Tag / readalong

by booksoverlookedblog

Tithe 13: Changing Lanes

It turns out that Kaye and I have a lot in common, apart from our shared name. For starters, she’s a terrible driver.

Kaye and Roiben go to see the Seelie Queen, thinking that Nephamael and Corny will be with her. To get there, Kaye “borrows” Corny’s car (with the keys conveniently hidden under the visor) and drives for the first time. At first she can’t figure out how to make the car go forward. Once she does hit the road, she’s scared to drive on the highway, has no idea how to merge, and can’t manage to park the car in just one space.

I think this, more than anything, takes me back to my teenage years. At least Kaye does much better her first time on the highway than I did.

Let me put it this way: I got pulled over for going too slow. Yeah, that’s a real thing that can happen.

Apart from that, the main similarity I saw between myself and Kaye was how she deals with her grief. This chapter is a whirlwind of emotion. She has to deal with Janet’s death (which she feels guilty for) at the beginning. When they reach the Seelie Court, she has to see Roiben admit that he loves the Seelie Queen, even if he no longer wants to be with her. There’s also anxiety when they learn that Corny and Nephamael aren’t with the Seelie Court, and Nephamael could have already killed his new “toy”.

But the emotional blow that intrigues me the most is Kaye seeing herself. Or, rather, the girl whose life she stole. As a changeling, she was given to her human mother, and the real Kaye stayed with the faeries. The human Kaye still looks like a child, even though the swap was made years ago. Pixie Kaye has no idea what to do with this, and finally runs out of the Court and waits for Roiben to meet with her.

This is one of the most compelling moments in the book for me. How do you face someone whose life you stole, even if you had no say in the matter? It doesn’t go beyond this in Tithe, but in the sequel, Ironside, Kaye has to return the stolen child to her mother.

There’s a lot that happens in this chapter, and Kaye can’t really get a grip on her emotions. Totally understandable, considering everything that’s on her mind. Her sadness and anxiety turn to anger, that she takes out on both Roiben, and Corny’s car. Her focus is only on getting Corny back, saying that he may very well be dead if they don’t get a move on. Which is true, but she also uses this as a distraction so she doesn’t have to think about everything else going on. If finding Corny takes priority, she can postpone figuring out her feelings and delay her grief.

What I noticed about the book now that I didn’t pick up on years ago was how disconnected this new quest feels from the first. For a book named Tithe, I expected the titular event to be the climax, not a second inciting incident. When Kaye escapes, we’re sent on almost a whole new journey. We’ve got a different villain and different goal. The latter part of the story feels like an entirely different book from the first one.

To me, it’s not as intriguing as the first part, either. What drew me in to Tithe in the first place was the urban fantasy aspect. It was the mystery of Kaye’s fae friends and the enigmatic Roiben, and Kaye learning what it means to be a faerie.My favorite elements of the story are the magical world bleeding into the real, non-magical one, with the protagonist belonging fully to neither. But towards the end, that idea is abandoned, with the story taking place almost entirely in the magical realm. It becomes a gender-swapped “save the princess” story. I’m not saying that Tithe‘s new direction is going to be a bad one, but I do expect the climax to be pretty big to beat “human sacrifice escaping from fae ritual”.

by booksoverlookedblog

Tithe 6: Put A Spell On You

I’ve always liked etymology, but I’ve never studied it in any kind of capacity. I wish I knew a bit more about it now, because of the various spellings of the word “faerie”. Tithe was the first time I encountered the word spelled as such, and I assumed that it was the British spelling, never mind that the author is American. Thanks to this book it became my preferred spelling, because “fairy” felt a bit childish to me. But I always referred to the race of supernatural beings as “fae”, while Holly Black uses “fey”. I had to get to the bottom of this spelling mystery.

A quick Google search led me to this Wikipedia page which states that “fairy/faerie” comes from the Old French word “faierie”, a modification of the word “faie”. I was a little surprised; I had thought the word would be Gaelic in origin, considering how much I associate fae with Ireland. It seems that either spelling of “faerie” would work, though I have a harder time seeing how you would get “fey” out of “faie”.

If the previous paragraphs were being read out loud to you, I apologize for any confusion.

