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This Puffin children's fantasy from 1973 (the year I was born) starts out promisingly, with three children who don't know each other stuck on vacation together for a country holiday at the cottage of an amusingly tryhard couple. There's a mysterious mountain, a possibly haunted lane, and a witchy woman who asks them to climb the mountain to search for the spring she found once, years ago, and was never able to find again. But a strange vagrant warns them not to climb the mountain...
There's some beautiful imagery but the book gets increasingly incoherent as it goes along. There's a lot of talk about how the land has historical connections to King Arthur, but this never comes to anything. (For instance, when they meet a mythic figure at the climax, he's a generic mythic figure rather than Arthurian.) There's a lot of metaphysics and the kids do end up working together to overcome assorted magical obstacles, but there isn't enough attention paid to their relationship to make that feel really satisfying. And then there's the deeply peculiar climax and ending.
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There's some beautiful imagery but the book gets increasingly incoherent as it goes along. There's a lot of talk about how the land has historical connections to King Arthur, but this never comes to anything. (For instance, when they meet a mythic figure at the climax, he's a generic mythic figure rather than Arthurian.) There's a lot of metaphysics and the kids do end up working together to overcome assorted magical obstacles, but there isn't enough attention paid to their relationship to make that feel really satisfying. And then there's the deeply peculiar climax and ending.
( Read more... )
