Customer Reviews

Morningquest (Ulverscroft Large Print)

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As a book about interesting people, this book is top notch.
But it's been marketed as a romance, which it isn't. The "romance" in it is a one night stand followed by years of not communicating, then a note. The ending isn't even very satisfying.

Before going on a long journey, Pandora's mother introduces her to Boxhall and its larger-than-life inhabitants, the Morningquest family. With her usual skill and humor, Joan Aiken deftly draws the reader with Pandora into the family and then pulls the rug out from under us by revealing the vices riddling the family. At the end, only hope is left to us--a singularly cheerless hope, really just a temporary respite from all those vices.

This is the loveliest book in the English language. It is like something out of 'Morningquest' that such a book should be relegated to internet resale (75 cents for the greatest novel ever written!) after being withdrawn from libraries all over the country. My own copy came Fonda, Iowa.

Where to begin? Like the greatest works of literature, it speaks to every reader, on every level. At fourteen, I could enjoy the galloping, romping plot, the assured and funny characterizations, the elegant descriptions (of which there are hundreds). Like Pandora's beautiful, one-line drawings, gems litter the book. "Gideon, she is the one for you. She will make a frame for your life. She is the one." "Growing up is a process of slowly acquiring self-respect." "But, my child, the world is always so much better than the people in it."

After many re-readings there are new things to appreciate, things I missed previously, and things I simply better understand as an older person, with more experiences. Aiken's gift was that she understood human nature, and here it is in all its glory, in this book. Every part of it. The relationships are real, and complicated, and untidy, like all relationships. No one is perfectly good or perfectly evil; everyone is interesting.

Joan Aiken was assuredly the most talented writer of the twentieth century--like Tom painting, teaching, making films, sculpting--she could tackle every genre with equal aplomb and make it powerful and moving. Everything she wrote, from the children's books to the horror, regency romance, epic adventure, and contemporary fiction in Morningquest resonates powerfully, and within this book there is a microcosm of that fabulous gift. Part psychological drama, love story, comedy, tragedy, cold war commentary, family drama, and entirely brilliant and moving.