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Dear Parallelsfic Author
Jun. 24th, 2012 12:46 pmPlaceholder! I'm not sure signing up for so many exchanges all of a sudden is the best idea ever, but OH WELL.
Jun. 24th, 2012
100 book, #7: The Perilous Gard
Jun. 24th, 2012 07:09 pmVICTORY! I went to a used bookstore today - a very splendid little bookstore, which overstuffed shelves arranged in bays - and stumbled on Elizabeth Marie Pope's The Perilous Gard. "Oh!" said the clerk, touching the book with reverent hands. "I haven't seen this in so long. Have you read it?"
"YES!" I said. "IT'S AMAZING. I LOVE KATE SUTTON SO MUCH."
I think if I hadn't, she might have told me the book was awful, just so she could keep it herself. The Perilous Gard has this effect on people. I stole my original copy from my mother, then lent it out to a friend, who loved it so much that she forgot it wasn't technically hers.
In the last days of Queen Mary's reign, clever, clumsy Kate Sutton is exiled to Elvenwood - so named because it's rumored to be inhabited by the Fairy Folk. And what Fairy Folk they turn out to be! They're still my favorite of all the Fairy Folk I've read: secretive and shadowy, terrifying, ambiguous figures. Are they truly otherworldly creatures? Or merely pagan humans who have remained hidden from the church?
The book's use of religion is another treat. It wears religion lightly, just as it wears its history: both are so well-integrated into the characters and their reaction to the world that they need never become obtrusive. Kate's attempt to convince the Lady of the hill of that Jesus paid the teind for all time is a particularly excellent example: the incompatibility of their worldviews, inherent in all their interactions, becomes explicit here.
And how much do I love Kate's composure? The teind will be paid that night, by Kate's friend Christopher Heron, so she's terrified and under pressure; but still she tries to explain her religion in terms that the Lady will understand. She manages it quite lucidly; the Lady doesn't understand because the gap between her culture and Kate's is simply too wide.
Is there a romance between Kate and Christopher? Is the sky blue? Their conversation crackles: it sparks between them like electricity, bright and beautiful and painful as they talk in the darkness of the Fairy Folk's Hill. They're both wounded people, even before they were taken into the Hill, but wounded in a way that fits together perfectly. In a book where I love everything, I love Kate and Christopher's romance most of all.
"YES!" I said. "IT'S AMAZING. I LOVE KATE SUTTON SO MUCH."
I think if I hadn't, she might have told me the book was awful, just so she could keep it herself. The Perilous Gard has this effect on people. I stole my original copy from my mother, then lent it out to a friend, who loved it so much that she forgot it wasn't technically hers.
In the last days of Queen Mary's reign, clever, clumsy Kate Sutton is exiled to Elvenwood - so named because it's rumored to be inhabited by the Fairy Folk. And what Fairy Folk they turn out to be! They're still my favorite of all the Fairy Folk I've read: secretive and shadowy, terrifying, ambiguous figures. Are they truly otherworldly creatures? Or merely pagan humans who have remained hidden from the church?
The book's use of religion is another treat. It wears religion lightly, just as it wears its history: both are so well-integrated into the characters and their reaction to the world that they need never become obtrusive. Kate's attempt to convince the Lady of the hill of that Jesus paid the teind for all time is a particularly excellent example: the incompatibility of their worldviews, inherent in all their interactions, becomes explicit here.
And how much do I love Kate's composure? The teind will be paid that night, by Kate's friend Christopher Heron, so she's terrified and under pressure; but still she tries to explain her religion in terms that the Lady will understand. She manages it quite lucidly; the Lady doesn't understand because the gap between her culture and Kate's is simply too wide.
Is there a romance between Kate and Christopher? Is the sky blue? Their conversation crackles: it sparks between them like electricity, bright and beautiful and painful as they talk in the darkness of the Fairy Folk's Hill. They're both wounded people, even before they were taken into the Hill, but wounded in a way that fits together perfectly. In a book where I love everything, I love Kate and Christopher's romance most of all.