This is my long-winded way of saying I’ll be using the spelling “faerie” and “fae”, no matter how they’re spelled in the book. But it doesn’t really answer my question as to why Corny would spell “faerie” with the e, rather than the more commonly known “fairy” spelling when they try to Google it. I know some people hate search engine montages in their fiction, and it’s totally understandable. It’s lazy writing, and half the time the author doesn’t know how the internet actually works.

But if I suddenly found out I was a non-human, the first thing I would do would be to Google exactly what it meant to be a faerie. Kaye and Corny don’t find out a lot of useful information. Rather, trivia, which Corny finds amusing, but it’s not helpful. But there’s one other thing about this scene that hits me right in the nostalgia.

‘Can I use your phone?’

He nodded. ‘Do it now. You can’t use it while I’m signed on. We only have the one line.’

Land lines. Getting your slow internet through your phone line. When Tithe came out, my family had recently switched from AOL to EarthLink. Remember EarthLink? For the first time in our house, we could use the internet and be on the phone at the same time. It was life changing.

Eventually, Kaye remembers the kelpie that she summoned to help Roiben, and wonders if it can help her as well. Here the internet does come in handy and gives them (and the reader) some information about how dangerous it is. In short, the horse-shaped kelpie will try to lure riders on to its back, then drown and eat them. The kelpie is also one of the fae I knew about prior to reading this book, because it was a rather memorable entry in J.K. Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them book.

When Kaye and Corny do meet the kelpie, it wants something in trade before teaching Kaye magic. Kaye isn’t sure what it would want, but Corny is more open to the idea of actually drowning people.

‘Well,’ he said after a moment’s hesitation, ‘actually, there are a whole lot of people I wouldn’t mind feeding to that thing.’

She laughed.

‘No, really,’ he said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that there are a whole lot of people I wouldn’t mind seeing drowned. Really. I think that we should go for it.’

Kaye looked up at him. He didn’t look particularly fazed by what he’d just proposed.

This is more in line with Corny’s introduction, where he imagines himself as a murderous psychopath. Corny has a lot of anger, he wants to be bad. But he’s never gone for it. Early on, he even acknowledges that this game of him pretending to be a dangerous man is getting boring, and worse, pathetic. With the kelpie, he finally sees an opportunity – and a reason – to be that person. Fortunately, Kaye won’t let him.

After reading that conversation, I began to wonder if there was anyone I’d lead to a kelpie. I know a lot of people that I’d rather not see again, but very few I would think deserve to get eaten by a demonic water horse. What disturbed me most, though, was when I realized there were maybe two people on that list that I’d be okay with getting eaten. And from there, I had to ask myself: of those two people, would I be able to lead them to the water’s edge?

If I could, it wouldn’t be as easily as Corny could.

Kaye at least finds something the kelpie will like: the broken carousel horse she found early in the book. I’m a fan of Chekov’s guns, and I was glad to see that the horse was used for more than just hinting at Kaye’s true nature. The car ride to pick it up is harrowing for her, however. With her glamour off, all of Kaye’s senses are enhanced, as is her sensitivity to iron. While she’s in the car, the metal she’s surrounded by burns her lungs and makes her sick.

One thing that can be difficult for a writer to get across to a reader is an experience that the reader will never be able to have. Sorry, guys, we’ll never be able to smell the chemicals in our soda or have the crazy vision of a hawk. But we do all know what it’s like to be queasy and puke your guts out.

Holly Black also makes sure that we know what holding magic in your hand feels like, by using another sensation that we’ve all felt before.

Kaye cupped her hand and imagined the air in her hand thickening and shimmering with energy. After a moment, she looked up in surprise. ‘It feels like when your hand falls asleep and then you move it. Prickly, like you said, like little shocks of energy shooting through it. It hurts a little.’

Admit it: you just tried to gather energy in your hand.

No? Just me? Okay.

by booksoverlookedblog

Tithe 3: YA Parenting Tips

After a run-in with magic and a literal faerie knight, Kaye’s life returns to the mundane. For the most part, anyway. The majority of this chapter gives us a snapshot of what Kaye’s life looks like now that she’s in New Jersey. There’s only a few hints of otherworldly fae in this chapter at all. The first comes at the beginning of the chapter, when Kaye dreams of the old faerie friends that visited her as a child. It’s a weird and eerie scene, and I’m still not sure what some of the images in it are supposed to represent. But, it’s a dream, and doesn’t have to make sense.

