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Those old lots are all skyscrapers now
I was in so much pain last night that I actually slept out most of today and still feel vague and hollow, although at least I don't have to worry about dinner for several days.
It only took me thirty years out of my life to realize that the four later, more closely tied books of The Dark Is Rising Sequence are the quarter-years: the winter solstice for The Dark Is Rising (1973), obviously, and midsummer for Silver on the Tree (1977), but Greenwitch (1974) occurs over the Easter holidays and The Grey King (1975) on either side of All Hallows' Eve. I was assured of not forgetting the latter thanks to the day of the dead when the year too dies, besides which it is the most haunted of the novels, but in the former I always remember the descent of the Wild Magic on Trewissick more than the actual making of the Greenwitch, even though it is textually identified as a pre-Christian spring rite, for fruitfulness of harvest and fishing and the wishes of the women who make it. Over Sea, Under Stone (1965) feels like even more of a prologue not merely because of the gap in time and style, but because it is outside of this pattern which is not actually ordered sequentially—winter, spring, fall, then at last summer—but is still vivid enough in the narrative that it feels stamped in the quartered circle of the sign of the Light, which is not in any case linear with Cooper's handling of time. As with everything else I read as a child, different pieces come into focus over the years. In this case, it feels like stepping back far enough to see the field-spanning cropmark.
It only took me thirty years out of my life to realize that the four later, more closely tied books of The Dark Is Rising Sequence are the quarter-years: the winter solstice for The Dark Is Rising (1973), obviously, and midsummer for Silver on the Tree (1977), but Greenwitch (1974) occurs over the Easter holidays and The Grey King (1975) on either side of All Hallows' Eve. I was assured of not forgetting the latter thanks to the day of the dead when the year too dies, besides which it is the most haunted of the novels, but in the former I always remember the descent of the Wild Magic on Trewissick more than the actual making of the Greenwitch, even though it is textually identified as a pre-Christian spring rite, for fruitfulness of harvest and fishing and the wishes of the women who make it. Over Sea, Under Stone (1965) feels like even more of a prologue not merely because of the gap in time and style, but because it is outside of this pattern which is not actually ordered sequentially—winter, spring, fall, then at last summer—but is still vivid enough in the narrative that it feels stamped in the quartered circle of the sign of the Light, which is not in any case linear with Cooper's handling of time. As with everything else I read as a child, different pieces come into focus over the years. In this case, it feels like stepping back far enough to see the field-spanning cropmark.
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(I will never forget as a parent or a general human Eli's white-hot flare out of the series after adoring Over Sea, Under Stone because of strong identification with Barney; it was a good indication that he was secretly far more morally upright and staunchly just than I could hope to be.)
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As I believe I said when it happened, your child would take the one human being over the principle, all the time.
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(I was going to edit for symbological babbling, but realized I could just as credibly shut up, and for free, and everyone would have more day left in their day.)
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I was somewhat older on meeting the sequence, and the seasonal thing made itself known and then sank again without my noting it really because I wasn't old enough yet to see how it might matter, heh. (Teenaged.) I'm cautious about rereading these but kind of want to--haven't peeked in since 1994, when I bought an omnibus and shelved it.
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*hugs*
Thank you.
I'm cautious about rereading these but kind of want to--haven't peeked in since 1994, when I bought an omnibus and shelved it.
The pieces that hold up for me, really hold up, and some other pieces have become important over the years. I remain in the camp of disagreeing with some of the mechanics of the ending and that's all right.
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Thank you--that's helpful to know (I'm not fussed about endings generally because they seem to me, as basically a non-writer of fiction, very hard to do well).
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I like that it was there in the landscape all along.
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It literally popped into my head when I was not sleeping last night! I was sure of three of the four, but couldn't actually remember if Greenwitch was set in the spring and had to check with the internet (because all of my copies are in boxes) when I got up.
*hugs*
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*hugs* The latter is at least deeply useful when you're in a bad way. I hope, this comment being very belated, that you feel a bit less awful by now. <3
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Thank you! Sleep remains dicey, but I am feeling less awful in the sense that I managed to get my brain to do a thing I wanted it to, which is a major criterion.
*hugs*
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I too never noticed that! How fitting. And I'm sorry about the pain. : ((
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Thank you. Those books left a kind of geological imprint in me, so it feels appropriate that later in life I can excavate it.
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It only took me thirty years out of my life to realize that the four later, more closely tied books of The Dark Is Rising Sequence are the quarter-years: the winter solstice for The Dark Is Rising (1973), obviously, and midsummer for Silver on the Tree (1977), but Greenwitch (1974) occurs over the Easter holidays and The Grey King (1975) on either side of All Hallows' Eve.
Oddly enough, I also noticed that for the first time this week. I re-read The Dark is Rising last December, for obvious reasons of seasonal appropriateness, and this year I thought I would like to re-read another of the series, maybe starting a sort of Five Year Plan of one each December ;D That was when I took a closer look at the setting of each book and realised it would be more fun to match the re-reads to the seasons!
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I love your idea of a five-year plan by season! Although I recognize it wouldn't help with having something to read by Susan Cooper now.
I haven't re-read the entire sequence in years and am probably just going to borrow my mother's copies any day now.
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At first I was going to write that if I had thought about those branches, I would have realized that it had to be a spring book because of the sea-smelling hawthorn blossom, but then I realized that those branches worked their way into my own writing and I didn't catch it until now. "But everywhere in that room, that morning, there was a great mess of little twigs and leaves, hawthorn leaves, and rowan. And everywhere a great smell of the sea."
Thank you for articulating it so that I too could step back and enjoy the view of the cropmark.
You're welcome! Thank you for letting me know. We can all stand on this hillside.
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Thank you! I have had Cooper a lot on my mind lately, with land and time.