Susan Cooper’s series takes us to modern London and Arthurian villages, the Lost Land and magical meeting places, with characters both mortal and mysterious.
Susan Cooper’s series takes us to modern London and Arthurian villages, the Lost Land and magical meeting places, with characters both mortal and mysterious.
T here is a special bond that forms between people when they learn that they love the same book. Suddenly, a world that means so much to you is understood and appreciated by someone else. The shared experience can be thrilling, as you compare notes on pet theories, favorite characters, potential plot holes, and alternate endings. Growing up, I shared the realm of Redwall with a dear friend in my homeschool group, and we spent countless hours chatting about hares and memorizing Abbey poems, occasionally yelling “Eulelia!” (a battle cry). One summer, I spent several weeks racing the boy who lived next door, also a voracious reader, through Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising series, with a dreadful disregard for nuance but an immense joy in the tale.
Initially set in modern-day England, The Dark Is Rising books weave together Arthurian legends and folklore, which eventually take readers to different eras and lands. This five-book set begins with Over Sea, Under Stone, a straightforward adventure tale about three mortal children and their mysterious great-uncle, Merriman Lyon. A combination of curiosity and determination set the Drew children — Simon, Jane, and Barney — on a quest for an ancient grail. Racing against time, nature, and a deceiving group of enemies, our heroes must work together to solve an ancient riddle before the Dark discovers their mission.
Over Sea, Under Stone is set in the fictional town of Trewissick, said to be near St. Austell’s in southwest England. Cooper clearly knows her geography, but more than that, she understands how to bring it to life for readers, her descriptions shaping the landscape in our minds. The true mark of her skill, however, is her ability to paint invented landscapes just as well, and switch between those and reality without causing confusion. In the subsequent four books, we travel back and forth among English villages, the Lost Land, Welsh hillsides, magical meeting places, and London museums. It is never rushed, and we are brought fully into each space and made aware of its smells, sights, and sounds.
Wisely, Cooper moderates her character count in each book, and often brings back recurring ones. This enables interesting character arcs and character growth, and pleases readers who want to return for more adventures with familiar friends. The Drew children show up in three books, young Will Stanton (my preferred character) appears in four, and the enigmatic Bran makes his startling entrance in the last two. Binding them all together is the strong presence of Merriman Lyon, who, if you’ve read enough Arthurian tales, may seem a familiar figure. While Arthurian themes underpin much of the series, Cooper has mainly used them as a starting point for her own imagination and created a sweeping, engrossing epic.
World-building is a tricky process — one that often trips up amateur writers. Too many characters, each with a strange, vowel-heavy name, populate an outlandish location full of unexplained phenomena. Underage (often) heroes can magically manipulate these phenomena with little training, and seem to continuously discover new powers. Throw in a variety of legendary creatures, poorly written dialogue, an ill-conceived quest, and an unrealistically beautiful and deadly love interest, and you have the makings of a New York Times best-selling YA fantasy.
Not so with The Dark Is Rising. With a flair for the dramatic tempered with an understanding of balance, Cooper avoids most of the genre’s pitfalls. In some respects, her stories stand out because she combines old legends with her own twist. Her characters, however, sometimes read a bit flat, and the action scenes can be rather muted. There are many intense moments, but you won’t find edge-of-your-seat clashes or desperate sword fights here, and much of the action revolves around battles of the will. I recently reread the series, and while it doesn’t hold the same charm it once did, the excellence of the writing endures. There are simply some books that don’t grow with you and lose some of their appeal as you broaden your reading horizons. Regardless of that measure of disenchantment, Cooper’s imagery and invention, as she handles the age-old battle between light and dark, hold up well.
One of my brothers also read these tales, but for him, they lacked a certain sense of the personal. Meaning that, because all of the events were so fantastical, they weren’t ever going to happen to him. He preferred the Ranger’s Apprentice series with its boots-on-the-ground practicality (albeit in a made-up world set in the medieval era). It’s easy to understand this sentiment, but Cooper isn’t just trying to play around with magic in her books. Fantasy storytelling must entail some rules. As the writer Naomi Lewis noted of the works of E. Nesbit, another master of magic-writing, magic’s use in tales has consequences. Cooper is keenly aware of this.
Whether you enjoy Arthurian folklore, want to give pronouncing Welsh words a try, or simply need a magical escape, Susan Cooper’s series is worth your time.