The only other instance of magic is when Kaye receives a note from her old friends, delivered via acorn. The note informs her that one of her fae friends is “gone” and that “everything is danger”.

One thing I realized I liked about this book as that Kaye never really stopped believing in her so-called imaginary friends, Spike, Lutie, and Gristle. When she comes back to New Jersey, she still looks for them and wants them to come see her. Janet has accused Kaye of making up stories about them, saying they weren’t real, but Kaye never says they were fictional. This saves us a lot of time: she doesn’t need to be convinced they are real so that she can start the adventure. There’s no point in denying them, since the reader already knows that this is a fantasy story that will involve faeries at some point.

Throughout the day, Kaye contemplates the note, but mostly ends up daydreaming about Roiben. This is something I would normally give a female protagonist crap for, but I was a sixteen-year-old girl once, doing the same kind of thing. Coming home giddy after finding common ground with a boy and quickly developing crushes were just part of my repertoire of tricks. But I think Kaye is balanced out better than other lovestruck teenage girls in YA novels. Her romance with Roiben is the B-plot of the book, and there’s enough pushing her – finding out what happened to her friend Gristle, for instance – that her story’s interesting, and not all about the boy. So I’ll allow some daydreaming on her part.

And though Kaye acts like a teenager, so does her mother. This is a trend I’ve noticed in YA novels: the majority of the time, the protagonist’s parents are totally incompetent, out of the picture or distant, if they even bother appearing in the story at all.

I paused while writing this to take a look at the YA and middle-grade novels sitting on my bookshelves and think about the protagonists’ parents in each one. In several of them, the parents are dead or mysteriously absent throughout. In fact, the only novel I could find (though I’m sure there are others) which heavily featured parents was The Book Thief, where Liesel’s strong bond with Hans is one of the book’s main themes.

Kaye’s father is absent, but Kaye’s mom doesn’t really fit any of the aforementioned categories. She loves her daughter and stays in her life, but she’s also selfish and immature. She’s been drunk or drinking in all her appearances so far, and still dreams of the day she “makes it” as a musician. She even looks down on old friends who have gone “respectable” by starting a business of their own and leaving music. In some ways, she’s more childish than her teenage daughter. That said, I do like her relationship with Kaye. She obviously cares for her daughter, even if she doesn’t understand just how to take care of her.

I only noticed this trend after a friend (who is also a mom and a YA author) asked just why so many parents are so bad at taking care of the protagonists. That is, if they haven’t died horribly before story begins. The best answer I could come up with is that parents who are really paying attention to their kids lives are not going to let them go off to magical danger zones so they can save the world.

Dead parents are a catalyst for adventure, neglectful parents allow the adventure to happen, and dedicated parents are obstacles.

So if you discover that your child is part of some world-saving prophecy, just leave ’em alone. They’ll be fine.

by booksoverlookedblog

Eragon 60: The End

This is it.

We made it, guys. We did it.

Nearly 500 pages and a couple unplanned hiatuses later, Eragon is finally finished.

I would normally call for a celebration at this point, but after the trials that Eragon and I both faced getting to the end of the story, I’m not sure a party isn’t what we need. No, the proper way to send off Eragon is with a stiff drink and quiet contemplation of what we’ve been through.

Or I could just review the final chapter like normal, I guess.

Eragon has finally killed Durza, and the Shade’s memories and mind flow into his. He struggles to separate himself from Durza, “weakly at first, and then more strongly”. This being the last chapter, I promise not to fuss too much about the adverb abuse in that sentence. Instead, I’ll just say this: ick.

Eragon then receives a telepathic message from “The Mourning Sage” or “the Cripple Who Is Whole”, but this mysterious person never gives Eragon his actual name, just his titles. It bugs me a little bit. Why keep your name a secret?

It’s Oromis, by the way. His name is Oromis. Was that hard?

Oromis tells Eragon that he and Saphira need to travel to the elven land, Ellesméra, and promises him answers to all Eragon’s questions. Then he instructs Eragon to stay quiet about talking with him. Which again, I have to ask, why?

