Many years ago now, Rachel Neumeier wrote me and suggested that I read Rumer Godden’s In This House of Brede. Some years later, observing that I hadn’t reviewed it yet, she wrote me again and suggested that I read it. Eventually it came back into print, I snagged a copy, and of course I loved it. Last year, she wrote me saying that she’d signed a book deal; and a few weeks ago she wrote me and asked if I’d like an advance copy of her first book. I said yes, naturally. It arrived on Monday, and I opened it eagerly.
On reflection, I’m not entirely sure why I opened it eagerly; certainly, I had no particular reason to think that it would be any good. The only points in Rachel’s favor, other than her brief, scattered notes, are her love for Rumer Godden and the fact that the she was able to sell the book to a major publisher. But love of great writing is no guarantee of skill, and I’ve certainly seen enough dreck published by major publishers. But, nevertheless, I opened it eagerly…and the bottom line is that I wasn’t disappointed.
The book is a fantasy novel aimed at the “teen” segment of the market. As the book opens, the crown prince of the realm has gone missing; an intense search ensues, led by the crown prince’s elder brother, Neill the Bastard, but to no avail. Next, we come to a small village on the far side of the Great Forest from the main city of the realm. This particular village is notable for having its own mage, a great rarity, and the mage has a daughter named Timou. We read a bit about Timou’s training as mage, and her relations with the other girls in the village, and about her budding romance with a newcomer to the village, a man named Jonas, a romance that is stifled by the demands of Timou’s training.
Then, things begin to happen in earnest. The king disappears, and in the village babies begin to be born dead. And not just babies; livestock and wild animals are affected in the same way. Timou’s father leaves the village, searching for an answer, and doesn’t return. And eventually, of course, Timou must follow, while Neill must bear both the responsibilities of the realm and the suspicion that he has done away with his father and brother; and therein hangs the tale.
I don’t want to reveal more of the plot, but I’ve a number of observations to make. First, this didn’t read like a first novel. The prose is skillful, and flows smoothly. You can usually tell within the first few paragraphs whether you’re in good hands; I was. Second, while it’s being marketed as a teen novel I can’t see any reason why it wouldn’t do well in the science fiction shelves as well. The book’s very clear that men and women, who might not be married yet or ever, can come together and have sex and have babies—there are references to courting couples finding a spot in the woods, and a farmer Timou gets a ride with is clearly expecting payment in kind—but the text isn’t in any way explicit or off-color, and the fruits of infidelity are clearly Not Good, so I see no reason why the book would be inappropriate for older children. (I recall Chesterton commenting that either the characters are wicked, or the book is.) Third, Rachel does good Faerie.
This last is hard for me to explain, but I’ll try. I owe my notion of Faerie almost entirely to Tolkien’s short story “Smith of Wooton Major”. It’s a place where humans do not rightly belong though they may sometimes stray in, or even be invited. It’s a place beyond human understanding, a place with its own laws, few of which are understood by human visitors, and those that are known are known only in part. It is perilous, and those that enter seldom leave unscathed—or perhaps “unchanged” would be a truer word. Properly done, Faerie evokes a sense of wonder, a sense of being drawn into something larger, a sense of dangerous beauty. (At least, it does for me. As Lewis notes somewhere, for some folks it doesn’t work at all.)
Very little I run across in the fantasy genre these days even attempts to enter Faerie. Most fantasy novels I see are realistic in tone, and treat the magical arts as simply the technology proper to the fantasy world. They might not be entirely understood, but there’s the sense that only further research is required. (Jim Butcher’s Codex Alera novels are an excellent example of this. I like ’em, but there ain’t no Faerie there, nohow.) Lord Dunsany could do it, and Tolkien managed it in his short stories “Smith of Wootton Major” and “Leaf by Niggle”; The Lord of the Rings at its most Faerie is still realistic in tone. Roald Dahl managed it sometimes; I recall Benjamin the True fondly, though I’ve not read it since my childhood. I dunno whether it would work for me now. Rachel does it very well, which puts her in illustrious company. And in fact, by the fourth or fifth chapter I was riveted.
The difficulty with books that evoke Faerie is that much of the reader’s response comes from within the reader rather than from the book itself. And there are two cases. Sometimes the book honestly and fully evokes the response, and sometimes the reader in their eagerness fills in the gaps in a book that dances well but has an empty heart. In the latter case, the book will often disappoint on a second reading, or at a later stage in life. I’m minded of an author I read avidly my first year or so of college, Nancy Springer; I came back to her books a little after I got married and as I recall there was nothing left in them for me.
The question then is, which kind of book is The City in the Lake? It’s too early for me to be sure, of course; but I think Lewis points the way. Some books, he points out, are read just for the fun of reading them. Others take up residence in your head, and you ponder them, and begin to fill in the gaps on your own: Why did so-and-so do such-and-such? How did so-and-so get from hither to yon, and was he doing in the meantime? What does it mean?
In contemplating the book prior to writing this review, I’ve often found myself doing just this. I’ll form an initial, somewhat critical impression of some aspect of the book…and then find counter-examples rushing to mind. There’s surprising depth, here, and goodness.
But I’m in danger of gushing. Point is, I liked it, and I’m eager to see whether Rachel can do it again.
The book’s due to be released in hardcover this coming July; you can preorder it from Amazon should you be minded to do so.
The View from the Foothills 