The recent The Dark is Rising readalong on Twitter was hands down one of my favourite collective reading experiences. It couldn’t have been a more perfect example of how art inspires art, how creativity begets creativity. And that fuzzy feeling you get when you discover a whole army of like-minded people just can’t be beaten.
I was one of the readers discovering the books for the first time.
I did read Over Sea Under Stone first, back in mid-December, and loved my trip to the fictional Cornish village of Trewissick, and the opportunity to meander around the Grey House. A relatively simple story of three children who discover an Arthurian map in the labyrinthine depths of their holiday house, I so enjoyed Cooper’s ability to conjure place, atmosphere and the breathtaking excitement of being on an ‘adventure’. There’s also a strong sense of threat throughout (Cooper doesn’t hold back on the scares, which I always admire in good children’s writing) and Barney, Jane and Simon quickly discover that they’re not the only ones searching for the prize, and that the forces against them might be darker and less human than they imagined.
Over Sea Under Stone also introduces Great-Uncle Merry. Pay attention to him. He’s important. Not that you can easily gloss over him, of course. I loved this introduction:
‘Nobody knew very much about Great-Uncle Merry, and nobody ever quite dared to ask. He did not look in the least like his name… In his grim brown face the nose curved fiercely, like a bent bow, and the eyes were deep-set and dark. How old he was, nobody knew. ‘Old as the hills,’ Father said, and they felt, deep down, that this was probably right. There was something about Great-Uncle Merry that was like the hills, or the sea, or the sky; something ancient, but without age or end.’
I can see why more people connect with the second book, The Dark is Rising, as it really is the kind of book that creeps under your skin and pulls you into its world. There is a clever connection between the books but you really don’t need to have read one to enjoy the other, nor does the order in which you read them matter particularly, I’d have thought.
The Dark is Rising takes us to the Home Counties – Buckinghamshire to be more specific – moving between the Thames Valley and the Chiltern Hills. The book opens on Midwinter’s Eve, with Will waiting for his 11th birthday to begin. There’s an unsettling sense of something strange and evil massing outside his cosy family home and, although Will doesn’t know it yet, the gathering forces will pull him into a life-changing adventure in which he will discover that he is one of the Old Ones and must learn to harness their ancient power. What follows is a story of awakening, history, magic, knowledge and the awesome force of the natural world.
TDIR is such a wonderfully primal book. I so love stories, and writing in general, that plants its roots so deeply in the natural world. Cooper weaves a fabulous extended pathetic fallacy out of the weather so that it comes to feel like a character in its own right. And the gathering forest sentinels outside Will’s front door become powerful symbols of place and time. There’s a strong sense that the natural world acts as a gateway between time present, past and future, via pathways – or old ways – that can still be walked by those with instinct or intuition enough to know where their feet stand.
I think that idea of instinct or trusting to one’s senses is one of the things that makes the book resonate so well with readers today. In a world where so many people feel a sense of disconnection between their lives and nature, where screens take us out of a place where we can indulge in what it means to smell, touch and fully engage with the world around us, it’s so reassuring to feel like the natural world can still exert such a big influence on our lives. Of course, that ended up being truer for some than others when England saw some unusual (these days, anyway) December snow both before and after Christmas, and some American readers, including Cooper herself, were affected by the snow bomb cyclone.
It’s probably not a coincidence either that a book about dark forces should reassert itself in such a public way at the end of a particularly gloomy year and at a time when many people feel there are dark forces at work in the wider world. Funny how reviled politicians always seem to have shameful environmental policies too – that link between evil and the destruction of the natural world is a strong one.
If you’re thinking of reading TDIR, I’d say do it. I suspect I’ll become one of the many who re-read it around Midwinter each year.
And if you haven’t yet caught up on the Twitter discussion, it’s well worth a look using the hashtag #TheDarkIsReading (or #TheArtIsRising). Some admirably in-depth discussion of core themes, given the character limits, excellent photography, and some atmospheric and inspirational original artwork in a huge variety of mediums. @EmmaJGrey collected together some particularly good pieces of thematic art and for original works check out @RobinsonKH, @claireddean, @marlinhoister and @rudivanetteger.
Plus – SUSAN COOPER REPLIED! Which I’m still smiling about.
What a way to begin a new reading year.
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