I don’t really remember how the group decides to bring Eragon to Ellesméra in the second book, but if Eragon’s not allowed to talk about Oromis, it could be really awkward.

“Let’s go to the elves!”
“Eragon, why are you suddenly insistent on going to the elves?”
“You know…dragon…stuff…”

At this point Eragon knows almost nothing about Oromis or Ellesméra. I’m sure one of his companions would love to help him out and give him more information, but he’s supposed to keep it secret.

Eragon’s reunion with Saphira after the battle did make me smile, but for the most part, this chapter is just a lot of talking heads. Arya, Saphira, and Murtagh explain the results of the battle, but no one has any real emotion. Arya looks sad again, but that’s about it.

Yeah, this is what I want at the end of my exciting action-adventure story. Bland summaries of the cool stuff we didn’t get to see. The book doesn’t even end on a satisfying note. Just having it end after Eragon kills Durza would be great. You could have a heartwarming reunion with his friends, they sum up the battle, and then look hopefully towards the future together. But we get the introduction of another character, with Eragon pledging to go see this person we know nothing about.

But for sixty chapters, I’ve mocked, ridiculed, and occasionally yelled at this book. But I want to give Eragon and its author, Christopher Paolini, some credit. It really wasn’t all bad; I think there are very few books that are 100% terrible. I can see how it would appeal to teenage fantasy lovers, like it did to me so many years ago.

There are things that Paolini did well over the course of the story, and I want to acknowledge that. First, he put a huge amount of effort into worldbuilding and lore, and it paid off. Sometimes it did get a bit bloated, but it also made me seriously consider finishing reading the series. I still want to know what the Vault of Souls is!

Paolini’s descriptions, particularly of flying, were great as well. Like the lore, sometimes it could drag on for too long, but it was never difficult to visualize the various settings. A lot of the action sequences were clear and easy to follow, and had I not read them before, would probably be pretty exciting.

The storyline was formulaic, but even a generic plot can be saved by great characters. This is the real problem with Eragon: most of the characters have no personality of their own, and rarely stand out.

To be totally honest, this novel is an achievement for a teenage writer, and was way better than anything I could have come up with at that age. And it was perfect for me as a fifteen-year-old reader, who loved escaping to a world of dragons and magic.

You know, the last Eragon book came out at least five years ago. I wonder what Paolini’s working on now…

by booksoverlookedblog

Eragon 58-59: They Did Something Smart!

I need to take a moment to applaud both our heroes and our villains for doing something smart for a change. The Varden discovers that Urgals are planning to attack their stronghold by coming up from the tunnels that run under the mountain. They respond with some strategic planning, including collapsing several tunnels so they can control where the Urgals will come out.

Even Eragon is relatable. Unlike the other fights in the book, this is the first battle that he has forewarning about. He’s filled with dread and apprehension about the upcoming fight, as most of us would be. He’s still a little dumb though, as when he’s presented with armor for Saphira, he can’t figure out that it’s not meant for a human.

Most of this chapter is about building tension for the upcoming battle, but drags out too long. The book is pretty formulaic, and doesn’t divert much from high fantasy tropes. We already know that Eragon and Saphira are going to come out on top, and that the characters that we care about are more likely than not to be fine. This isn’t A Song of Ice and Fire. Our main characters aren’t going to die, and most likely, neither will anyone we’ve just met. Maybe one or two named characters will get killed to show that the Urgals are dangerous, but not all of them. We also haven’t known these characters long enough to provoke a real emotional response if they were killed.

And then there’s this paragraph.

The men were silent, ironfisted. Their hair flowed loosely from under their helmets. Many warriors only had a sword and shield, but there were several ranks of spear- and pikemen. In the rear of the battalions, archers tested their bowstrings.

In the midst of paragraphs talking about battle preparation and how brave and stalwart the warriors are, there’s just one out-of-place sentence describing their hair. I assume that this is what Paolini pictured, and he wanted to reader to get the same image, but…it’s just so weird.

This trend of a single sentence throwing me off continues in the next chapter, when Arya announces the battle has begun “with a sorrowful expression”. Why does she look sad? She’s facing off against the people who tortured her for months. Shouldn’t she be angry, or determined to protect the Varden, or something?

