The Dark is Rising sequence - part one

[cloudsinvenice]

I read The Dark is Rising (the novel) a few years ago because it seemed right up my street: Christmas, folklore, mythology, Christmas-specific folklore and mythology... you get the idea. My feelings about it were mixed (see below) and I gave away my copy, which I later regretted, so I was happy when R turned up a slipcase with all five books in the

Comments

[silverflight8]

I'm a little wary of reading this when I love these books - I've even read them all recently - and they've been a formative experience so take this with a grain of salt I guess, haha

Re:

[cloudsinvenice]

Sorry to be so long responding to this - it arrived just when my infection peaked and I didn't have a lot of braincells to play with!

I'm really more horrified by the thing with Hawkin the more I think about it; there's a trust and inequality so embedded in being someone's liege-man... Merriman's own position in society will be exactly why he can't see that - or, if he sees it, it's not enough for him to be repulsed by the idea of even asking that of him - was there seriously no other way?

I find the theory about Cooper reacting against what happened to the WWI soldiers interesting, but I agree that it's too much to take from them, especially when they don't even get a choice. I mean, as much as I like the fact that John Rowlands in Silver on the Tree was offered the chance to choose whether to keep his memories or not, the fact he asks the Lady to decide for him shows that he finds it an imposition to have to decide at all, given the enormous consequences that either choice could have. Fairer to let people live with their