Customer Reviews

INTO THE GREEN.

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

De Lint is by far the best at blending urban reality with fantastical lands that are just "around the corner". He has done it again with this book. I have as many of his books as I could get my hands on...you'll be hooked, although Moonheart was by far his best. If you like him, you'll also like the Taliswoman series by Carole Nelson Douglas...Book 3 of that series is coming in November, 1999. (The other 2 are Cup of Clay and Seed Upon the Wind.)

One of the first fantasy books I ever read, it has stood up to multiple rereadings. De Lint weaves a tale of mystery and magic in a unique land with the courage and compassion of one woman. This book is amazing.

This book has some interesting ideas - and some catchy story elements too! But it seems like parts of the storyline are "sketched out", not quite finished and incorporated in the plot. There are too many unnecessary repetitions in the first half of the book, (about 'the green', and about the main character containing "the triad" etc.) This made me think the first chapters might have occured as short stories by themselves at some point, and then had been put together at a later date.

All in all it's an entertaining book (if you can bear with the repetitions), and much of the mythology is interesting enough as well. Worth reading - just don't expect too much:-)

Much of Charles de Lint's work has been categorized as urban fantasy - tales that tell of the power and magic in the world today, in people's lives now, in places here. "Into the Green" could be a transition tale: how did we get to a time in which magic and power seem to have disappeared, in which urban fantasy comes into being as the longing for that power and magic? What was the world like just before the very last traces of that power disappeared?

Angharad the tinker, a nomad of gypsy kind, lived in the world at such a time. The "time" is of course disguised as a different place - the Kingdom of the Green Isles - and in fact has a history, a past time of its own in which power and magic, and those who wielded the power and magic, were not so rare. The Kingdom of the Green Isles is not thick with magic; this isn't Earthsea, with its mage winds, competing mages, priestesses, Roke's college of mages. It is more akin to Middle Earth at the end of the Third Age: political and military powers are wielded in the open, while ancient wisdoms and subtle forces fade and dissipate as surely as, though more slowly than, the morning fog lifts and disperses with the rising sun. Then we are in the heat and rush and bright light of day.

One of the remaining spirits in the Kingdom of the Green Isles - a mere breath, a shimmering wisp of that world's magic - warns Angharad of the impending final retreat of "the green", of magic and light, from their world. It is Angharad's triad of dispensations - tinker, witch, and harpist - that signal her right to this wisdom, and allow her understanding of and response to that wisdom. The spirit, an oak's spirit, instructs Angharad in, if not preventing the final retreat of "the green", at least closing off the most obvious and sure avenue of that retreat. This is a magical box, a sort of negative Pandora's box. If let open in the world, the box wouldn't release a mob of calamities and troubles, but would rather suck out of the world the last of that breath of magic of the green into the blackness of the box. Her task is to find the box, and somehow take that blackness into herself before it can darken the fey light in the heart of the world.

De Lint's story seems to come to us through the mists of Irish history, language and legend, much of which is left obscure. The many references, and even more subtle allusions, to a nomadic Irish gypsy life do give a certain time-depth to the Kingdom of the Green Isles, and to Angharad's life and journey there. At times, these same idioms and colloquialisms lack substance, and stand out like props. Also, the storytelling suffers from a choppy plot in the first third of the book. The acknowledgment at the beginning of the book partly explains, and confirms, this: the "early portion of this novel appeared, in much altered form, as short stories."

About one-third the way into the book, I got the sense that I'd left behind any story that had been developing, or not developing, and now was coming quickly into the thick of a mystery novel. Angharad has temporarily left her meandering tinker ways to get wrapped up in, and get to the bottom of, intrigues involving the sale of purported witch bones, and finding the mysterious box that may after all be somehow involved in the gruesome business.

Nonetheless, the last half of the book is quite engaging, and actually less "fantastic" than is the first "early portion." Perhaps the most engaging of this part of the story is its more soulful, psychological, and human, rather than fantastic and fey, quality. A broken, unredeemed outcast - a forgotten, crippled soldier bent on blowing his brains out with alcohol (he is a coward to boot, and so resists cutting his own throat or falling on a sword) - flickers into the picture. He can't bear to look at his love, the woman he held in her dying moments, as she speaks to him in his memories, and we ache for him to look and listen long enough to hear beyond his shame and fear. Angharad finds him in the gutter, but he's been there a very long time; his mind is darkened, and alcohol helps him to keep it that way. Alcohol, anger and resentment. If Angharad's humility can be counted on, she won't mind that in fact the reader finds the real joy, the real power and magic, not in her ghostly harp playing and witchy frights, but in this man's facing of his own wasted life. This could be the ultimate triumph of "the green," and the sure genius of "Into the Green."

