Kevin Wright's Blog: SaberPunk - Posts Tagged "lloyd-alexander"

‘The Castle of Llyr’ is the third installment in Lloyd Alexander’s ‘Chronicles of Prydain’ series and, for me, it’s possibly the most memorable. I’ve said before that ‘The Black Cauldron’ is my favorite of the series, and that holds, but ‘The Castle of Llyr’ stands out for me because it has a different feel from the other novels.

‘The Book of Three’ and ‘The Black Cauldron’ always sort of run together in my mind for some reason. I always think the three witches are in ‘The Book of Three’ and they’re not. And the series finale, ‘The High King,’ is in the same mold as the first two. High epic fantasy. Big deeds. Dering do. Sacrifices are made. Things of consequence happen that affect the entire realm of Prydain. We see all of our favorite characters in each of these three tales.

Not so, in ‘The Castle of Llyr.” Doli is conspicuously missing, and Eilonwy is part of the story but not wholly there. Their absence is felt.

And while there are certainly things of consequence that happen in ‘The Castle of Llyr,’ they’re on a smaller, more personal scale. Not quite the personal scale of the fourth book, ‘Taran Wanderer,’ but well on its way.

Taran is growing into a young man and knows how he feels about Eilonwy even if he doesn’t quite understand the finer aspects. An old foe emerges from the mists and seeks to regain lost power at the cost of one of, and quite possibly, the rest of our heroes’ lives. It doesn’t seem as though the fate of Prydain is at stake here. Certainly, it may suffer consequences, but Arawn and the Horned King aren’t here. Nor are the Huntsmen of Annuvin or the dreaded Cauldron Born.

I like big, grand, epic stories.

But I also like the small ones, too. ‘Castle of Llyr’ is a smaller tale.

I’ve read ‘The Castle of Llyr’ a few times. Maybe twenty. Maybe thirty. Between fifth and eighth grade I went through a phase where I’d take these out of my middle school library and read one book of the series each week, multiple times, rotating through them. I loved them then, and I love them now. For me, my greatest fear, presently, with regards to each of them is that they would not stand the test of time.

Well, I’m three for three now in the series, and they’ve all stood up tall and proud. I’ve said it before, but rereading these is like seeing a friend I haven’t seen in thirty years and just picking up where we left off. It’s going back to my parents’ house for Sunday dinner. It’s going home after a long shift and curling up on the couch.

And I’m constantly amazed at how Alexander can convey so much with so little. His writing is so streamlined and spare and constantly beautiful. He says in five words what it would take me a paragraph to convey. And he does it better. Always.

So read “The Castle of Llyr.” You’ll love it.
Just make sure you start the series at the beginning.

- Kevin Wright
Author central page amazon.com/author/wrightkev
Link to 'Castle of Llyr' https://amzn.to/2EEGZjx

This is my fourth installment as I reread and review Lloyd Alexander’s ‘Prydain Chronicles,’ a series of five high fantasy novels written in the 1960’s.

‘Taran Wanderer’ is the fourth book of the series and while there is an overarching storyline thoughout, the third and fourth books are a little off the path of the main arc. Where ‘Castle of Llyr’ is a sort of side-quest in the series, TW takes a look at the story through a microscope. That is, we really magnify and focus in on Taran the assistant pig-keeper as a character and more specifically as a young man.

One of the main themes of the Prydain Chronicles, in my opinion, is ‘what makes a good man?’ We see fully formed adult, good men in the form of Coll and Dalben and Gwydion, the three main influences in Taran’s life. Each of the three is intelligent, wise, and formidable. What we also see from the very start of the series, ‘The Book of Three,’ is an impatient, headstrong kid who does things based on what he thinks a storybook hero should do.

As we move through the books, we see glimpses of Taran making progress, getting wiser, humbler, more patient. Having more regard for what is truly important in life.
In TW, Taran, on the cusp of manhood, takes a final step forward.

He knows he loves Eilonwy. He knows he wants to marry her. He also knows that she is a princess and he is an assistant pig-keeper of unknown parentage. He hopes he is more.
And so he goes off in search of his parentage in the hopes that he will be proven worthy enough to marry his love. What follows is a series of short episodic adventures as Taran crosses the land of Prydain in search of the Mirror of Llunet, a magic mirror that a trio of witches claim will ‘show him something of interest’ with regards to his ancestry.

I won’t spoil what happens. I’ll only say that Taran’s adventures are as exciting as ever if a little shorter individually and with some, more internal. More personal. But the stakes are as high as ever. Lives are on the line. Kingdoms. Livelihoods. Self-fulfillment. Everything that makes a great story, and as always, Alexander writes clearly, concisely, beautifully. There aren’t many books that make your heart both pound and ache. The Chronicles of Prydain achieve these effects more often than any others I’ve read, and Taran Wanderer is no exception.

Read it.

Kevin Wright Author Page http://amzn.to/2noAXKj
Link to Taran Wanderer https://amzn.to/2VTbN5s