We're back! This week, we are talking about the closing chapters of The Dark is Rising.

PS Our next novel is A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles. We will begin it on April 1st, reading the first page or two only.

The Dark is Rising: to the end

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Synopsis: Despite Hawkin's / The Walker's treachery (?), the Old Ones defeat the Dark's attack and form the penultimate sign. Learning that his family is in danger, Will continues to seek out the final signs, and acquires the last one on an ancient king's funeral boat. This victory leads the way for the Hunter to appear, and he drives the Dark away.

Craft lesson one: the impossible in steps

One intriguing thing about Cooper's writing: she is very good at introducing magical shifts or changes in a step by step, multi-faceted way. When Will travels in time, she doesn't simply tell us he travelled in time, and nor does she rely on one particular sensory detail. Instead, she gives us multiple clues and developments, so that we can piece the shift together ourselves, even though we've never travelled in time ourselves.

Look at this passage, for instance, from the chapter "The Hawk in the Dark." Notice how many markers Cooper gives us to accept and appreciate the change in time that Will is experiencing. If you had to count them, how many would you say there are?

And the cold grew more and more intense, cutting through the body to the mind. Yet the flames of the Dark seemed at the same time to grow dim, and Will realised that his own century was again fading in around them, and that they were back in Miss Greythorne’s manor.

And the cold was there too.

Everything was changing now; the murmur of voices had dropped from a cheerful buzz to an anxious mutter, and the tall room was only dimly lit, by candles set in candlesticks and cups and plates, wherever there was space. All the bright electric lamps were dark, and the long metal radiators that warmed most of the room gave off no heat.

Merriman swooped baffingly up near him with the speed of one returned from a brisk errand; his cloak was subtly different, changed to the sweeping overcoat he had worn earlier that day.

He said to Miss Greythorne, “There’s not much we can do down there, ma’am..."

I count six references, at least, to the shift in time, in this 164 word passage.

the flame of the Dark grew dim
Will realised...
Everything was changing now
bright electric lamps
Merriman's cloak is changed
Merriman talks like a butler

Six completely different ways of saying, "He had just time travelled."

If you are trying to show your protagonist experiencing something magical, unexpected, or outrageous -- how many references do you currently have on the page that guide the reader through that change, that shift? Could you add too more?

Craft lesson two: mix your mythologies

Many critics say that The Dark is Rising lacks both deep and wide characterisation: Will is a simple protagonist and many of the supporting characters are not that lively or memorable. We are not thrust into the protagonist's consciousness like in A Wizard of Earthsea; we are not welcomed into a big cast of minor characters as in Jonathan Strange.

However, these closing chapters have a kind of lyrical myth-making that I find hypnotic every time I re-read them.

Today, I just wanted to talk about one thing: the way Cooper mingles and mixes her mythologies. Sometimes she names a figure in the story as a figure from English folk lore (the Hunter is Herne the Hunter, for instance); sometimes she describes something (the island cut by four rivers) that appears in many myths and legends but she doesn't dwell on its universal significance (the Garden of Eden is sometimes said to have rivers like that -- so the island in the Thames is symbol or copy of Eden); sometimes she seems to imply that an unnamed character is supposed to be a figure from myth (is the king on the boat supposed to be King Arthur?).

This is powerful because she weaves together so many legends; its digestible because she doesn't name all the elements and so the reader is not forced to wonder how all this is supposed to work.

King Arthur's dead body is resting in an outpost of the Garden of Eden hidden in the River Thames so that his ally Herne the Hunter can defeat the Dark?

When you say it like that, it's a lot to take in. But Cooper leaves some of this up to the reader's interpretation (maybe the king is just a king, maybe the rivers are just there to look like the signs) so we absorb these mythical elements as suggestions, signifiers, and so on. In addition, she often refers to the ancient past of the British Isles but she never really explains the backstory of the Dark. We have to just piece together the elements we are given?

Do you include this kind of myth-making in your stories? Do you like this idea of naming some elements -- and leaving others for the reader to decide?

Yours,

Daniel

The Dark is Rising, to the end

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