Also, I am realizing I must have liked The Hollow Hills because it was definitely young Arthur as a cool character that I enjoyed.
I love The Crystal Cave best because it adheres the least closely to the beats of the Matter of Britain, but the relationship of Merlin and Arthur in The Hollow Hills has grown in resonance over the years for me.
(For what it's worth, I don't think of the first one as a book of unremitting danger to Merlin, even though it's built out from the legendary crux of Vortigern wanting the blood of a child born of no mortal father to mortar the stones of his tower that will not stand; it has always been much more about engineering and the numinous and knowing yourself to be different, which is not always tragedy. I love what Stewart does with Merlin's parentage and with the standing stones. A key scene was one of my early introductions to Mithraism.)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2022-10-20 07:25 pm (UTC)I love The Crystal Cave best because it adheres the least closely to the beats of the Matter of Britain, but the relationship of Merlin and Arthur in The Hollow Hills has grown in resonance over the years for me.
(For what it's worth, I don't think of the first one as a book of unremitting danger to Merlin, even though it's built out from the legendary crux of Vortigern wanting the blood of a child born of no mortal father to mortar the stones of his tower that will not stand; it has always been much more about engineering and the numinous and knowing yourself to be different, which is not always tragedy. I love what Stewart does with Merlin's parentage and with the standing stones. A key scene was one of my early introductions to Mithraism.)