The Dubious Hills [Hardcover]

Pamela Dean (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1994

A wise and spellbinding contemporary fantasy takes the reader to an enchanting and heartfelt world where magic works in a rather ""dubious"" way and to a society of wizards and farmers with some rather strange ideas. By the author of Tam Lin.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Set in a small village in the magical world first introduced in her YA trilogy The Secret Country , Dean's beautiful and compelling adult novel presents fascinating philosophical puzzles about the nature of knowledge, responsibility and evil. Centuries before, battling wizards eliminated war from the Dubious Hills. Part of their formula for peace was to parcel out mundane experience and knowledge: only the village's Gnosi knows how to teach, only its Akoumi understands about death and only the Physici knows about, and can experience, pain. That Physici is Arry, a 14-year-old girl whose parents' death left her in charge of her young siblings. To counterbalance the Dubious denizens' lack of innate understanding, the wizards bequeathed the villagers magical birthrights, some specific talent that appears at the onset of puberty. This finely balanced, bucolic society is upset by the invasion of wolves offering dangerous insights. In order to protect her world, Arry must search for ways to deal with the wolves' offer. The answers she finds are neither easy nor painless and serve as reminders of just how cruel, and wonderful, children can be. As in The Secret Country , Dean uses snippets of Tennyson, Shakespeare, Hopkins and others for her spells, adding a touch of poetry to her already lovely language.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

In a world where nothing is known for certain and everyone has some sort of magic, a mysterious series of livestock killings by a wolflike creature leads a young woman to confront the elusive truths behind her life in the sheltered world of the Dubious Hills. The author of Tam Lin ( LJ 3/15/91) brings a fresh approach to rural fantasy in this tale of people in a magical world. Filled with subtle texture and style, this is a good bet for most fantasy collections.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 316 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; 1st edition (April 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312854420
• ISBN-13: 978-0312854423
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.9 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,242,134 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a fascinating exploration of knowledge, January 22, 2002

By 

"the_last_naiad" (Dunedin, New Zealand) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Dubious Hills (Hardcover)

A wonderful rural fantasy in which a small hilly community is the result of an experiment that renders all the inhabitants with the ability to only know one thing for certain. Only one person in the village knows the proper name for things, only one person knows, truly, what is beautiful, only one person knows when something is broken, and only one person knows how to fix something. People are unsure, dubious, about everything else. Children are not born with their knowledge, they grow into it, and sometimes the revelation can be painful. Arry is the 14-year old physici of the village, the only person that knows when something is broken, she feels the pain of others and must tell them when they are hurting. This is a lot for a 14 year old to deal with. Since her parents disappeared, she must also look after her younger brother and sister, quiet Beldi and spirited Con. She has her hands full, but there are other problems, she feels as if Beldi is hurting, but nothing seems broken. Who's jurisdiction is such a thing? Can she help him, who would know what is wrong? Beldi, of course, is hurting at the absence of his parents, but Arry does not have the 'knowledge' to know this.

The precise nature of knowledge in this story creates the opportunity for some wonderful jokes. There is a constant going from person to person in the village verifying information, as no one can be sure if what someone else says is the truth, there is the perpetually dubious reply 'who says so?', the response of a taunting child in our world, but an earnestly serious response in these dubious hills. When Arry is frustrated, she curses by saying 'Doubt!' and calls the damnable family cats that get into everything 'doubtful' because they are always under her feet. Doubt, of course, is the most frustrating and tentative thing about this hilly place, rendering it perfect for cussing. Dean also takes the lines from poetry by Keats, Gerald Manly Hopkins etc and makes it into the little spells children under 5 use to help out around the village. The lines of such familar poetry used for the little magic that is used in the village is a homely and lyrical touch. the magic is not invasive, it adds just enough of an otherworldly quality to this wonderfully realised world.

Dean is an exceptional world builder, right up there with Ursula Le Guin, but the thing that I love is the minature size of her worlds. They are child-sized worlds for adults. She treats the presence of evil intelligently and delicately in her work, understanding that it is a complex part of being human. Someone in one of the other reviews here critisied the ending of the Dubious Hills, but if you don't appreciate the ending, you've missed the point of the whole book. They have found a way to escape the doubt that plagues their lives, and think how gratifying it is to know things for certain. I think the Dubious Hills is a critical utopia, and an exceptional exploration of knowlege. I'm agog that such a simple story can have such a deeply philosophical edge to it. Dean is, in truth, a master storyteller, she can weave such complex and delightful worlds in so few words. Her language is deft, quiet, simple. But she creates complex, realistic places and situations. This is a superb book.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful., July 21, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Dubious Hills (Mass Market Paperback)

It's not quite as lyrical as the Secret Country books, but it's a marvelous read. It's set in the same world, but not the same land, as the Secret Country books, in a strange land where specialization has magically been taken to a bizarre and fascinating extreme.

None of Pamela Dean's books should ever be out of stock or out of print. I cannot praise her unique writing style highly enough. Look for _The Secret Country,_ _The Hidden Land,_ and _The Whim of the Dragon,_ too; they're among the very best fantasy ever written.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The beauty and the strangeness of The Dubious Hills..., July 30, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: The Dubious Hills (Mass Market Paperback)

Reading this was like returning to a home long-yearned-for. (Beloved in the same lost way I love Narnia; I cannot do otherwise.) The world is that of the Hidden Land, also known as the Secret Country. It is beautiful and yet deeply strange, and it catches at your heart with joy and sorrow. But the region is a different one, heart-stoppingly so. I loved this story. It is not exactly like the other three set in this world, true. But the style is the same, and the way she mixes in things known and not. There is also mystery to it, like her other tales. You will puzzle out what is happening at the same time you are enthralled by it.