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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A classic in fantasy literature,
By Tamiko (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Kingdoms of Elfin (Hardcover)
This is Sylvia Townsend Warner at her best - a lean, spare, evocative collection of fairy tales, but for adults, not children. These fairies are tough, cold, selfish beings, yet all the more glamorous and fascinating for that. Seeing them struggle with everyday problems, made all the more difficult sometimes for being fairies, dealing with age, death, birth, and all-too human conditions makes for an involving narrative. The Kingdom of Broceliande that Warner creates is an enduring creation - this book has been a font of inspiration for many authors, and you can trace the development of Warner's style throughout the stories. Never condescending, always brilliant, this collection is a taut narrative of different characters living in the same world as we do, but with a twist. Sometimes dispassionate, sometimes all too human in their reactions to disaster, stress, love, death, anger, Warner's fairies are not for the faint at heart, or those imagining pink and gold gossamer beings to be found at the bottom of the garden. They pack a punch - worth reading at any age. I discovered these in grade school, and am still reading them in my forties. A must-read for any fan of speculative literature, or for any Warner devotee. They translate the human experience in quite a unique way, and I cannot recommend them enough.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Deeply Strange, Often Amazing but Rarely Enchanting,
By
This review is from: Kingdoms of Elfin (Hardcover)
If there can be such a thing as a clear-headed, unsentimental study of a phenomenon that doesn't exist, then this 20th century English author and formidable fantasist (Lolly Willowes, Mr Fortune's Maggot) has accomplished exactly that. Kingdoms of Elfin consists of sixteen stories most of which appeared in the New Yorker in the early to mid 1970's. Warner's last work, it was published posthumously in 1977. The stories are loosely linked - an occasional character will appear in more than one story, a couple of Elvin courts are the settings for multiple stories. With the exception of one set partly in Persia, they take place in various Elvin Kingdoms located in Western Europe from the late middle ages to just before the end of the 19th century. These small separate realms remind me of the jigsaw puzzle of tiny states that made up so much of Central Europe before the late 19th century. Each has its own customs and traditions. For instance the kingdom that considers itself the most sophisticated and has the most elaborate etiquette is famous for its hunting pack of werewolves. The fairies are not immortal; they live for centuries and have no souls. They have wings but using them is distinctly déclassé. Only servants are supposed to fly. Fairy magic is rudimentary and they are feckless, easily distracted, casually cruel to the humans they encounter (and occasionally abduct). An adventurous fairy in the 17th century travels from the mortal land of Holland to Persia the place where their race originated. There he encounters and barely escapes astounding magic and savage cruelty. The inhabitants of the Elvin Kingdoms by contrast are more like mortals than they are like their ancestors.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Strange and wonderful,
By Will Read Anything (New Jersey) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Kingdoms of Elfin (Paperback)
I have been spellbound by these stories for years. Warner's fairies are not exactly human - they would be much blander if they were warm and cuddly. Instead, reading about them is like letting a pile of multifaceted, multicolored jewels run through your fingers, sparkling and glittering. Truly something rare and strange.
(I don't own this book, alas. I've read it many times as a library book, and how I wish it would come back into print so I could buy a copy.)
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