That said, I actually caught myself getting sucked into this chapter. Battles are difficult to write. I appreciate that Paolini gives us details about the fight, rather than general statements like “there was a flurry of blows”. It’s also pretty easy to follow and visualize what’s going on. The only point when I was confused was during Eragon’s final confrontation with Durza. The Shade has the upper hand in their duel, and badly injuries Eragon’s back. Except they were facing each other, so I’m not really sure how his “sword smote heavily across Eragon’s back”. Perhaps an actual swordsman could explain this to me, but for now, I’m just confused.

The battle was still exciting to read, even if I knew how it ended. Arya breaks the giant star sapphire, Saphira breathes fire for the first time, and Eragon finally kills Durza. It was a satisfying climax to an otherwise unsatisfying book.

Even if there’s a scene where Eragon uses a giant slide to get from the dragonhold at the top of the mountain back to the battle. That will never not be silly.

by booksoverlookedblog

Eragon 54-55: Stupid is as Stupid Does

Okay, I just need to know–how did the Twins ever get to be part of the Varden?

Just read Orik’s, Eragon’s Dwarf friend, description of them:

Their talents lie in scheming and plotting for power–to everyone else’s detriment. Deynor, Ajihad’s predecessor, allowed them to join the Varden because he needed their support…you can’t oppose the Empire without spellcasters who can hold their own on the field of battle. They’re a nasty pair, but they do have their uses.

How. Can no one. Suspect them.

Everyone knows that they’re evil and sadistic. It’s spelled out right in front of them. And yet no one, no one, even thinks that these two are responsible for the Varden’s information being leaked to the Empire?

This is so frustrating to me, that I’m just going to go ahead and say it: maybe the Varden deserved to get betrayed for being that oblivious.

Apart from that gripe, most of this chapter is nothing but backstory and world building, but it’s at least more interesting than a lot of the stuff in the beginning of the book. Paolini put a lot of thought into what it would be like to have a civilization housed inside a mountain, so props for those details.

I do have to give him credit for what I thought was just a throw-away scene the first time I read Eragon, however.  A woman comes up to Eragon with a baby, saying that the child has no family and asks Eragon to bless her. After some thought, Eragon does so, blessing in the Ancient Language by saying, “Let luck and happiness follow you and may you be shielded from misfortune.”

Pretty good blessing, right? Well, it turns out, Eragon messed up the blessing, and in fact said, “may you be a shield from misfortune”. Being shielded from and being a shield are two very different things, and this “blessing” is really a curse that comes back in a big way in the second book.

I really love how poor grammar leads to a major plot point later on in the story.

The following chapter is blessedly short, where Eragon finds out that Angela and Solembum are with the Varden as well, for some reason. Angela explains that when she realized Eragon was a Dragon Rider, she decided to head to the Varden, because something big was about to happen. Eragon tells her his story since he last saw her, and she’s rather wary when he mentions Murtagh. Apparently, she knows who he is.

Wait, wasn’t his birth kept secret? I guess I can just wave it off as Angela being some kind of witch and knowing plot-related things.

They discuss the Shade, Durza, as well. But there’s something that caught my attention when Angela explains how Shades are created.

Ordinary sorcerers are just that, ordinary–neither better nor worse than the rest of us. They use their magical strength to control spirits and the spirits’ powers. Shades, however, relinquish that control in their search for greater power and allow their bodies to be controlled by spirits.

So…Eragon’s magic, and the magic of the other characters, comes from manipulating spirits? This is the first time spirits have ever been mentioned in this book. It turns out that they’re really freaking important! If they’re the base of magic in this world, and responsible for creating Eragon’s current antagonist, then why is this the first time we’re hearing about them at all?

Even in Eldest, we don’t have an opportunity to learn more about spirits. Eragon asks his new teacher, Oromis, for information about them, and Oromis refuses to tell him anything. I never finished Brisingr, but as far as I read, I don’t recall any more explanations as to what spirits are or how they fit in with the magic of this world.

Yes, this may be a high-fantasy story with dragons and magic, but I want explanations for that magic, dammit!

Angela also mentions something that someone should have done something about before. Explaining how she got into Tronjheim, she tells Eragon that the magic users in the Varden wanted her to join their “secret group”, which is controlled by the Twins.

