not sure if this is a "retelling" of the Mabinogi, or an "adaptation" or a "novelization" or what, What I am sure of is that it was a lovely, lovely book, full of graceful prose, magic, love and loss, And unpronounceable Welsh names. And maybe just a wee dram of's spiritualism/mysticism courtesy of the author, Highly recommended. A rich, interesting remake of old Welsh myth, I enjoyed marking the similarities between this and other more modern takes on Celtic lore, Now that I've finished the Fourth Branch I wish that there was more, time to start reading any related material I can find, Tricked into giving birth to him, the sorceress Arianhod swore that the child should be nameless until she named him, . . that he should not bear arms until she herself bestowed them, . . and that he should never love a woman of the human race,
But her brother and lover Gwydion tricked her into bestowing a name, Liew, . . and Gwydion's wiles brought her to arm him, . . and then Gwydion called upon his craft to produce a woman who was supremely lovely and ardent in her passion for Liew, . yet not human. A superb adaptation of the fourth branch of the Mabinogion a collection of Welsh myths, The magic is powerful despite Walton's insistence it's just Lost Science, the characters are vivid, though the mysticism is cliched and her handling of gender issues a bit uncomfortable this was written in thesfor example, Walton's assertion that before virginity became a concept, rape didn't exist WTF.
I think it's terrific, even so, first half was four, second half was five, so I'd give it,if I could:. Originally titled The Virgin and The Swine, Awesome celtic mythology. My father knew the author who was known as "The Blue Lady" because she suffered from a
lack of oxygen when she was born, I loved her writing style for this book, She really brought everyone to life and drove the story ever forward, It was very hard to put this book down, A satisfying reworking of Welsh legend, There are more than a few winks made atth century society in the narrative, but the spirit of ancient tales is strong with it, As with any adaptation of an oral narrative there are hook phrases which recur nearly constantly that kight make this a thoroughly enjoyable audio book if someone had the time and grasp of Welsh pronunciations.
Island of the Mighty retells the last branch of the Mabinogion, the story of Gwydion, Arianrhod, Llew Llaw Gyffes, Blodeuwedd and Goronwy, It begins with a retelling of stealing the pigs belonging to Lord Pryderi, Gwydion uses this to provoke war, allowing his younger brother to rape the king's footholder, This also leads to the death of Pryderi, which doesn't endear Gwydion to the reader who has also read the retellings of the other three branches and also to the disgracing of Arianrhod and the birth of Llew Llaw Gyffes.
The themes Evangeline Walton explored in the other books come to fruition here, as power passes more and more from women to men, even power over birth and the rearing of children.
Arianrhod is not very sympathetically dealt with, I have to say: often Walton's work suggests that the passing of women's power is a bad thing, but Arianrhod is capricious and unkind, considered by characters and text unnatural for the crime of not having wanted to bear a child! Blodeuwedd isn't treated with much sympathy here, and the other women are barely characters.
It's hard to sympathise with most of the characters here, particularly as they stir up war, steal, lie and trick each other, I still enjoyed it as a retelling and think Walton dealt well with the material, but I wish she'd been kinder to Arianrhod and Blodeuwedd, who were both unable to fit in the patriarchal society that wanted power over women's bodies, and expected them to abide by two conflicting sets of rules.
The final branch of the Mabinogion is masterfully retold by the author, It encompasses the magic, love, and tragedy of the tale, and is told with empathy and love, I'm not sure why, but I couldn't get into this one at all, Main characters were all pretty hateful and selfish, and I didn't like them or care about them, I much prefer Lloyd Alexander's Gwydion! An exciting adaptation of the fourth branch of the Mabinogi, Walton made it a blast to read, and contextualized it for a slightly less misogynistic audience without bowdlerizing or making it feel inauthentic, I'm ordering the other three parts to read soon! Chronologically, this is the last of Walton's Mabinogion Tetralogy, even though it was actually published first, It's probably best that it not be the first one in the collection I found the story inherently less interesting than Prince of Annwn, It's a good story, but a little more typically fantasyquestlegend style than the other,
Gwydion, strong, fair, and intelligent prince of north Wales repeatedly facilitates the dreams of those he cares about, only to have his plans thwarted by the people he cheats in the process.
