Chronicles of Prydain Series

[lunabee34]

thelastgoodname and I are discussing the five books in The Chronicles of Prydain series by Lloyd Alexander. She posted on the third book, The Castle of Llyr here: http://www.livejournal.com/users/thelastgoodname/36905.html

On to book four, Taran Wanderer SPOILERS BENEATH THE CUT

Taran Wanderer

Favorite quotes:

Dallben Once the apple is ripe no man can turn it back to a greening.

Orddu Believe what you like. You'll be surprised how comforting it is.

Taran to Alarca about her son Amren who died at the hands of raiders Your son is a hero. She replies My son is slain.

Smoit When you come to the meat of it, a king's strength lies in the will of those he rules.

Smoit My body and bones, I'd rather see a wise pig-keeper on my throne than a blood prince who's a fool.

Gurgi Froggies are froggies, but friends are friends.

Annlaw It will not be lost. Indeed, nothing ever is, but comes back in one shape or another.


1. The overwhelming message of this installment appears to be that nobility has nothing to do with birth. Every character Taran encounters drives this point home.

2. I really adored all the time Taran spent in the Free Commots. They are a meritocracy and bloodlines mean next to nothing beside skill and honest labor. Although the people Taran interacts with outside the Commots also push forward that message (for instance, Smoit's recognition of Taran's wisdom), the Commots are a literalization of the idea. You are as good as what you do with your hands and your mind and worth doesn't depend on familial lineage.

3. Gurgi on the bull! Wheeeeeeeeee!

4. Nice moment when Taran's new sword, the one that's not so pretty but that he has made with his own hands breaks his old sword.

5. I thought the moments when Taran could see himself in young Llassar were particularly well done. He becomes more and more self-aware as the series progresses, and I think his ability to look at Llassar with affection as well as sorrow for the inevitable growing up the young man will have to do is touching.

6. The episode with Craddoc really affected me emotionally. It was pretty obvious to me that Craddoc was pulling Taran's chain. Dallben would hardly have forgotten if he'd actually gotten Taran from someone, so I knew he couldn't really be Taran's father. But I found the way that Taran did what he perceived as his duty, even though he despaired, really heartbreaking. This moment, maybe more than any in all of the books, was really his midnight of the soul.

7. I thought the metaphors of life as smithy, loom, and potter's wheel to be very apt (if not incredibly original) and not too heavy handed. It did get a wee tad didactic at times, but if he had to spell out the lessons for us, at least he didn't natter on about it for too long.

Comments

[thelastgoodname.livejournal.com]

This one is my favorite, by far (even after having read The High King). I loved Cornillo the very wise Cow, and the Free Commots read as an idealized democracy to me — self-rule, self sufficiency, (a system of bartering!), following who they deem worthy rather than merely King Son of King. And of course, despite all the kings, Alexander seemed to like the Free Commots best too, as a community.

I still adore Orddu, Orwen, and Orgoch. I especially liked the balance of the threat of frogs in The Black Cauldron (it's just occurred to me: that's a really strange yet useful metaphor for sexual molestation) with the frog that Doli ends up as in this book. It puts Orddu, Orwen, and Orgoch, despite their threats, in a very different vein from Morda. I like that magic, and power, are clearly portrayed as mere tools, and subject to the whims of the actor, rather than the hash BtVS made of magic in Season 6 [clearly off topic: if they had portrayed Willow as being addicted to the power, rather than the magic, that would have been one thing, but they didn't, so it didn't work for me].

I also liked that Taran wanted to be a potter, but he didn't have the talent for it. This is a much truer lesson than "you can do anything you want, if you just try hard enough"; sometimes effort can't overcome native lack of skill. In fact, I would hope more authors would tackle this problem (there's a great line in The Princess Bride about Prince Humperdink, and how upset he'd have been if he had wanted to be a ballerina, but since all he ever wanted to be was a hunter, it didn't matter that he was short and stocky). He has the talent to be smith or a weaver (or a war lord or a king), but not to be a potter.