Wait, what?

Okay, if there’s a secret group (a rebellion within a rebellion?) and they’ve done a good job of hiding it, it would make sense that neither Ajihad nor Orik know about it. Since Angela is largely here for shits’n’giggles and wants her presence to remain hidden, she wouldn’t have any reason to report it.

Eragon and Saphira are here to take refuge and owe the Varden their lives. Ajihad has told them their is a traitor in their midst. That there’s a secret mage group led by the Twins who everyone agrees are bad news is a giant red flag.

Eragon is too stupid to notice this, and asks whether the Twins question her, as they did him.

Then he asks about the architecture of Tronjheim. Not the secret mage group. For all his curiosity, he can’t be bothered to find out anything more about something that is actually interesting and has potentially huge ramifications.

Eragon better be glad he’s fictional, because I want to smack him for that one. I’ll just try to be satisfied knowing that willful ignorance here comes back to bite him in the ass.

by booksoverlookedblog

The Magician’s Nephew, Chap. 9: Uncle Andrew is “That Guy”

In this chapter we have the first appearance of Aslan, singing the world to life. We have the stars, a young sun, grass and trees…even after all these years, it’s still a magical moment. The thing that detracts from it most, however, is the characters. The children, the Cabby, and the horse all know that something important is happening, and that they are witnessing a rare and breath-taking event. Unfortunately, Uncle Andrew and Jadis can’t enjoy it, and they let everyone know.

The magic in Narnia is more powerful than Jadis’s own magic, but the real reason she can’t stand it is because she’s evil.  It doesn’t get any deeper than that. It’s disappointing, but I should have known to expect that by now.

I guess I just don’t appreciate it when children’s books treat kids like they’re idiots. Children are smarter than we give them credit for, I think; they can handle a little moral ambiguity. I remember reading books like The Giver and Tuck Everlasting when I was in elementary school. Books that dealt with pretty heavy themes–euthanasia, mortality, freedom–many of which would not necessarily be called “kid-friendly”. They didn’t always wrap things up in neat and tidy ways, and would leave me with questions. They challenged the way I usually thought (“Why does my teacher think that Winnie dying was a happy ending?”), and helped introduce us to new ideas. You see that the world doesn’t fit in nice, neat boxes, and those are the lessons–and the books–that make a real impact on you. It seems pretty obvious as I write this, considering how well I remember those books, and how much of The Magician’s Nephew I forgot over the years.

Don’t get me wrong–the Narnia books (at least the ones I’ve read) are part of a wonderful series that I hold close to my heart, and I’m really enjoying The Magician’s Nephew right now. But as an adult, I can now see flaws in the books that I overlooked before.

My favorite part of this chapter was probably when the animals came to life. They rose out of the ground, and Aslan selected two of each kind to be talking animals. Uncle Andrew, however, continues to ruin the birth of a new world by freaking out. He keeps trying to get Polly and Digory to use their rings to get out of Narnia and back to their world, leaving Jadis (and the cabby) behind in Narnia. Digory doesn’t want to leave, though, because he believes Aslan could help save his mother.

“Digory’s heart beat wildly; he knew something very solemn was going to be done. He had not forgotten about his Mother; but he knew jolly well that, even for her, he couldn’t interrupt a thing like this.”

Uncle Andrew could learn something from him.

by booksoverlookedblog

The Magician’s Nephew, Chap. 3: Pool Party

It took two chapters, but the adventure has finally begun. Digory takes two green rings, one for himself and one for Polly, puts on a yellow ring, and winds up in the “Other Place”. This is one of my favorite things in this book series: the Woods Between the Worlds. Even the name sounds magical.

Digory finds himself, not in Narnia, but in a lush forest. There are shallow pools of water every few feet, and the place is so quiet, it’s as though you can hear the trees growing. As enchanting as it sounds, though, the Woods Between the Worlds scared me as a child. Digory isn’t there long before he starts to forget who he is, or why he came here.  He finds Polly in a similar state, half-asleep, and she doesn’t recognize him. When they see that they’re both wearing yellow rings, their memories are jogged, and they remember who they are and what they’re supposed to be doing.

