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rushthatspeaksA book from B.'s childhood, which I read as a) I had never really heard of the series and b) he has all of them.
This is that interesting thing, the first book of a series from which the series could go in any direction. It is the protagonist's childhood and backstory prior to setting off into the world, and as it is limited in scope, there is no way to tell what kind of world he is going to set off into. There could be anything out there and it would not surprise me much.
At any rate, our protagonist is Gom, who is the son of a woodcutter and the strange woman who appeared in his house, married him, bore him ten children and then vanished. Gom, unlike anyone else in his family or surroundings, can talk to animals, the wind, and various other forces, but isn't aware that this is peculiar.
Mostly this is a quiet, domestic sort of book about living in a wild space, and the ways in which a person who lives on the outskirts of society can and can not afford to be different, and about the mountain itself and the turning of the seasons and the animals. It does nothing that I haven't seen before, but it does it very well, and in a kindly and pleasant tone, and the magic is well done. I could wish it were more different from everything else out there, but this is a book that achieves its goals perfectly; that they are modest goals does not detract from that.
And I really do find it impressive that after an entire book I have no idea of the overall direction or plot of the series. I know the protagonist, and a little bit of what he can do, and what the tiny place he grew up in was like. The rest is as conjectural to me as to him, and that is very rare.
So, a pleasant thing, although I would not go to great effort to seek this book out, necessarily; but if you find yourself alone with it for an hour or two, it will not go amiss.
This is that interesting thing, the first book of a series from which the series could go in any direction. It is the protagonist's childhood and backstory prior to setting off into the world, and as it is limited in scope, there is no way to tell what kind of world he is going to set off into. There could be anything out there and it would not surprise me much.
At any rate, our protagonist is Gom, who is the son of a woodcutter and the strange woman who appeared in his house, married him, bore him ten children and then vanished. Gom, unlike anyone else in his family or surroundings, can talk to animals, the wind, and various other forces, but isn't aware that this is peculiar.
Mostly this is a quiet, domestic sort of book about living in a wild space, and the ways in which a person who lives on the outskirts of society can and can not afford to be different, and about the mountain itself and the turning of the seasons and the animals. It does nothing that I haven't seen before, but it does it very well, and in a kindly and pleasant tone, and the magic is well done. I could wish it were more different from everything else out there, but this is a book that achieves its goals perfectly; that they are modest goals does not detract from that.
And I really do find it impressive that after an entire book I have no idea of the overall direction or plot of the series. I know the protagonist, and a little bit of what he can do, and what the tiny place he grew up in was like. The rest is as conjectural to me as to him, and that is very rare.
So, a pleasant thing, although I would not go to great effort to seek this book out, necessarily; but if you find yourself alone with it for an hour or two, it will not go amiss.
