Fandom Snowflake Challenge, Day 13
Fandom Snowflake details here
Day 13: In your own space, share a favorite piece of original canon (a TV episode, a song, a favourite interview, a book) and explain why you love it so much. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.
I got stuck partway through the five books of The Dark is Rising sequence the first time I read it. I don't know why. It happened to me with Narnia, too (though not with L'Engle's Wrinkle in Time sequence). (I have now named the three things that most influenced me as a kid in terms of reading and writing.)
I did get stuck, though, and I put them away and came back to them not that much later, because I was out of things to read and desperate, and this time, I fell in love, wholly and completely. I reread them at least once a year, sometimes more, and the author's note in my Master's thesis contains the following quote from Silver on the Tree:
“…The responsibility and the hope and the promise are in your hands - your hands and the hands of the children of all men on this earth. The future cannot blame the present, just as the present cannot blame the past. The hope is always here, always alive, but only your fierce caring can fan it into the fire to warm the world….
…Now especially since man has the strength to destroy the world, it is the responsibility of man to keep it alive, in all its beauty and marvellous joy….
…And the world will still be imperfect, because men are imperfect. Good men will still be killed by bad, or sometimes by other good men, and there will still be pain and disease and famine, anger and hate. But if you work and care and are watchful…then in the long run the worse will never, ever triumph over the better. And the gifts put into some men, that shine as bright as Eirias the sword, shall light the dark corners of life for all the rest, in so brave a world.”
…“We’ll try,” Simon said. “We’ll try our best.”
Merriman gave him a quick startling grin. “Nobody can promise more than that,” he said.
That's pretty much my worldview, summed up more eloquently than I could ever hope. And the books are all about that. They're not always fair - they're frequently not fair at all. They give you decent people that come to do bad things, and decent people that astound you with their capacity for good. They give you Will Stanton and his coming of age, and his destiny to forever be present but apart. They give you Bran Davies and John Rowlands and choices, with all the attendant freedom and responsibility and joy and pain. They give you Merriman Lyon, wild and fierce and avuncular, all at the same time. And they give you Simon, Jane, and Barney Drew, caught up in something they only half understand, and trying their best.
Too, the other two extremely important authors to me as a kid were C.S. Lewis and Madeleine L'Engle. Lewis is practically allegory. L'Engle has more flexibility, but it still very Christianity-oriented. Cooper... isn't - is, in fact, humanist, for lack of a better word, and made for a useful counterpoint. I reread all three authors continually, from elementary school through to college and beyond. For a kid growing up with parents of two faiths, in which that diversity was a source of conflict when it came to dealings with one side of the family, having Cooper in the triad gave a valuable and important perspective, and helped me negotiate my own path and make up my own mind.
They are gorgeous reads, apart from any thing else, and well worth your time. Cooper writes compelling storylines, pulls in Arthurian legend beautifully while making it her own, and expresses place and sensation incredibly well.
If you haven't read the sequence, please, please put it on your list.
Day 13: In your own space, share a favorite piece of original canon (a TV episode, a song, a favourite interview, a book) and explain why you love it so much. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.
I got stuck partway through the five books of The Dark is Rising sequence the first time I read it. I don't know why. It happened to me with Narnia, too (though not with L'Engle's Wrinkle in Time sequence). (I have now named the three things that most influenced me as a kid in terms of reading and writing.)
I did get stuck, though, and I put them away and came back to them not that much later, because I was out of things to read and desperate, and this time, I fell in love, wholly and completely. I reread them at least once a year, sometimes more, and the author's note in my Master's thesis contains the following quote from Silver on the Tree:
“…The responsibility and the hope and the promise are in your hands - your hands and the hands of the children of all men on this earth. The future cannot blame the present, just as the present cannot blame the past. The hope is always here, always alive, but only your fierce caring can fan it into the fire to warm the world….
…Now especially since man has the strength to destroy the world, it is the responsibility of man to keep it alive, in all its beauty and marvellous joy….
…And the world will still be imperfect, because men are imperfect. Good men will still be killed by bad, or sometimes by other good men, and there will still be pain and disease and famine, anger and hate. But if you work and care and are watchful…then in the long run the worse will never, ever triumph over the better. And the gifts put into some men, that shine as bright as Eirias the sword, shall light the dark corners of life for all the rest, in so brave a world.”
…“We’ll try,” Simon said. “We’ll try our best.”
Merriman gave him a quick startling grin. “Nobody can promise more than that,” he said.
That's pretty much my worldview, summed up more eloquently than I could ever hope. And the books are all about that. They're not always fair - they're frequently not fair at all. They give you decent people that come to do bad things, and decent people that astound you with their capacity for good. They give you Will Stanton and his coming of age, and his destiny to forever be present but apart. They give you Bran Davies and John Rowlands and choices, with all the attendant freedom and responsibility and joy and pain. They give you Merriman Lyon, wild and fierce and avuncular, all at the same time. And they give you Simon, Jane, and Barney Drew, caught up in something they only half understand, and trying their best.
Too, the other two extremely important authors to me as a kid were C.S. Lewis and Madeleine L'Engle. Lewis is practically allegory. L'Engle has more flexibility, but it still very Christianity-oriented. Cooper... isn't - is, in fact, humanist, for lack of a better word, and made for a useful counterpoint. I reread all three authors continually, from elementary school through to college and beyond. For a kid growing up with parents of two faiths, in which that diversity was a source of conflict when it came to dealings with one side of the family, having Cooper in the triad gave a valuable and important perspective, and helped me negotiate my own path and make up my own mind.
They are gorgeous reads, apart from any thing else, and well worth your time. Cooper writes compelling storylines, pulls in Arthurian legend beautifully while making it her own, and expresses place and sensation incredibly well.
If you haven't read the sequence, please, please put it on your list.