The entire Craddoc sequence was great, especially Taran's moment of crisis on the cliff. Given that Taran refused Smoit's offer to be heir to Smoit's throne because he didn't want to pursue Eilonwy as a fatherless son, that Taran felt compelled to remain with Craddoc despite imagining that Eilonwy wouldn't want him now as a son with a father is a huge shift in his own sense of self-worth. (Of course, in either case, Eilonwy would probably have been perfectly happy with Taran, even in Craddoc's shack.) Taran did an amazing amount of personal growing in this book, all of it shown and none of it told, and it all makes sense.

One thing that has happened a lot, but is never addressed, however, is the killing Taran (and everyone else) does. He doesn't seem to want to kill anyone, but he does deal in death an awful lot. Not that his enemies don't deserve it, but he never seems to mind, or notice. This is the only part of the emotional growth in the book that I don't buy. In a series where your choices are so important, and where who you are depends so much on doing the right thing, it seems unlikely that a little murder should sit so lightly. (But then, there is an awful lot of war going on; it would be tricky to make death a problem.)

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

I still like The High King the best, but this one is my second favorite. I have some problems with the ending of THK, which I'll get into when you post on it, so maybe this is the superior book. *muses*

Your last point is something that's been percolating in the back of my mind, and I didn't realize it until I read your comment. Almost everyone in the novels kills someone, even Eilonwy. It's not explicitly stated, but she joins in the battle, oops, in THK and the implication is that she kills as well. I think part of Alexander's decision to elide the killing portion and dealing with the killing portion of the books is to in essence lower the rating. In the same way that he doesn't describe the obvious sexual situations taking place or being threatened. But, even as a young adolescent in the first couple novels, Taran never expresses any remorse or even just Huh. I killed a dude. I also find that a deficiency.

To address your off topic comment about BtVS, I completely agree. Willow's story arc as magical alcoholic really did not sit well with me. As someone who actually struggles with addiction, I thought that the storyline rang false. Magic=beer is just bloody stupid in my book. And her reasons for abusing it don't really jive with the reasons that people abuse drugs and alcohol in real life in my opinion. I agree that depicting her as actually addicted to power rather than magic would have been a better route and given her a nice tie in with Rupert and Ethan's past scrapes with magic. Giles very clearly states that for them, the sense of power was what kept them using magic improperly until they were burned for it. I think Joss did a great job of literalizing many of the traditional teen story arcs into situations with the supernatural (for example, every teenager goes through a Who am I? Why am I here? What does it all mean? phase and Dawn's is actually really important. She NEEDS to know exactly what she is, etc), but Willow the Crack!Magician didn't work for me.

[frollo.livejournal.com]

OMG! These are my favorite books of all time! I re-read them every two years. I must have read them each at least 10 times. Taran Wanderer has always been my favorite of the series. Cool!

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

Wonderful! Someone besides me and thelastgoodname is interested in Alexander!

What did you think of the Disney adaptation of "The Black Cauldron," if adaptation can indeed be used to describe that horror? LOL

[frollo.livejournal.com]

funny you should ask! The film was something I saw when I was about 10 and I tracked down the books as soon as I could. As a kid I thought the film was awesome, and then later I became a Disney fan. I worked for the Disney store for 3 years, and at that time the film had not been released on DVD and all I could go by were my childhood memories. When I finally saw it on DVD I was hugely let down. I remember all the people at work said it was a great film because it was shot in 70mm or that it was an ambitious failure. I tend to go with the second opinion. I think as an adaptation of the books it is very disapointing. They could have started with the Book of Three and produced a magical series... the sad thing is that now that disney owns the rights it is unlikely that anyone else will be allowed to attempt their own film version.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

What an interesting job! I adore Disney movies, not so much the recent ones, but all the ones through the early nineties.

I just don't understand why they felt the need to create this . . . thing . . . when they have such excellent source material. They didn't merely truncate the story for time's sake; they created material out of whole cloth. I think the whole thing was more a poorly executed bit of fanfiction than anything else.

Oh, and just in case you don't know and are interested, I run a comm called club_joss that's like a book club for Buffyverse fanfic. You might be interested in the fannish aspects of the club. :)