega, a slave girl he frees. But the village setting was great - the mutually respectful and even appreciative attitudes of the Bard and Brother Aiden a wonderful change from the usual Christian-Old Ways interaction, and the depth to the ceremonies and routines of life there very appealing. Lucy's behaviour soon becomes more disturbing, however, and things in the village are clearly very much out of balance. Things picked up in some ways once Jack, his father, Pega, the Bard and Brother Aiden set off to try to rescue the kidnapped Lucy, but in other ways I found it less satisfying. Pega's a good example of the dissatisfaction I found: a slave girl with a large birthmark on her face, she's been treated badly even by slave standards, as nobody wants her around a pregnant wife or young children. And she's about as emotionally scarred as you'd imagine in the beginning. Her irritating gratitude (irritating to Jack, that is) is understandable, but rather than a slow and intermittent progress towards self-belief and trust, she seems to become almost immediately puppy like ("'Can I do farseeing too?'", Pega chirped') and is quite bolshie towards Thorgil, which was unlikely at best.
I was reading the opening chapters on the way to Bristol, and the questing ones on the trip to York withsteepholm. It's quite possible that I became a little irritating myself, with my keeping a sort of running list - out loud - of the mythic/legendary elements as they were added: hobgoblins, changelings, elves (elves as the angels who wouldn't choose sides in the battle between God and Lucifer), wise women, druids, far-seeing, people who could understand birds, will-o-the-wisps, the hollow lands, kelpies, Picts, the Forest Lord (AKA the green man), glamours.... and I'm bound to have forgotten lots. Oh yes - and there were evil monks and lovely, gentle monks both, usurping lords and a descendant of Lancelot too. If that weren't enough, I started getting resonances of Narnia, the Prydain Chronicles and then The Perilous Gard, none of which I kept to myself . (Me: Oh, it's all The Perilous Gard, with the beings who've lived in the Hollow Lands for centuries! steepholm: Is there a teind too? Me [5 minutes later]: Hey - there IS a tithe to hell now!) (And it was quite a literal tithe to Hell - not usually done quite that way, but effective!)
I suppose in a mix like that it's unsurprising that characterization suffered a bit, though I still think it's a pity, as Farmer can definitely do good characters and mythology together. But a few of them were fine, while others were just not good at all - one character was downright channeling Gurgi one minute, being dashing but untrustworthy the next, and heroic and a bit befuddled the one after. And I really could not buy the Queen of the elves shrieking like a particularly silly teen girl saving a place at lunch ("'Nimue!" shrieked the queen. "Nimue! Come sit with us. This is going to be such fun!"') But some characters stayed consistent and with a bit of depth, especially the Bard , Father Severus and Brother Aiden, for some reason. And there were plenty of laughs (I especially enjoyed Ethne - the elf who chooses to regain her soul - and her silly glee at suffering and her need for 'talks' about pride from Father Severus) as well as moments that were genuinely moving.
The ending - well, had I not immediately checked and discovered that there is another book on the way, I'd have found it annoyingly unresolved: Jack and many of his companions are heading back to the village, without a clear idea of a future life for several. It won't be a major spoiler, I think, to say that Thorgil is one of those companions, and the idea of the shield maiden in a British village is one of the threads that will need some skillful weaving. For all I've made quite a few criticisms, this was still one of the most interesting books I've read in a while, and if the third combines the best of the first two books, it'll be just amazing.
Right, the book: it's Nancy Farmer's The Land of the Silver Apples, sequel to The Sea of Trolls, which
dorianegray lent me and I loved. Sea of Trolls 'did' Norse mythology in 8th century Britain-and-beyond, and did it really well. I'm not so sure I can be as unequivocally positive about The Land of the Silver Apples, though there's certainly a lot in it to love - which might have been part of the problem: sometimes I felt it was too rich a mythic feast, and sometimes I felt the characterization was skimped on to make room for all the stuff (to use Eliot's literary term). Jack and Lucy are back home in their village, where Jack is apprenticed to the Bard and Lucy is busy being a spoiled brat of the first order. The opening couple of chapters weren't that much fun, as there was so much readerly frustration in watching Jack's father let Lucy's spoiled brattery ruin a really important ceremony, and in Jack's begrudging response to the gratitude of Pega, a slave girl he frees. But the village setting was great - the mutually respectful and even appreciative attitudes of the Bard and Brother Aiden a wonderful change from the usual Christian-Old Ways interaction, and the depth to the ceremonies and routines of life there very appealing. Lucy's behaviour soon becomes more disturbing, however, and things in the village are clearly very much out of balance. Things picked up in some ways once Jack, his father, Pega, the Bard and Brother Aiden set off to try to rescue the kidnapped Lucy, but in other ways I found it less satisfying. Pega's a good example of the dissatisfaction I found: a slave girl with a large birthmark on her face, she's been treated badly even by slave standards, as nobody wants her around a pregnant wife or young children. And she's about as emotionally scarred as you'd imagine in the beginning. Her irritating gratitude (irritating to Jack, that is) is understandable, but rather than a slow and intermittent progress towards self-belief and trust, she seems to become almost immediately puppy like ("'Can I do farseeing too?'", Pega chirped') and is quite bolshie towards Thorgil, which was unlikely at best.
I was reading the opening chapters on the way to Bristol, and the questing ones on the trip to York with
steepholm. It's quite possible that I became a little irritating myself, with my keeping a sort of running list - out loud - of the mythic/legendary elements as they were added: hobgoblins, changelings, elves (elves as the angels who wouldn't choose sides in the battle between God and Lucifer), wise women, druids, far-seeing, people who could understand birds, will-o-the-wisps, the hollow lands, kelpies, Picts, the Forest Lord (AKA the green man), glamours.... and I'm bound to have forgotten lots. Oh yes - and there were evil monks and lovely, gentle monks both, usurping lords and a descendant of Lancelot too. If that weren't enough, I started getting resonances of Narnia, the Prydain Chronicles and then The Perilous Gard, none of which I kept to myself . (Me: Oh, it's all The Perilous Gard, with the beings who've lived in the Hollow Lands for centuries! steepholm: Is there a teind too? Me [5 minutes later]: Hey - there IS a tithe to hell now!) (And it was quite a literal tithe to Hell - not usually done quite that way, but effective!)I suppose in a mix like that it's unsurprising that characterization suffered a bit, though I still think it's a pity, as Farmer can definitely do good characters and mythology together. But a few of them were fine, while others were just not good at all - one character was downright channeling Gurgi one minute, being dashing but untrustworthy the next, and heroic and a bit befuddled the one after. And I really could not buy the Queen of the elves shrieking like a particularly silly teen girl saving a place at lunch ("'Nimue!" shrieked the queen. "Nimue! Come sit with us. This is going to be such fun!"') But some characters stayed consistent and with a bit of depth, especially the Bard , Father Severus and Brother Aiden, for some reason. And there were plenty of laughs (I especially enjoyed Ethne - the elf who chooses to regain her soul - and her silly glee at suffering and her need for 'talks' about pride from Father Severus) as well as moments that were genuinely moving.
The ending - well, had I not immediately checked and discovered that there is another book on the way, I'd have found it annoyingly unresolved: Jack and many of his companions are heading back to the village, without a clear idea of a future life for several. It won't be a major spoiler, I think, to say that Thorgil is one of those companions, and the idea of the shield maiden in a British village is one of the threads that will need some skillful weaving. For all I've made quite a few criticisms, this was still one of the most interesting books I've read in a while, and if the third combines the best of the first two books, it'll be just amazing.