Risen

Happily concluded The Grey King this afternoon. Now I understand why it won the Newbury. A very strong ending that ties the various levels of human story and myth together makes for a completely assured work, one that really knows where it is going. And it's beautifully written in terms of the vivid, poetic life of the prose. Great descriptions of the Welsh mountains and rural life in general.

Mind you, I'm still not convinced by the portentous nature of the mythologising. But it would be way too fussy to let that stand in the way of enjoying a darn good read, and that sort of thing comes with the territory of the fantasy genre. In fact, I think the writer does something quite unexpected here by imbuing what could have been just another idyllic landscape with a sense of dark, unpleasantly brooding power. I don't think Cooper is ever really convincing as to what the forces of the Dark are up to beyond perfectly ordinary human wickedness (and there's not much of that in any specific sense); but I do think she creates a wonderful feeling of unease, of something being uncannily wrong in the otherwise very comfortable worlds of her child protagonists.

Now wondering whether to save the last in the series, Silver on the Tree, until after Fasting Month. Sorely tempted to make a start immediately after the excellence of the fourth novel.