While I was still hoping that I’d find a magical world in the back of my closet as a child, this scene helped me be aware of all the risks that might entail. I obviously knew that I’d be charging into battle to fight against evil, but I didn’t think of all the obstacles that would come before that. If I ever traveled a magical world, I would have to bring a friend with me, in case I wound up in the Woods Between the Worlds. I also really hoped that friend would be a unicorn.

I love the idea of the Woods Between the Worlds, though. Each pool of water is an entrance to a different world, provided you have your magic ring on. The Woods seem to stretch on endlessly, with pools every few feet. There are so many worlds that the children would just be able to walk into, which is a dizzying thought. As they’re about to try one out, Polly suggests that Digory marks their own pool of water, so they can find their way back home.

I rather like Polly. She seems like the brighter of two, and maybe even the braver.

The Magician’s Nephew was the second-to-last book written in the Narnia series, which means that Lewis most likely hadn’t thought of the Woods Between the Worlds before then. It’s a bit of a shame, I think, because it’s too good of an idea to waste. With endless worlds you could literally jump into, you could spend a lifetime exploring in the Woods and never visit the same place twice. Hence why it’s so important for Digory to mark the pool that will take him and Polly home, when they’re ready. That’s another scary thought: losing your world, and trying for the rest of your life to find the right pool and get back home. Even though that sounds like it would make a great story, that was another childhood fear of mine. When I discovered a new world (because I knew it would happen, someday) I would also have to take precautions to get home. Because as much fun as exploring other worlds is, sometimes you just need to sleep in your own bed.

by booksoverlookedblog

The Magician’s Nephew, Chap. 2: Ethics Review Board

We’ve made it the second chapter, and we’re on the cusp of the true adventure. Digory’s the nephew, and we at last get to meet the Magician. His name is Uncle Andrew, and he’s as close to a mad scientist as the Narnia series gets. He’s got crazy, fly-away gray hair, everyone around him thinks he’s mad, and is, in fact, something of a genius. Before wardrobes and strange cupboards at school, Uncle Andrew figured out a way to send people to someplace…else. He doesn’t quite know what that other place is, but he’s more than willing to use Digory and Polly as his human guinea pigs.

Most of the second chapter is dedicated to Uncle Andrew explaining how he was able to make magic rings that could travel between the worlds. He received an ancient box from his godmother (who was said to actually have fairy blood), containing dust from Atlantis. After many years of study, learning everything he could about magic, he created several yellow and green rings. The yellow would send anyone who touched it to the “Other Place”, and the green ring would, in theory, bring them home again. Before Polly and Digory accidentally found their way into his study, Uncle Andrew had only tested the yellow rings on literal guinea pigs. They all vanished, but none of them returned. Unsuspecting Polly became his first human test subject, when she takes a yellow ring, and disappears from the study, and the universe altogether.

I remember not liking this chapter very much. To me, it cemented Uncle Andrew as a villain in the story (and what nine-year-old likes villains?), and the attention was all on him. When I read it now, I really enjoyed it. In fact, I wanted more.

‘Meanwhile,’ continued Uncle Andrew, ‘I was learning a good deal in other ways (it wouldn’t be proper to explain them to a child) about Magic in general. [. . .] I had to get to know some–well, some devilish queer people, and go through some very disagreeable experiences.’

Okay, so we’re in London, in a world without magic. Uncle Andrew has found a way to use magic to send people to other worlds, and it’s suggested that the way he learned things was not on the up-and-up. Tell me that backstory doesn’t intrigue you. Who are these people, what are these disagreeable experiences? I want to know!  C.S. Lewis should have just skipped writing The Horse and His Boy and given us Uncle Andrew’s story instead.
There’s no room for moral ambiguity in the Narnia series, though, so he wouldn’t be an acceptable Lewis protagonist. And it’s made very clear that even though Uncle Andrew is, in fact, “beastly” for sending Polly to another world without telling her what she’s getting into.

This is exactly the reason why we have ethics review boards. Sure, they might stop you from doing some of the really fun social experiments, but at least you won’t wind up in a different universe when you’re filling out questionnaires with Lickert scales.

Wait, is there actually an experiment out there that can send me to a magical world? SIGN ME UP!

Unless you’re sending me to Westeros.