Into the Green (Mass Market Paperback)

by Charles de Lint (Author) "ANGHARAD'S PEOPLE MET the witches the night they camped by Tiercaern, where the heather-backed Carawyn Hills flow down to the sea..." (more)
Key Phrases: rowan staff, rowan twigs, holed stone, Ann Netter, Aron Corser, Johnny Tow (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
De Lint's ( Spiritwalk ) latest is like an old car on a cold morning--slow to start. The first third of the book follows Angharad--tinker, harper and witch--as she travels through the Green Isles seeking to awaken the inherited magic ("Summerblood") in those "Summerborn" who have forgotten it. This bit is frustrating. But fortunately readers soon come to the main event, the story of a puzzle box with the power to destroy the fey Middle Kingdom, "the green" that is the source of the witches' magic. Its current possessor appears to be a wealthy merchant whose hobbies already include collecting the fingerbones of Summerborn (wherein lies their power). Seeking to both defuse the puzzle box and free other witches from the merchant, Angharad travels to the town of Cathal where, with the questionable aid of a reluctant, lame, partially blinded, alcoholic Summerborn war veteran and a vicious, tortured mercenary, she confronts the puzzle box in a smartly executed battle between the characters and their own weaknesses. Although the bulk of the book is engrossing, occasionally de Lint gets sappy, as at the end when "the green" is reduced to a 12-step healing device, or in the recurring expletive "broom and heather" or when he gets to harping. Then again, de Lint is a musician specializing in Celtic folk music, a fact underlined by an appendix of 13 of de Lint's "Tunes from the Kingdoms of the Green Isles" complete with lyrics and music.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
Harpist, witch, and tinker--Angharad is all of these and more as she embarks on a quest to save the little magic left in the Kingdom of the Green Isles. A master storyteller who excels in crossover fantasy, de Lint here grounds himself firmly in an imaginary land where hardened ex-soldiers, street urchins, prostitutes, and witch-hunting dogs become heroes when touched by the music of a young woman's sorrow. Fantasy lovers will not be disappointed.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Tor Fantasy (January 15, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812522494
• ISBN-13: 978-0812522495
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,330,527 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Score another for De Lint, June 1, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Into the Green (Hardcover)

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.)

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Magic of Being Human, May 24, 2003

By	Daniel J. Smitherman "phenomenologist" (Missoula, MT United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Into the Green (Paperback)

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."

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best works of Fantasy, October 4, 1998

By	C. Gibson (Charlottesville, VA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.