Customer Reviews

The Iron Ring

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

The Iron Ring is all out my favorite book. I used to not like to read do to the fact that in school I am forced to read books that I have no interest in. But one day I picked up a book in the schools Library and read the back. I was immediately hooked so I took it home and started reading. My parents thought something was wrong with me but as Lloyd Alexander put it: "Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It's a way of understanding it." Now I love to read again and I am always waiting for more Alexander books to pick up. If you don't like to read I suggest you pick up this book and you will love it.

Thank you Lloyd for inspiring me and making reading fun.

This was a GREAT BOOK which I would recommend to anyone who Loves to read books by Lloyd Alexander. This book was exciting. It had it: war, treachery, magic, and of course love. This book was not too graphic or gory in its battle scenes and was just right in its magic parts which even included a talking monkey. Of course Lloyd Alexander spiced it up with a surprise ending. I would highly RECOMMEND this book! It is both very funny and very exciting.If you like Lloyd Alexander, this book is definitly for you. If you want to be sitting down for a while, get this book and find somewhere comfy to read because you won't be able to put it down.

The trademark feature of Lloyd Alexander's storytelling is to choose a cultural background and weave his own story into the already existing mythology; his most famous example of this is of course "The Chronicles of Prydain", in which his own story and characters were melded with the myths and legends of Wales (as found in "The Mabinogian"). "The Iron Ring" gets a similar treatment, as worked into the story are elements of "The Mahabharata" and "The Ramayana", India's great national epics.

Tamar is the young king of a small kingdom, who is doing a rather successful job at ruling under the guidance of his loyal wise-man Rajaswami and military leader Darshan until one day he foolishly plays and looses a game of chance to the mysterious king Jaya. Waking the next morning, he finds that he has bet his life away and as proof of his bondage is an iron ring upon his finger. But was it a dream or not? Determined to find out, Tamar leaves his kingdom for Jaya's mountain city of Mahapura in the hopes of saving his honour and keeping his dharma intact.

On the way however, he becomes severely sidetracked. Meetings with monkey kings and wrestling with giant serpents finally leads to him to swearing his allegiance to King Aswara, a noble lord whose city has been usurped by his murderous cousin Nahusha. Along with his allies (which now include a complaining eagle, a beautiful milk-maid and an odd curiosity-seeker who has lived for the past year in an ant hill), Tamar sets his will against Nahusha. Needless to say, he learns many important lessons on the way, concerning life, death and love, and most importantly on the infamous Indian caste system that ranks all people from the highest brahamas to the "Untouchables"; the chandalas. Throw in plenty of talking animals, a magical jewel, several daring plans and Alexander's unmistakable brand of humour and you have a fantastic story.

Most people will pick up on several components of Indian culture and mythology, namely the caste system and the ideologies behind dharma and karma. I was especially pleased to see that Alexander knows the correct definition of "karma" - most Westerners believe it is the idea of "what comes around, goes around", when in fact it is more akin to our idea of "fate" and the events surrounding a person's destiny.

There are a couple of slight problems, one being the sudden and therefore unconvincing love story between Tamar and Mirri the gopi. She's a typical Alexander heroine: beautiful, headstrong and wise, but her bond with Tamar is based on love at first sight, something that only "Romeo and Juliet" has been able to get away with. Furthermore, anyone who has read "The Chronicles of Prydain" cannot help but notice the similarities between the characters, especially in the main quartets of Tamar, Mirri, Hashkat and Adi-Kavi with Taran, Elionwy, Gurgi and Fflewddur Fflam - in fact when Hashkat the monkey king first appeared, for a surreal moment I thought it *was* Gurgi!

But these are minor quibbles: Alexander is one of the best authors of children's fantasy fiction, and "The Iron Ring" is no exception. Plenty of morals, plenty of magic, and plenty of Indian mythology, you'll not only enjoy it, but be motivated to look more into Indian culture - something that is largely unknown (restricted to Indian food and misinterpretations) to the Western world.

With a hero like King Arthur it's no wonder Lloyd Alexander writes about a young king's adventures. The Iron Ring is one of the many beautifully written stories.
Tamar, the young king of Sundari, journeys to many places. Tamar faces death and wonder around every corner. When he plays a game like dice, he does not know how far the stakes will go. He loses his caste and honor, while realizing the world sees a lot of violence and he is just as important as anybody else. He learned much about the lives of other creatures. This is a good story about a king who learns much.
This is an outstandingly written novel. I liked every part of the story. There is heart pounding adventure and romance in it. When Tamar is hit in the head with a mace your heart is pounding. Did he live? Did he fulfill his task? It's also full of romance. Does Mirri the gopi, a cow maiden, choose Tamar. It's also full of action; there are many battle scenes. Out of ten this would definitely be a ten plus. I would recommend this book to any body.
Overall, the life of a young king and his adventures are very attention-grabbing. This is a book that all would enjoy.

