December 14, 2012

Susan Cooper: The Dark Is Rising

Cooper set her second novel in the Dark is Rising sequence at mid-winter and Christmas, and beautifully weaves the ancient legends and myths of surrounding the season into a modern young adult novel about a battle between the Light and the Dark.

She uses half-remembered superstitions about growing up, winter solstice and British myths to tie supernatural events of the present day to an eons-long battle. We all know the importance of a child's eleventh birthday from the Harry Potter novels — it's the age when children start secondary schooling. Cooper makes it the age at which Will Stanton awakens to his true calling and powers. For a day, animals behave strangely around Will, and the radio receives nothing but static. (If this sounds familiar, The Dark Is Rising was written nearly 20 years before Harry Potter.)

J.K. Rowling modernizes magic; she brings the modern world to a magical one. Cooper brings the old magic into the modern world. Rowlings world of magic is often bright and lighthearted. Cooper's magic is an old tool that has been used to battle against the Dark. We might have streetlights and central heating, but Cooper's world is still surrounded by darkness that will worm its way in unless stuanchly defended.

Winter solstice is when the dark presses most strongly. We talk of the magic of Christmas, but magic in myth can be used for good or ill. Before the advent of gas and electric lighting, our ancesters understood this well, using what light they had and the little remaining greenery to help shorten the nights and lengthen the day. Young will not only serves "the Light," but uses candlelight and firelight in two of his skirmishes in the book.

In the end, it is not just the magic of the Light that defeats the Dark (for now, this is a five-book series), but the Wild magic, which is a force of nature, of animal instinct, neither good nor evil, simply powerful and with its own laws.

The Dark Is Rising is one of the best modern fantasy series. Hard choices are made. Help comes from unexpected quarters. I'm not particularly fond of the series's end; it seemed an easy out, but it's much better than how the Narnia novels ended. The Dark Is Rising is not the first novel; the first novel is Over Sea, Under Stone, written five or ten years earlier.

When you find yourself washing a measuring spoon, bowl or spatula mid-baking, it's a sign that you might need another one. Unless no one washes the dishes in your house. That's another problem entirely.