Alexander, Lloyd - Westmark Trilogy

[oyceter]

(consists of Westmark, The Kestrel, and The Beggar Queen)

I think I may have read The Kestrel a very long time ago in middle school, but I don't really remember a thing about it.

I'm just going to start out by saying the obvious: this is very good. Go read.

I started out being completely not impressed -- while Westmark is in no way a bad book, Alexander's simple style and the fairly typical young adult plot (boy loses old life, finds new life with revolutionaries, meets girl who has a Higher Destiny, etc.) didn't particularly make me see why everyone was reccing the trilogy left and right. The second book is when things really started to pick up, when Alexander begins to go more in depth into the various political issues he briefly glosses over in the first book. And the second and third books are very much political books, books about war and peace and peacemaking, which doesn't seem to be a very common topic in fantasy or young adult books.

The books themselves are written in a very dry tone of voice -- I never got overly emotionally involved with the characters, which was probably good, given the subject matter. But the author still manages to make certain scenes touching and others very funny, all while keeping a bit of narrative distance.

What I liked the most was how Alexander never tried to offer me any easy answers. An idealistic revolutionary could also be the country's worst enemy, even if the ideology he spouted was of the good. And even those starting with the best intentions in running the country would be sidetracked by grey areas. Alexander ends the trilogy on the right note too (imho), and the path he decides to take isn't one that I think many authors would. But I'm glad he did, and I'm very glad I ended up reading these.

Also, it doesn't hurt that Mickle was cool ;).

Links:
- rilina's reviews of Westmark, The Kestrel, and The Beggar Queen

Comments

[rilina.livejournal.com]

I love these books to the point where I'm completely not rational about them. I think they particularly reward rereading too. Westmark, as you noted, has a fairly typical YA plot, but rereading it with the knowledge of what's to come makes it rather painfully poignant.

And yes, Mickle was cool. But I'm really a sucker for Keller. How can you not love Old Kasperl?

Spoilers for Beggar Queen

[oyceter]

Ooo, I love Kellar. (whited out text)But wah, what happened to him in the last book... sigh. And it was just so much worse that it was because he stumbled among friends instead of enemies. But that was another reason why I liked the books so much, that Lloyd Alexander would do things like that.

My favorites may end up being the water rats though...

Re: Spoilers for Beggar Queen

[rilina.livejournal.com]

If you've read the Prydain books, it's also interesting to think how some of the characters in Westmark in many ways seem to be revisiting the characters from the Prydain books. For example, Taran -> Theo. Eilonwy -> Mickle. Gwydion -> Florian. Okay, the last one isn't quite as close a match, but in some ways that makes the comparison that much more interesting: they both stand in the role of mentor, but with vastly diffferent amounts of moral authority.

Re: Spoilers for Beggar Queen

[oyceter]

Ooo, that is interesting. I remember briefly thinking about the Taran/Theo and Eilonwy/Mickle resemblance, but that's about it. I haven't read Prydain for a really long time...

Have you written up either series, by any chance?

Re: Spoilers for Beggar Queen

[rilina.livejournal.com]

No, but I might do that this winter. I usually reread them around the holidays, when I'm at my parents' house.

[veejane.livejournal.com]

I think Westmark has just the right tone and plot, if it's a "I'll just slip in this other stuff and nobody will notice till they're hip-deep" type of thing. It's notable that the Count, just like Fflewdur Fflam in The High King, begins as comic relief and ends up, late on in the series, as someone much more serious.

(O the night-long elegy of the broken harp! Oh, happy sigh.)

What I always chiefly recalled, from Westmark, is that it starts with an act of violence, on Theo's part. The novel leaps quickly into an adventure-romp, but always behind it lies this unease of the police state. In another kind of book, Florian's attack on the garrison would be monstrously out of place, but in a book that begins with the hero bashing in someone's brains, it was a logical thing to have happen.

[rilina.livejournal.com]

Westmark is also complicated by the different narrative strands. If it was just Theo's story, it would be so much less memorable. But you also have Dr. Torrens, the water rats, and Keller. And best of all, you have good people who disagree with each other.

I also love how the consequences of violence linger. You see, especially in opening chapters of The Beggar Queen, how Theo and company are still paying the piper for the choices they made for good and ill at Nierkeeping.

[minnow1212.livejournal.com]

>(O the night-long elegy of the broken harp! Oh, happy sigh.)<

I love that part! :sigh happily as well: (I think that happy sighs, like yawns, are catching.)

I should go back and reread Westmark, since I haven't read them since junior high or high school and they didn't grab me back then the way the Prydain books did.

how funny!

[crushw-eyeliner.livejournal.com]

I re-read the Prydain Chronicles today at School...okay, not all of them, but The High King, which never fails to make me cry.

And even though this may be blasphemous, I have always preferred the epic scope and fantasy/history that Alexander's Prydain Chronicles provided over JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Though I know if it wasn't for Tolkien, the Prydain Chronicles may never have existed. It's mostly the language that wins me over to Alexander everytime - plus Eilowny? Possibly my first crush on a fictional female character.

Re: how funny!

[oyceter]

The strange thing is when I reread single books from the Prydain Chronicles, they don't have that much emotional whoomp (that's the technical term there ^_~). But when I read the entire series? Bawling.

Eilowny is awesome.

[kchew.livejournal.com]

Thank you for reminding me...Prydain coloured my imaginative landscape for years and years. It blew my mind that a character like Achren could change so, but still be herself. It, and Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising got me to learn how to pronounce Welsh, and set me off into British Isles mythology, for which I am eternally grateful.

[oyceter]

I loved Susan Cooper so very much. I only got to read Prydain in tenth grade, and only once, so it's not quite as close to my heart. But I really should reread it. I think I've only reread it once before, yikes! This must be remedied.

[gwyneira.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting this! I keep thinking I should read these and then forgetting about them. Now I have them on hold at the library, so I can't forget again. :)

(I'm sure I'll like them enough to buy them eventually, since I love Prydain, but I'm trying not to buy any books for the rest of the year. I think even two months of no bookbuying is going to be a test of my willpower.)

[oyceter]

Sure! I'm really glad I finally got around to them -- I actually got them at the used bookstore in my last-day-of-employee-discount binge.

Sadly, two weeks of no bookbuying is a test of my willpower. *sigh*

[oracne.livejournal.com]

THE KESTREL is my favorite Alexander book. Though my favorite of the trilogy to reread is WESTMARK.

[oyceter]

The Kestrel was by far my favorite of the Westmark books. But I can see it being a difficult reread -- not really a comfort book.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

Their Angst is so Profound in that book!