Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees
My rating: 4 of 5 stars “the Written Word is a Fairy” Nathaniel Chanticleer seems like an ordinary, comfortable, complacent denizen of Lud-in-the-Mist, the capital city of Dorimare, and he is the scion of an important family with a long history, the current Mayor of Lud-in-the Mist and High Seneschal of Dorimare, but in fact he often feels like a stranger in his hometown and prey to a certain recurring fear, ever since he was a youth and dressing up with his friends like the ghosts of past Chanticleer family members, he picked up an old sort of lute at random, plucked the “strings rotted by damp and antiquity,” and provoked “one note, so plangent, blood-freezing and alluring, that for a few seconds the company stood as if petrified.” Although his friends forgot about it instantly, the note has ever since stayed with Nathaniel, rendering him at times melancholy and almost fey. Next to Dorimare on the other side of the Debatable Hills and the Elfin Marches lies Fairyland but for a long time Dorimare and its capital Lud-in-the-Mist have been attempting to ignore, forget, and banish Fairyland or any mention of Fairies or magic and to focus on material gain, commercial matters, and the Law. To cross the Hills and enter Fairyland is “considered tantamount to death.” Things were not always so. It develops that about two hundred years ago the merchants of Dorimare rose up against Duke Aubrey “a hunchback with a face of angelic beauty” given to pranks “seasoned by a slightly sinister humor,” deposed him and drove him into apparent exile in Fairyland. The merchants initiated a new culture based on earning money and especially on following the Law, which has rendered aesthetic creation bland and all things Fairy (especially the fruit) illegal and taboo. One suspects the senators and other elite of Lud-in-the-Mist of suppressing an important part of life, mind, and soul. Indeed, the novel explores the relationship between reality and fantasy, and its plot gets going in earnest when Nathaniel’s young son Ranulph begins showing signs of having been fairy-touched, shouting at imaginary companions, evincing difficulty in focusing on the “real” world around him, and finally revealing that an absconded stableboy called Willy Wisp gave him Fairy fruit to eat. Enter the eccentric and ubiquitous Dr. Endymion Leer, who recommends the boy be sent to Widow Gibberty’s country farm, which is coincidentally located near the Debatable Hills. Soon there is trouble in Miss Primrose Crabapple’s Academy for young ladies, rumors of contraband Fairy fruit being smuggled into Lud-in-the-Mist, challenges to Nathaniel’s authority, letters undelivered, hollow sounding walls in the Guildhall (which used to be Duke Aubrey’s palace), the exhumation of a nearly four decades-old murder trial, strange manifestations of Duke Aubrey, provocative visits to the town cemetery (called Grammary), and much more. Hope Mirrlees’ writing in Lud-in-the-Mist (1926) is rich and savory. I read the first chapter three times to fully appreciate its beauty, poignancy, implications, and pleasures. Throughout, she writes much exquisite fantasy prose, like the following: “The condition described by Ranulph as the imprisoning of all one’s being into a space as narrow as a tooth, whence it irradiates waves of agony, became so overwhelming, that he was unconscious of the external world.” “But, depicted in these brilliant hues, they were like the ashes of the past, suddenly, under one’s very eyes, breaking into flame.” “It is almost as if the two [father and child] were walking in time to perfectly different tunes. Indeed, though they hold each other’s hand, they might be walking on different planets.” “Master Nathaniel was very sensitive to the silent things—stars, houses, trees; and often in his pipe-room, after the candles had been lit, he would sit staring at the bookshelves, the chairs, his father’s portrait—even at his red umbrella standing up in the corner, with as great a sense of awe as if he had been a star-gazer.” “All the world over we are very conscious of the trees in spring, and watch with delight how the network of twigs on the wych-elms is becoming spangled with tiny puce flowers, like little beetles caught in a spider’s web, and how little lemon-colored buds are studding the thorn.” “Reason I know, is only a drug, and as such, its effects are never permanent. But, like the juice of the poppy, it often gives a temporary relief.” “There is not a single homely thing that, looked at from a certain angle, does not become fairy.” “Once more he began to feel the balm of silent things, and seemed to catch a glimpse of that still, quiet landscape the future, after he himself had died.” “It would seem that the trees broke into leaf and the masts of all the ships in the bay into blossom; that day and night the cocks crowed without ceasing; that violets and anemones sprang up through the snow in the streets, and that mothers embraced their dead sons, and maids their sweethearts drowned at sea.” “And this is but another proof that the Written Word is a Fairy, as mocking and elusive as Willy Wisp, speaking lying words to us in a feigned voice. So let all readers of books take warning!” One problem with the Prologue Books Kindle version I read is that it’s marred by multiple distracting typos. These range from botching a wonderful line (“A house with old furniture has no need of GUESTS to be haunted”) to twice calling a shop run by a woman a “ship,” and to doing things like printing “the” instead of “they” and “and” instead of “an,” and so on. Egregious mutilation of fine fantasy prose! But in any form, if you are a lover of classic fantasy (where the action is in the prose rather than on the battlefield), you should read Lud-in-the-Mist. View all my reviews
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Jefferson Peters
This blog is for book reviews. Please feel free to comment on any of the reviews! Categories
All
Archives
May 2024
Jefferson's books
by Sabaa Tahir
A Young Adult Epic Fantasy with Lots of Violence & Romance
Elias is an elite Martial soldier, Laia a naïve Scholar slave. As they alternate telling their stories (in trendy Young Adult first person, present tense narration), we soon rea...
"It must be due to some fault in ourselves"--
George Orwell's Animal Farm (1945) is an anti-totalitarian-communist allegory in which the exploited animals of the Manor Farm kick Farmer Jones out and set about running the farm. At first...
by Lu Xun
Perfect Stories of Life in Early 20th Century China
Chinese Classic Stories (1998) by Xun Lu is an excellent collection of seven short stories by perhaps the most important 20th century Chinese writer of fiction. Lu Xun (1881-1936) stu...
Fine Writing, Great Characters, Immersive World
The Surgeon's Mate (1980) is the 7th novel in Patrick O'Brian's addicting series of age of sail novels about the lives, loves, and careers of the British navy captain Jack Aubrey and the ...
An Overwritten, Oddly Compelling Gothic Father
Matthew Lewis' notorious and influential Gothic novel The Monk (1796) takes place during the heyday of the Spanish Inquisition. Ambrosio, the monk/friar/abbot/idol of Madrid, is nicknamed ...
|
My Fukuoka University