Scan The Dark Is Rising Sequence Portrayed By Susan Cooper Readable In Audio Books

is literally my favorite fantasy book in the entire world, I just finished the final book in the series the other day, and it was pretty great, As a whole, Cooper's The Dark is Rising series was well written, and the stories flowed from one to the other without being too repetitive.
I really enjoyed jumping right in to each book, and they went by pretty fast, While it is definitely a series for a younger audience, I was impressed by how intricately it went into the different Arthurian legends and such.
I loved the character of Will, how he was able to be both a young boy and this ageless being at once.
He was very well rounded and likeable, But I think Barney was my favorite character by far, So cheeky and sweet. I must admit though that I didn't like one part of the ending, and while I'm sure Cooper had her reasons, I didn't want the characters to forget.
If you want to understand that, read the books, Una storia in vecchio stile "Isole Britanniche": vengono qui riprese le vicende della letteratura cavalleresca che prevedono riferimenti ad Artù e al Graal, ma anche qualche vicenda familiare e fantastica vista in altre opere fantasy scritte da scrittori e scrittrici provenienti da questa specifica regione del mondo.
Il bene e il male si scontrano attraversovolumi che si inseriscono perfettamente in quella specie di grande disegno messo insieme da nomi quali sitelinkC.
S. Lewis o sitelinkJ. R. R. Tolkien. Lo consiglio in particolare a chi non si sia già consumato gli occhi davanti a storie di questo tipo, ma credo che anche i lettori più esperti possano trovare in questi libri qualcosa di gradevole da leggere.
La prosa di sitelinkSusan Cooper è indubbiamente piacevole e per nulla scontata,
Giudizio effettivo.There are five novels in this sequence, which is for young readers, perhaps nine upwards, Id guess, though ten is suggested on the jackets.
I missed them in my own childhood, The first Over Sea, Under Stone must have seen the light of day in the early seventies, and by then I was seventeen or eighteen and had read The Lord of the Rings several times, as well as a huge range of science fantasy for adults.
But had I been ten when it was first printed, I would have loved it,

I would have loved it because I was a sucker for anything with magic in it, Now, going back, I worry about that a bit, because some of the things I loved were neither wellwritten nor wellconceived.
At the age of nearly fiftynine I wonder whether some adult influence might have introduced me to the mysteries of science, rather than science fiction.
But the imagination was my master, and to some extent that continues to be true,

I imagine

that anyone who read this sequence, and loved it, at the right age would battle to the death on its behalf.
Even at my age, I can witness to the fact that the pace is compelling, that the style is slick and convincing, that there is at least one strong female character thank goodness.
Of the five novels, The Dark is Rising is the second, Greenwitch the third, The Grey King the fourth, and Silver on the Tree the last.


So whats the plot

Will Stanton, the youngest of the children in the series, is also one of the Old Ones, which is a bit like being a Time Lord in Doctor Who.
He is the seventh son of a seventh son, and he must be the character most kids would identify with, unless youre a girl, in which case you may be stuck with Jane Drew.
Not quite so sure about Jane, “The world where we live is a world of men, ordinary men, and although in it there is the Old Magic of the earth, and the Wild Magic of living things, it is men who control what the world shall be like.
”

Okay and

“ beyond the world is the universe, bound by the law of the High Magic, as every universe must be.
And beneath the High Magic are two, . . poles that we call the Dark and the Light, No other power orders them, They merely exist. The Dark seeks by its dark nature to influence men so that in the end, through them, it may control the earth.
The Light has the task of stopping that from happening, ”

Needless to say, Will who is young but Old is on the side of the Light and so are the other children, and their great uncle “Merriman” who disappears into the twilight at the end sorry, thats a spoiler, though you would have guessed anyway and is also, probably, Merlin.
Theres a lot of Arthur in this sequence, but also various other mythological threads, and Herne the Hunter drops in more than once.
Herne really gets around in childrens fiction and one day perhaps someone will draw some conclusions about that,

“From time to time the Dark has come rising and has been driven back” and this sequence focuses on the biggest rising of all.
For the children the task is to “drive it back, so that the world of men may be free.
”

Yes, it is a bit vague, but on the other hand, Dark is not exactly bad, and Light is not exactly good, which is in Susan Coopers favour.
There are bits of prophetic poetry here and there, from which the favourable outcomes can always be predicted, And some of the welltried recipes for childrens fiction are operational: no parents in evidence, for example, Children pitched against villains and defeating them, Children with insight that adults do not have, And lots of mystical language and allusion, In two of the novels, Welsh names and terms are particularly evocative,

I think, of the five novels, the title novel The Dark is Rising which is where Will Stanton comes into his own, is the strongest.
It is set at Christmas, in England, and the Dark invokes mammoth snow among other things and the pace is wonderful.
But all the five books are readable, enjoyable, do that thing, whatever it is, create a spell,

I worry a bit about the mixing of myth in childrens fiction, While reading this I had at the back of my mind Alan Garner who also draws on the Mabinogion, but far more disturbingly and more consistently, and as he goes on, he is not really writing for children J R R Tolkien because you cant read this without being aware of the influence E Nesbit J K Rowlings John Masefield and C S Lewis.
By no means a comprehensive list, of course,

On balance, I think Lewis is strengthened by being able to draw on one consistent myth the Christian story, in which he believed, though many of his readers may not.
Tolkien is head and shoulders above the rest, to me, because he creates a whole world of his own, in a way that has never been paralleled but then I would say this, because I have been his slave since I was about ten years old.
Rowlings scrapes up scraps and remoulds them, and they are scraps that work again and again: witches and Old Stuff and no parents in the vicinity.
Masefield invokes Herne the Hunter too, but also history and poetry and dream,

I dont think Susan Cooper believes in Arthurian legend in the same way that Lewis believes in Christianity, though there may be a credible pantheistic thing going on.
I dont know a lot about Susan Cooper, but I think it to her credit that she conceived this sequence as five short novels and stuck to that.
No sequels. No spillage. No merchandising.