After a heartrending death of all she believes in, the heroine is visited by the spirits of the land and by her late husband's father, to seek out and keep the magic alive by travelling afoot through the realms and bringing out the best in others. Her journey is filled with self-discovery and realizes the inner landscape of all she crosses, although not too late to save herself

What a strange little book. That was the first thought that crossed my head after I closed "Into the Green". It concerns the adventures of Angharad, a tinker-woman who is also `Summerborn', which means that she has a mystical gift that connects her with the realm of Faerie, better known in this world as `the Green'. Travelling the three islands that make up her Celtic-flavoured world, Angharad's mission in life is to awaken other potential Summerborns to their dormant gift and prevent the magic of the Green from leaking out of the world through her singing, storytelling and harping.

In the first surprise of the book, the heroine does not marry at the finale of the story but at its beginning - and just as abruptly her husband Garrow is taken from her by the plague. With her husband, family and community dead she is forced into a new calling as a solitary wanderer. For the first few chapters of the book, it seemed that De Lint was mapping a rather unusual plot: each chapter is a self-enclosed adventure of Angharad as she searches for fellow Summerborns, a format you would expect from a episodic television series. For example, in one chapter Angharad meets a tree wizard and helps out his misguided apprentice, in another she finds herself in a dangerous situation with some witch-hunters, one of whom is a Summerborn himself. Each crisis is wrapped up by the end of the chapter, and has no further bearing on the rest of the story.

But just as I began to settle in and enjoy this unique volume of mini-adventures (told in beautiful prose with a wonderful melding of Celtic myth and original ideas), De Lint throws in an actual story, with cross-chapter references and character building. Unfortunately this story wasn't quite as interesting as it should have been, and I had already found De Lint's previous path (of telling one story of Angharad's life per chapter) quite appealing. Now we're dealing with a mysterious puzzle-box is uncovered after thousands of years, one that poses a threat to the Summerborn and the Green. Angharad is charged with the task of finding and destroying it.

From here, about a dozen new characters are introduced (none of whom are as interesting as those found in the first half of the book) who are rather difficult to keep track of. The quality of the puzzle-box story can be summed up in the fact that I remember Angharad's solo adventures at the beginning of the book very well, but have no idea as to how she managed to eventually destroy the power of the puzzle box.

As I said, it's an odd little book. Many will share my sentiment that the idea of a series of short-stories concerning Angharad's life was a unique and interesting conceit; others will be impatient for the longer story-arc of the book that involves the sinister puzzle box. I certainly don't regret reading "Into the Green" as it has some neat little ideas concerning the life and qualities of the tinker-folk, and De Lint's language is beautiful, but still...it's odd!

I'm a huge fan of de Lint, and so I enjoy all his works, though I expected more out of this one. It centers around Angharad, who is a tinker, witch, and a harper (a point that de Lint emphasises every few pages and comes to be very annoying) and she interrupts her usual quest, of roaming the lands to find others of her kind and show them their gifts, so that she can destroy a great evil. A great, horrible, terrible evil, that is essentially just a shadow inside a box that makes people feel awful. And Angharad is burdened with the quest of finding the box and destroying what's inside so that it doesn't destroy "the green", which is the land of magic that we also hear about every few pages, and also gets annoying.
But repetetive phrases aside, it was a decent little story. Quick read. The characters are fairly likeable, though they're not nearly as engaging as some of de Lint's other characters. The settings were nicely described though, and I felt like I was there, without being told every single detail. It did feel like the story was building up to some epic ending, but overall it was pretty passive. I'm glad I read the book, and I'll keep it in my collection, but it's not something I'm going to want to read again.

This book was boring, unlike 90% of Mr. de Lint's work I found this unenlighting, completely dull and uninspireing. Sadly I can see some of the potential but there is so little elaboration and it all ends so quickly. Even most of his short stories read better than this novella.
The whole main plot of the puzzle box is so lacking in detail and the we are only given a glimpse of who brings the box to the plot and then they disapear never to be heard from again. This book SHRIEKS out for another 200 pages of some decent plot development. It almost seems like this was either written by de Lint when he was much younger, or by someone completely different. Of all the de Lint books, this is the only one I did not keep.

I'm a casual fan of Charles de Lint. I've only read Forests of the Heart and a huge handful of his short stories, but I've generally considered him a good author. However, with Into the Green, we have an author exploring themes he's already done (and better, in "The Little Country"). Plus, the reader never gets into the minds of the characters and often pages are filled with trite and redundent lamentations of grief, either concerning the main heroine or how tragic it would be if the "fey wonders of the world" disappeared. This man can write better than this. If you must read this book, try and get a used copy.

You have to read it yourself. There's no way my descriptions could do it justice