Procure The Bell At Sealey Head Written By Patricia A. McKillip Displayed In Manuscript
not expect to enjoy this so much, will come, once I've reread this delightfully strange amp strangely delightful story, A joy to read McKillip's hallmark lyrical prose coupled with a fairly simple story, slowly unraveling without any obtuseness you sometimes find in some of her works.
One of her alltime greats for me, a slowburning mystery resonating as firmly as some of her more famous works, Brand new from the World Fantasy Awardwinning author of Solstice Wood, Sealey Head is a small town on the edge of the ocean, a sleepy place where everyone hears the ringing of a bell no one can see.
On the outskirts of town is an impressive estate, Aislinn House, where the aged Lady Eglantyne lies dying, and where the doors sometimes open not to its own dusty rooms, but to the wild majesty of a castle full of knights and princesses.
. . A sweet little slip of a book about a house in a tiny seaside town, and pantry doors that open to the house in another world under a spell, and an innkeeper who loves books, and country romances, and a bell ringing every day at sunset that only the people who listen can hear.
Pretty. This book is partly about rituals lighting candles, getting married to the proper person, a bell that rings at the same time every day and how important it is to be aware of the rules youre following.
I read most of this book on a quiet Sunday, alone, doing laundry, The book would step into one of its recitations of quotidian magic, “light that lantern, Close the door, and lock it, Leave the key. Turn one page of the book at the top of the tower, ” I would think, “sort the whites, Pour detergent. Normal, easy care, delicates. ” McKillip always has a different take on magic, and this one is domestic, busyhanded, frightening if followed blindly but very powerful if done mindfully, It was a good day,
The doors of a crumbling manor open into another world that lives under an enchantment of ritual, The only connection between the two worlds is the bell that tolls at sunset every day, until a stranger comes to town, determined to find out what lies behind the mystery of the bell.
The Bell at Sealey Head is another one of Patricia McKillips dreamlike fairy tales, and I liked it very much, particularly because there are so many bookobsessed characters in the novel, and the solution to the central mystery involves a book as well.
My one quibble is that I thought the resolution was a little too swift and most of the main characters were not involved in it at all.
I think I would have preferred a narrative that focused on fewer characters, though I found all of them delightful with special love for a charming threeyearold named Dulcie.
"I felt such terrible sorrow, such loss, such fury, at that moment at the end of every day when the last light faded in the world.
The bell was the sound of my heart, crying out to the world, "
Well, this was lovely, There is something almost indescribably comforting about McKillip's books to me, Reading them is like falling into the best sleep you've ever had and dreaming a strange, sweet dream that is at once airy and rich, otherworldly and comfortingly human.
They are, essentially, perfect little gems of ethereal beauty and The Bell at Sealey Head is no exception, Featuring a hidden castle dimension cursed to live each day in an unending repetition of meaningless rituals, a visiting wizard who brings trouble with him and The Age Old Power of Books, it's a regency fairy tale that held me enthralled from beginning to end.
I've been sitting on this quote for a while, spoken by Ridely Dow to Ysabo when she tells him that her mother calls her a goblin, and every time I read it I love it more:
"If goblin you are, with that great mass of curly hair, those eyes speckled like bird eggs, that smile that illumines your entire face, then goblins must be of such beauty that only the rarest of beings can recognize it.
" I liked this a lot, The plot was less convoluted than usual, which is nice I thought the setting, a small oceanside town, was nicely done and I really liked the main romance okay, maybe because it's between two appealingly bookish people.
I thought McKillip handled nicely the interweaving of the stories, between presentday Sealey Head and the mysterious world inside Aislinn House, I did think she made the main characters a little passive at the end, just sitting there waiting to find out what would happen in the other world, which dimmed my enjoyment of the ending.
