Book Review: Greenwitch
Mar. 14th, 2024 10:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerIn my previous entry about The Dark Is Rising, I commented that for all their supposed opposition, Dark and Light seemed like two sides of the same coin. duskpeterson pointed out that this is, in fact, the point: as Susan Cooper wrote in an essay later, "The self-righteousness of the Light is no doubt preferable to the depravity of the Dark, but it too holds great dangers."
The series as it turns out is much more enjoyable if you understand that you and Susan Cooper are on the same page about this! (It's funny that I twigged the "two sides of the same coin" issue the first time I read the quintet, but did not at all grasp that it might be intentional. The danger of assigning intentionality to the author!)littlerhymes and I just finished Greenwitch, which was my favorite on my first go-round a decade ago, and I liked it even more this time.
As Greenwitch opens, the Grail has been stolen, and Simon and Jane and Barnaby Drew are on the way to Cornwall with their Great-Uncle Merriman on a quest to get it back... only they discover, when they arrive, that Merriman has invited along one Will Stanton, who is evidently expected to take part in their adventure.
But they have little time to indulge their outrage, because very soon after their arrival, Jane is invited to attend the Greenwitch ceremony. Every year, the women of Trewissick make a Greenwitch, a figure of hazel and hawthorn which will be thrown into the sea. A wicker man figure, only the element of human sacrifice has long since dropped out, leaving only the brooding creature of leaves and sticks.
Before the Greenwitch is tossed into the sea, the women at the ceremony can touch it and make a wish. Jane, struck by the power and isolation of the creature, impulsively says, "I wish you could be happy."
And the Greenwitch, touched by Jane's good wishes, comes to Jane that night in a dream. Beneath the waves, near the cliffs, where the children lost the cipher that went with the Grail last year, the Greenwitch has found a secret...
I love a wicker man story, and this is such an unusual and lovely take, with the emphasis on the loneliness of the Greenwitch. The Cornwall setting is evocative, as is Will and Merriman's visit to the deep ocean (and the comment by Tethys, the queen of the deep, that Merriman came fifteen hundred years before with another boy - hi Arthur!). And I enjoyed also the representative of the Dark in this book, a modern artist who is, as Barney-the-budding-artist notes repeatedly, tremendously talented: it's not that modern art is inherently depraved, but that any art can be twisted to foul ends. And this artist is twisting his talent so that his paintings are not paintings, but spells in the service of the Dark.
In the end, the painter makes an evil painting that summons the Greenwitch from the deep, and demands of her the secret. But he is only a lesser minion of the Dark, and he's overplayed his hand: he can't control the Greenwitch, and she breaks free and unleashes on the town old memories of times past, times when the town was sacked by Vikings and the local smugglers taken by revenue cutters.
At this point, Will, Merriman, and their Old One ally Captain Toms show up, and try to convince the Greenwitch to give them the secret. But she refuses. "You are all self-servers, Light, Dark, men. There is no place for the Wild Magic except its own... no care... no care..."
Except then the Greenwitch remembers that someone did show her care - Jane showed her care. And so, in a classic fairy tale twist, the Greenwitch gives Jane the secret. That bit of human kindness is repaid hundredfold, where all the powers of Dark and Light availed naught.
duskpeterson pointed out that this is, in fact, the point: as Susan Cooper wrote in an essay later, "The self-righteousness of the Light is no doubt preferable to the depravity of the Dark, but it too holds great dangers."The series as it turns out is much more enjoyable if you understand that you and Susan Cooper are on the same page about this! (It's funny that I twigged the "two sides of the same coin" issue the first time I read the quintet, but did not at all grasp that it might be intentional. The danger of assigning intentionality to the author!)
littlerhymes and I just finished Greenwitch, which was my favorite on my first go-round a decade ago, and I liked it even more this time.As Greenwitch opens, the Grail has been stolen, and Simon and Jane and Barnaby Drew are on the way to Cornwall with their Great-Uncle Merriman on a quest to get it back... only they discover, when they arrive, that Merriman has invited along one Will Stanton, who is evidently expected to take part in their adventure.
But they have little time to indulge their outrage, because very soon after their arrival, Jane is invited to attend the Greenwitch ceremony. Every year, the women of Trewissick make a Greenwitch, a figure of hazel and hawthorn which will be thrown into the sea. A wicker man figure, only the element of human sacrifice has long since dropped out, leaving only the brooding creature of leaves and sticks.
Before the Greenwitch is tossed into the sea, the women at the ceremony can touch it and make a wish. Jane, struck by the power and isolation of the creature, impulsively says, "I wish you could be happy."
And the Greenwitch, touched by Jane's good wishes, comes to Jane that night in a dream. Beneath the waves, near the cliffs, where the children lost the cipher that went with the Grail last year, the Greenwitch has found a secret...
I love a wicker man story, and this is such an unusual and lovely take, with the emphasis on the loneliness of the Greenwitch. The Cornwall setting is evocative, as is Will and Merriman's visit to the deep ocean (and the comment by Tethys, the queen of the deep, that Merriman came fifteen hundred years before with another boy - hi Arthur!). And I enjoyed also the representative of the Dark in this book, a modern artist who is, as Barney-the-budding-artist notes repeatedly, tremendously talented: it's not that modern art is inherently depraved, but that any art can be twisted to foul ends. And this artist is twisting his talent so that his paintings are not paintings, but spells in the service of the Dark.
In the end, the painter makes an evil painting that summons the Greenwitch from the deep, and demands of her the secret. But he is only a lesser minion of the Dark, and he's overplayed his hand: he can't control the Greenwitch, and she breaks free and unleashes on the town old memories of times past, times when the town was sacked by Vikings and the local smugglers taken by revenue cutters.
At this point, Will, Merriman, and their Old One ally Captain Toms show up, and try to convince the Greenwitch to give them the secret. But she refuses. "You are all self-servers, Light, Dark, men. There is no place for the Wild Magic except its own... no care... no care..."
Except then the Greenwitch remembers that someone did show her care - Jane showed her care. And so, in a classic fairy tale twist, the Greenwitch gives Jane the secret. That bit of human kindness is repaid hundredfold, where all the powers of Dark and Light availed naught.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-14 04:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-15 12:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-14 04:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-15 12:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-14 06:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-15 12:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-14 07:29 pm (UTC)This is one of my favorite pieces of the entire series, even in a book full of sea-magic. It struck me years ago that I associate the descent of the Wild Magic on Trewissick with Weill's "Pirate Jenny," especially as sung by Nina Simone. "The hour is come, but not the man" is real and eerie Cornish folklore.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-15 12:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-15 02:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-15 12:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-15 12:24 pm (UTC)Jane is my favourite too, that compassion she showed for Greenwitch and all the eerie imagery of the making by the bonfire and the haunting of the village has stuck with me.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-15 02:43 pm (UTC)The making by the bonfire is such a fantastic eerie scene. Everyone else just having a great lark and Jane feeling the power of what is happening and just a little uneasy about it all.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-17 03:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-20 11:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-18 11:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-20 11:53 pm (UTC)