Just in case you might feel conflicted about this, it is explained how those others weren't good people anyway Antics include tricking his uncle the king into going to war so that Gwydion's brother might make off with the king's footmaiden.
She must be a virgin, and is required to hold his feet at all times while he's not at war, Doesn't that make it difficult for the king to exercise or train
In the quest for a replacement, Gwydion's sister ends up bearing two children and thus proving unsuitable, and Gwydion's quest shifts to raising one of them in spite of his sister's repeated attempts to curse the child.
Gwydion is used as a major character in Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain series, and you can see elements of others too, such as Gwydion's witchy sister and base and treacherous lords.
The intrigue is interesting and the tragedy is heartbreaking and beautiful, This final branch of the Mabinogion was actually published first in, It didnt do well and thus the others werent published at all at that time, They were all finally published in thes with this one being reprinted first, Why they were printed at this time out of order I dont know, but reading it in the order I did made sense, This one was tough to get into because the heroes of The Song of Rhiannon are beaten by the main characters of this book, So it begins with you feeling like youre being manipulated, By the end of this one, I did like one of the main characters and kind of liked another, But getting from beginning to end was difficult mainly for this reason,
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Walton's series based on the Mabinogion is SO beautiful to me, Not every book hits the same level, but of course she's working directly from a source material,
Where it soars are in the moments of the most painful tragedy when the people in these stories sink beneath the weight of their own character or rise because of it.
And like all the oldest stories, no one gets out alive, . . it's the element of story that Tolkien tapped, the acknowledgement that while bound to this world, we are all bound to the wheel, and no one wins in the end we all have to die.
But the best of us live well, and even the worst of us can die well,
It's the kind of thing newer story telling 'fixes,' either by stopping the story before that point, or by allowing the characters special dispensation a la immortality or some other cheat.
I like that kind of story telling, I don't always want to be punched in the face by what I'm reading, but it doesn't impact your heart the same way.
So THIS story has bad people doing bad things, good people doing bad things, indifferent people doing good, bad, and indifferent things, etc etc, . . it's pretty amazing.
Walton's greatest strength is in the fact that she's a modern writer, able to give her wisest characters a future knowledge that makes them seem prescient and wiser even than they were written originally.
It makes them much more potent, and makes the philosophical and religious discussions extremely interesting and powerful,
My favorite of the four books, Rewriting Math fab Mathonwy, Evangeline Walton follows the plotting fairly tight, but elaborates significantly in the trappings, With some gorgeous moments of prose, she elucidates the purposes and plans of the Mabinogi characters, Drawing from contemporary anthropological theories and likely some of her own ponderings on marriage and sex, Walton challenges social normatives and spiritual assumptions in something that feels far more of the republishing date ofthan it did its origin of.
It is no wonder that despite its high praise, it failed to adhere and, along with three unpublished brethren, was banished until Lin Carter sought to introduce the newlyminted and Tolkienenticed fantasy fans into the genres lost tradition.
The novel is a retelling of the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogion, Math Fab Mathonwy Math, son of Mathonwy, The tetralogy is great and a thing of beauty, I believe, however, that this the fourth book is perhaps my least favorite, Perhaps it was the way Walton'sth century voice broke through, a bit more insistently than in the previous three books, Maybe my tolerance for reading about stupid people who don't learn is making me into one of those insufferable prigs O God, please no,
I really can't say why I like Island of the Mighty less, but whatever the reason, it is nevertheless a great conclusion to a great series.
Walton did an amazing job of telling the ancient stories in a way that is simultaneously faithful to the old while catering to our modern psycholgical concerns to make a richly satisfying mythic story for people today.
It is difficult to imagine anybody else doing that job as well as she did, Evangeline Walton was the pen name of Evangeline Wilna Ensley, an American author of fantasy fiction, She remains popular in North America and Europe because of her “ability to humanize historical and mythological subjects with eloquence, humor and compassion”, .