Pope, Elizabeth Marie - The Sherwood Ring
Tue, Oct. 28th, 2003 09:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterFinally read The Sherwood Ring, by Elizabeth Marie Pope, which has been sitting around for the past year or so. For some reason, when I first got it from Amazon, I just wasn't in the right mood to read it, but recently I really want historical stuff and it was just right. Bought it because Pope had also written The Perilous Gard, one of my favorite books from childhood/adolescence.
It's hard for me not to compare the two because I've been rereading The Perilous Gard for so long (note to self: must bring it back from Taiwan or buy new copy), and in the end, The Sherwood Ring isn't as satisfying for me as Perilous Gard. The Sherwood Ring takes place in modern day (1950s, when it was written), and I feel it suffers a bit because of that. The romance of the main characters happens much too quickly, without enough detail for me, and the fact that Peggy is seventeen and has already decided to get married also disturbs me. I guess it's just present day enough for that to be a squick. Also, we don't see much of Pat Thorne at all, unlike the historical romances of Peggy's ancestors, which are recounted by them as ghosts. I do get why all the reviewers in Amazon were squeeing over Peaceable Sherwood though, because he was much fun. Laconic and gentlemanly and a Fool with his humor and his slipperiness... plus, then there's how he proposes to Barbara. One must like a gentleman who falls in love with a girl because she's intelligent enough to drug him and free her brother. Unfortunately, I liked Barbara and Dick and Eleanor and Peaceable much better than Peggy and Pat, since in a large part, it felt as though Peggy and Pat were there only so that the ghosts could tell their own stories. Also, the resolution of the Barbara and Peaceable relationship was too fast and not detailed enough for me.
I wonder if it's because it was from the fifties? At least with the engagement of Peggy at seventeen...
Now I really want to reread The Perilous Gard, which is not really a retelling of Tam Lin so much as a melody in the same key. Mostly I want a nice, chewy historical novel with some fantasy or mythology thrown in. Borrown Delia Sherman's The Porcelain Dove from the library, which is on France in the 1700s (I think), Jane Eyre (to compare with Jenna Starborn), LeGuin's Tales from Earthsea (need to find Other Wind), and Patricia A. McKillip's The Cygnet and the Firebird, which I tried to read once many years ago and could never make my way through... same with the Riddlemaster series. I should try those again some time.
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minnow1212's review
It's hard for me not to compare the two because I've been rereading The Perilous Gard for so long (note to self: must bring it back from Taiwan or buy new copy), and in the end, The Sherwood Ring isn't as satisfying for me as Perilous Gard. The Sherwood Ring takes place in modern day (1950s, when it was written), and I feel it suffers a bit because of that. The romance of the main characters happens much too quickly, without enough detail for me, and the fact that Peggy is seventeen and has already decided to get married also disturbs me. I guess it's just present day enough for that to be a squick. Also, we don't see much of Pat Thorne at all, unlike the historical romances of Peggy's ancestors, which are recounted by them as ghosts. I do get why all the reviewers in Amazon were squeeing over Peaceable Sherwood though, because he was much fun. Laconic and gentlemanly and a Fool with his humor and his slipperiness... plus, then there's how he proposes to Barbara. One must like a gentleman who falls in love with a girl because she's intelligent enough to drug him and free her brother. Unfortunately, I liked Barbara and Dick and Eleanor and Peaceable much better than Peggy and Pat, since in a large part, it felt as though Peggy and Pat were there only so that the ghosts could tell their own stories. Also, the resolution of the Barbara and Peaceable relationship was too fast and not detailed enough for me.
I wonder if it's because it was from the fifties? At least with the engagement of Peggy at seventeen...
Now I really want to reread The Perilous Gard, which is not really a retelling of Tam Lin so much as a melody in the same key. Mostly I want a nice, chewy historical novel with some fantasy or mythology thrown in. Borrown Delia Sherman's The Porcelain Dove from the library, which is on France in the 1700s (I think), Jane Eyre (to compare with Jenna Starborn), LeGuin's Tales from Earthsea (need to find Other Wind), and Patricia A. McKillip's The Cygnet and the Firebird, which I tried to read once many years ago and could never make my way through... same with the Riddlemaster series. I should try those again some time.
Links:
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minnow1212's review