But I'll definitely buy it in paperback, which I don't always do with McKillip, Ignore the blurb on this one, Thats a piece of advice particularly useful with McKillip, I think, This is lovely: a quiet, almost pastoral fantasy beautifully written small in scale and perfect in scope, Somehow its both surprising and not it certainly doesnt follow any conventional beats, except in that trademark McKillip way, where her stories never end up where they seem to begin, and the blurb feels out of a different universe entirely, one where prose cant quite capture the things that make this author who she is while also constructed so well that I cant say anything particularly shocked me, even as I savored every word.
This is an incredibly satisfying journey, This is the best book I've yet read from Patricia A, McKillip, and I've loved all of her work that I've read, Somehow this enchanted me even better than any of the others, A lovely, magical atmosphere that permeates all of the book and the reader's consciousness, A fascinating story about a small and seemingly dull seaside village where a mysterious bell tolls every evening at sunset and where doors in the great manor open into other worlds at random.
There are wonderful characters with personality, And there is writing that is as poetic, beautiful and lush as ever in McKillip's books but somehow more readable than ever before, In earlier books I've loved her writing but sometimes found it a little difficult to absorb in places, however, now it flowed from the page into my head with perfect ease without sacrificing in any of the beauty, lushness or poetry.
A thoroughly recommended read for anyone who might possibly be appealed by this kind of book, My first McKillip dud. This story was all build up and no pay off, And all the threads never came together, The plot felt disjointed. And don't get me started on that finale, A dreamy delight! The village of Sealey Head is haunted by the sound of a bell that tolls at sunset every day, But where is this bell, and why does it ring The stories of the villagers, a castle in the distant past, and a strange magician are interwoven in this delicate retelling of Sleeping Beauty.
This book reminded me of Robin McKinley's sitelinkBeauty: both feature young women in an unspecified past resemblingthth century Europe who encounter a castle just a little more magic than it should be.
Enchantment doesn't overwhelm either book it peeks from around corners and from inside the buds of flowers,
Sarcastic Miss Gwyneth Blair is being courted, but she prefers the bookworm who runs the ramshackle inn, Meanwhile, serving girl Emma is worried about her friend, the princess Ysabo, She can only glimpse her from certain doorways, but the snatches she catches of Ysabo's world are bewildering and a little scary think sitelinkGormenghast, And all their lives are punctuated by the tolling bell of Sealey Head, which no one has ever seen but everyone hears, When the scholarly Ridley Dow comes to town, investigating the bell, everything comes to a head,
This book is sweet, interesting, very well written, and involves
a lovely old sort of magic, .stars
Half a star docked because the plot did not coalesce in the last few pages quite so immaculately or impressively as it does in some of McKillip's others.
Plus and I know this is petty, but allow me my pettiness
Still, overall, I really, really loved this one, For some reason I was expecting to be underwhelmed by it, but it's actually made its way to the top of my McKillip hierarchy so far, alongside Forgotten Beasts and Stony Wood.
The coastal setting was simultaneously so rich and so soothing, and the dynamic between all the characters was so relaxed and so wholesome, I can't wait to visit Sealey Head again, At heart this is a fairy tale about stories, Like sitelinkRobin McKinley's work, this book is fantasy on the small and private level,
McKillip tells the story of a group of people think sitelinkCranford and the magic that is part of their lives, All the characters are well drawn and none of the characters is a cliche, In addition to the actual novel, one of the characters tells a story to her younger siblings, In fact, when this is first down, the reader feels the disappointment of that story breaking off, McKillip transports the reader to the room where the story is being read, She does this each time the character returns to the story, A pleasant exploration of magic in a small coastal town, Each day a bell is heard at sunset, although no one knows where the bell is, At the same time, a maid in Aislinn House sometimes opens doors and sees another young girl in the world across the threshold, When a magician arrives in Sealey Head, events are set in motion to solve both mysteries,
This is a light tale, but enjoyable, I chose it because the picture from the cover is featured in my calendar this year of paintings by K, Y. Craft. .