Group Christmas Reading: The Dark is Rising

[TheFifthElement]

Hi everyone
I plan on re-reading the children's classic, The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper, this Christmas. I would love to read it with company. In case you've never read it, The Dark is Rising takes place over the 12 days of Christmas and explores the pagan traditions and legends of Christmas against the backdrop of the developing 'powers' of a boy named Will. It is a children's book, so relatively easy to read, but also magical and menacing and wonderful. Please join me.

I plan to start reading on Dec 21st which should give everyone who would like to join chance to get hold of a copy. Please join me.

*sub-note: don't be put off if you've seen the movie 'The Seeker' which is truly dreadful and unrepresentative of the book. If you haven't seen the movie don't bother. EVER. It made me want to scoop out the memory from my brain with a blunt spoon.*

[qimissung]

I'll do it, if only I can find a copy of the book in time.

[MorpheusSandman]

As a kid/young teen the entire The Dark is Rising series was my favorite literature. I read the entire series three times and then revisited again in my early 20s. I haven't read it since, but I wouldn't mind discussing what of it I can remember. I think The Gray King was the best of the series, but The Dark is Rising was probably the second best. They are truly, genuinely great children's lit that probably don't get enough credit for being as good as they are because they ARE children's lit.

[TheFifthElement]

I have a feeling Qimi that you might just get hold of the book in time I am praying for snow, because somehow TDiR benefits from being read when the snow is piling up outside and you are trapped and, thanks to the book, totally menaced by it.

Morpheus you should join us. I re-read The Dark is Rising a couple of years back, and it's just as magnificent now as it was when I read it as a child. I agree, as a series it should be more widely known and read. It covers a lot of philosophical thinking, legends, myths, tradition and the idea of responsibility in such a grown up way. It's rare to see that kind of faith in kids these days. My favourite is also The Grey King. Year before last we were camping in the right part of Wales and I climbed Cader Idris and felt like I was entering my own childhood mythology, I had imagined it so many times. Sadly I didn't get chance to see Tal y Llyn, because the kids were tired, but perhaps next year I'll fit that one in. Anyway, it is always good to encounter another fan

I also have always had a fondness for Greenwitch, largely because Jane plays such a large part in it. Actually they're all really good books.

[Scheherazade]

I will join if I can get hold of a copy!

Hope it is not like The Giver series...

[Calidore]

I will join if I can get hold of a copy!

Hope it is not like The Giver series...

DiR is a terrific series. I read it for the first time about ten years ago with my neighbor's kid. I think it was the second thing we read together after Lloyd Alexander's Prydain books.

The first book, Over Sea, Under Stone, is actually pretty different from the later four (though still good). The series proper really kicks in with The Dark is Rising, which is the second book. I highly recommend reading all five.

[Buckthorn]

*sub-note: don't be put off if you've seen the movie 'The Seeker' which is truly dreadful and unrepresentative of the book. If you haven't seen the movie don't bother. EVER. It made me want to scoop out the memory from my brain with a blunt spoon.*

I agree it was a pretty bad adaptation (although there are some far worse - Beautiful Creatures for example) but the books are really good, I read them years ago (I think 2007) and have been meaning to read them again, so I will join if I can

[TheFifthElement]

Excellent it should be a great discussion (Scher - it is much, much better than The Giver). I'll set up a specific thread closer to the time. Looking forward to discussing this amazing book with you all.

[TheFifthElement]

5 days to go...

[Buckthorn]

I forgot to ask, is it the whole series that is being read, or just The Dark is Rising?

[TheFifthElement]

I was just proposing to read The Dark is Rising for Christmas, given that it's set over the 12 days (though very tempted to read the whole series )

[Buckthorn]

I was just proposing to read The Dark is Rising for Christmas, given that it's set over the 12 days (though very tempted to read the whole series )

I was hoping it would just be The Dark is Rising, if I remember rightly that was my favourite

[TheFifthElement]

It is the day and the hour, for me anyway, to start reading The Dark is Rising. Please share your thoughts here. Remember, if posting potential spoilers give a warning up front.

*opens book with gleeful excitement*

[TheFifthElement]

So I've just finished Ch. 2 and wanted to reflect a moment on the experience so far. One of the points I always forget, and enjoy, about this book is how you drop into the action straight away. Straight away there is a sense of menace, a sense of something a little 'off'. There is no real normalcy to offset it against, no vision of Will as a 'normal' boy, and yet there is the knowledge that all is not right. I was immediately intrigued by the 'Walker' and the significance of the rooks. I also love the language employed by Cooper throughout, it has a kind of mythical quality to it. Like this:

He was woken by music. It beckoned him, lilting and insistent; delicate music played by delicate instruments that he could not identify, with one rippling bell-like phrase running through it like a golden thread of delight. There was in this music so much of the deepest enchantments of all his dreams and imaginings that he woke smiling in pure happiness at the sound. In the moment of his waking, it began to fade, beckoning as it went, and then as he opened his eyes it was gone. He had only the memory of that one rippling phrase still echoing in his head, and itself fading so fast that he sat up abruptly in bed and reached his arm out to the air, as if he could bring it back.

The room was very still, and there was no music, and yet Will knew that it had not been a dream.

Beautiful

Is anyone else reading?

[Buckthorn]

I have started and read about 10 pages but there was so much work today yesterday that I didn't get time to read much more than that, I will be dedicating a few hours to it tonight though. One of the things that I have always liked about the books is with them being set years ago TV's, Mobile Phones, XBoxes & Playstations don't get mentioned