To say the least, this book is excellent, highly original, with fascinating characters. Though it's quite a long book, both times I've read it I've finished it in twenty-four hours or less. Lloyd Alexander has been one of my favorite authors for quite a while, so I was expecting quite a bit from this book, and I was not dissapointed. Combining the rich undertones of Indian mythology with usual fantasy flair, Lloyd Alexander really outdid himself here. In it, the young king Tamar sets out to find the mysterious King Jaya, to whom he inadvertantly pledged his life. Along the way, he gains a very colorful band of companions who include a bad tempered bird, a kind elephant, one of his old teachers, a mischevous monkey, plus a beautiful peasant girl Tamar falls instantly in love with. As they head on their journey it becomes apparant that it is largely a journey of self discovery as well, as each character has immense character development. One thing that annoyed me about this book was that it was not up to the authors usual standards of having plenty of strong female characters. (I will never forget Eilonwy, who made the intire Prydain chronicles for me) The only real main character who was even female was Mirri, and while she was clever and all, she wasn't that cool, and didn't even have a real part in the story except to be Tamar's love interest and sit and look pretty. I also felt that her relationship to Tamar was fairly groundless as well, especially at first. Sure, towards the end Tamar learns to love her for real reasons too, which is part of his development, but the intire basis of his feelings for her revolve around looks. Besides that though, this book was wonderful, and kept me rivited to it right to the end. (which isn't at all what you'd expect.) Also, this book is somewhat more gory than some of his other books, so I would recommend it more to the 12-15 age range than the 9-12 age range that most of Lloyd Alexander's books are written in. That's not to say that younger people wouldn't enjoy it also though, as long as they can handle the occational violence.

Some people like to complain that Lloyd Alexander writes the same story over and over again under different guises. My response: so does the rest of the world. At least Mr. Alexander does a great job of it.

Known for exploring worldwide folklore, Alexander takes to the world of India for this. He explores mystical gods and makes a wonderful and powerful social commentary on the caste system.

It's the usual journey of growth and discovery, but that is always a great journey. I cry every time I read this, it touches me so.

Excellent piece from the awesome Lloyd Alexander.

but I'm glad I read it now.

This is a nice combination of philosophy and action. In the philosophical aspect, it ranges from questioning reality -- did Tamar really bet his life on a throw of the dice, or was it all a dream? -- to questioning the definition of honor and duty, to questioning whether fate and destiny are truth or illusion. At the same time, it goes through a great adventure, one with a much greater range and fluidity than is the norm in young adult books: rather than leading steadily and surely up to a great conflict, following the bell-curve plot diagram that is the bane of English students across the US (and presumably worldwide), this one goes through some sharp twists, drop-offs, leaps and bounds. The best part of that, for me, was that every moment when the action slowed, there was a thought-provoking moment of philosophy, and then when the action picked back up, the concept revealed in the lull just previous was put to the test. That much control over the story is the hallmark of a great writer, which Alexander was.

Here's what I mean. The hero, Tamar, initially loses his great struggle against the villain, and is captured and put into a hellish prison, chained and enslaved by an Untouchable. This was especially interesting to me as a Westerner because it is a spiritual torment, one that I would not experience the same way. Tamar survives through it and gains strength and wisdom from it, and then when he is freed from that torture and he goes back to fight once more, he has gained the maturity he needs to turn his final confrontation with the villain into a spiritual victory, rather than a defeat -- and it is immediately clear that the change in his attitude, his growth as a man, has come about because of what he has been through. The message here, that killing is not a path to victory, is made absolutely clear by the preceding section's painful immersion in death. It worked, I thought, extraordinarily well, though I can see it being tough for a younger reader to puzzle out the first time through. Still, there is a lot to digest in this book.

Add to that some genuinely funny parts, particularly those featuring the whiny Garuda and the mocking Hashkat, and you have a book that is both entertaining and thoughtful, as well as multi-layered enough to be read and re-read by all ages. It's a book I would love to teach to younger students in an English class, or read to my own kids and maybe even discuss a little bit. It's definitely worth a read.

Alexander does here with Indian mythology what he does for Welsh in the Prydain books, and pulls a surprising number of stories together. His young hero Tamar is honorable from the first paragraph, but his task in the book is to think for himself and determine what honor *really* demands of him instead of just parroting what he's been taught (his teacher also learns a few things along the way. The parallel to the Prydain stories is obvious (and might be more annoying had I read the latter more recently) but the theme that growing up means learning to think for yourself really is a universal one. (Or at least, one that far too many members of *our* universe need to be exposed to!) I don't think it's a completely accurate representation of ideals and caste in ancient India, but I don't think it's meant to be, either. Fun, but also more than fun.

My daughter brought this book home and I began reading it and almost couldn't put it down. The story is gripping and full of action and the characters were well-drawn and likable. I cared about Tamar and his predicament, perhaps because it involved a serious moral dilemma. Beneath the action are questions about loyalty and honor.

There is one difficult part where Tamar is forced to live with an untouchable in charge of burning the dead. I was afraid my daughter would be put off, but I was wrong. She loved the book too. This section is possibly the most moving of the book. I had heard about the caste system and untouchables before reading this book, but the vivid descriptions of Tamar's revulsion and fear of the untouchable and the burning ground gave me a new perspective on how hard it is to question and overcome deep-seated cultural prejudices.

But the book was not just about ideas; there was plenty of action and the drama of the relationships and growth of the characters. Would Hashkat, the monkey, remain faithful or would he flit away as monkeys usually do? Does the cowherd girl have anything to teach Tamar, a king and Brahmin? Of course the answer is yes, but the finding out is the fun part. I loved this book!

The Iron Ring
By Lloyd Alexander

The Iron Ring is one of the best books I have ever read. It is about the young king of Sundari palace named Tamar. His journey is to find a king that won control of Tamar's life. So he had to find him and be his slave for as long as the other king wants him to. He meets many new people on his journey and they become good friends. In my opinion this book was great and nicely written. I liked the plot of the of the story and I liked the fact that it was a fantasy book, which is one of my favorite types of books. I would recommend this book if you like fantasy books and adventure books.