On the downside, she uses the word malevolent and malevolence an awful lot, When the Dark creeps up, so does a feeling of imminent malevolence, It takes over everything. Something impish in me wants to banish this by slightly taking the piss, and Im reminded that Joss Whedon, who exploits the whole nineteenth century vampire mythkitty, manages to have fun at the same time.


So in the end, Im not sure how good I think these novels are, Im only sure that Im now the wrong age to judge, But when I was the age to have enjoyed them, I am sure they would have had me riveted.
I hope I would have emerged with my sense of humour intact, but Im notsure,
The five books in The Dark is Rising Sequence are among my most treasured books from my childhood.
I have the old Puffin paperbacks, which cost my aunt,each when she bought them for myth birthday, I have read them so many times they are battered and creased and faded, I read them again this Christmas as part of an international reading challenge initiated on Twitter by British authors Robert Macfarlane and Mary Bird.
Thousands of readers joined in to read The Dark is Rising, Bookin the series, which takes place between Midwinter Eveth December and Twelfth Nightth January.
Some read it in one big gulp like me and others read each chapter on the date that corresponded with events in the book i.
echapters a day. Readers shared their memories of the book, discussed the meaning of symbols and events, created original art, found kindred spirits.
It was absolutely wonderful.

I went on to read all five books in the series:

Over Sea, Under Stone is the first book in the series, and was written by Susan Cooper in response to a publishing content organised to honour the memory of Edith Nesbit, one of the great Golden Age childrens writers.
She did not finish the manuscript in time to enter, and the book was subsequently turned down by more than twenty publishers, before being accepted by Jonathan Cape and published in.


It tells the story of Simon, Jane and Barney who go to Cornwall on a holiday with their family and end up being caught up in a quest to find the lost Holy Grail.
Drawing on Arthurian mythology but set in contemporary times, the book introduces the childrens GreatUncle Merry, a professor at Oxford who ends up revealing mysterious powers.
The book is more like an oldfashioned mystery than a traditional fantasy, except with eerie unsettling moments of darkness and magic, particularly towards the end.


The second book in the series, The Dark is Rising, was published in, It tells the story of Will Stanton, seventh son of a seventh son, who turnson Midwinter Eve, and finds his safe and comfortable world threatened by strange and eerie events.
For Will is, he discovers, an Old One, destined to fight on behalf of the Light against the ancient and malevolent forces of the Dark.
Merriman Lyon the character of GreatUncle Merry returns as the Oldest of the Old Ones, and becomes Wills guardian and mentor.
Will needs to find Six Signs if he is to defeat the forces of darkness this midwinter and help fulfil a mysterious prophecy:

“When the Dark comes rising six shall turn it back
Three from the circle, three from the track
Wood, bronze, iron Water, fire, stone
Five will return and one go alone.


Iron for the birthday bronze carried long
Wood from the burning stone out of song
Fire in the candle ring water from the thaw
Six signs the circle and the grail gone before.


Fire on the mountain shall find the harp of gold
Played to wake the sleepers, oldest of old.

Power from the Green Witch, lost beneath the sea,
All shall find the Light at last, silver on the tree, ”

Of all the books in the series, The Dark is Rising is my favourite, perhaps because it was the first I ever read, perhaps because of the vividness of the setting a small snowbound English village that seems outwardly normal but is still shadowed with magic, menace and danger, perhaps because I loved the idea of an ordinary boy who finds himself the carrier of an extraordinary destiny.
The book as a ALA Newbery Honor Book in, and is often named on lists of the best books for children ever published.


Greenwitch, the third in the series, brings Simon, Jane and Barney back to the little Cornish village where they had discovered the lost Holy Grail.
Jane watches an ancient ritualised offering to the sea and makes a wish that then helps the Light unlock the secrets of the Grail.
Greenwitch is the favourite of many female readers of this series, because the key protagonist is a girl and she triumphs not because of any battle of strength, but because she is compassionate and empathetic.


The Grey King, the fourth book, returns to the pointofview of Will, He wakes after a long and terrible illness with no memory of his role as an Old One and at risk from the forces of the Dark who seek to strike him own while he is vulnerable.
Sent to Wales to recuperate, Will meets an albino teenager called Bran who has a strange dog like a wolf.
Guided only by snatches of memory, Will and Bran must find the golden harp that will waken the Sleepers under the hill.
This is my favourite second of the series, again because of the setting the wild mountains and moors of Wales is brought so wonderfully to life and also because of the sense of the great struggle between the forces of good and evil.
The Grey King won theNewbery Medal,

Silver on the Tree is the final book in the series, and brings Will and Bran together with Simon, Jane and Barney and their mysterious GreatUncle Merry.
They are searching for a magical crystal sword which will enable them to cut the mystical mistletoe, the silver on the tree, in the final battle against the Dark.
Drawing on Welsh mythology and stories of a drowned land, the suspense is heightened by the presence of a hidden enemy, someone who is trusted but betrays them in the end.


It was truly wonderful to reread this series, which had such a powerful shaping force upon my imagination as a child.
And a great deal of the pleasure came from sharing it with likeminded people, The twitter book club set up by Robert Macfarlane and Mary Bird intends to choose other great works of fantastical literature to read over the year.
Ill cant wait to be a part of it, .