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3.66 AVERAGE
3.66 AVERAGE
El estilo del libro es un poco aburrido y arcaico, pero el manejo del lenguaje y la trama hacen que este libro sea en mi concepto un buen representante del Surrealismo. Tambien tiene el valor historico de ser un precursor de la fantasia moderna.
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
The OG of high fantasy. It's less that it's a book I like than it's a book that's nice to have read.
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
lighthearted
relaxing
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
2.5 Stars. This book had it's moments but the language was old-fashioned and the plotting was awkward.
Am I still allowed to be a fantasy fan? I found this book senseless, unimaginative and so boring and poorly written that it felt painful to read.
This book seems to have gained legendary classic status because of comments from some of the genre elites including Tolkien, LeGuin and Lovecraft as well as, seemingly every other fantasy author in existence. I secretly believe that none of them actually read it, they just said it was great as part of a great hoax that all authors swear to participate in upon getting published — I’m pretty sure it’s in the contract you sign with your publisher.
I really wanted to like this book. I’ve read Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and I love the otherworldly feel of the magic and fey worlds that Susanna Clarke has built up. I was expecting more of that strangeness. Instead I got something bland and senseless.
First there is a group of men who say, “we want the prince to marry somebody magical because that sounds cool.” So he goes on a quest into the elf lands and comes back with the King of Elfland’s daughter. They get married, seemingly because she thinks it might be kind of fun since it’s rather boring being in elfland as all you ever do is sit on your father’s lap and sigh contentedly.
She has a son and there is a very brief hint that there might be a story when her husband won’t let her follow her fairy beliefs and she doesn’t understand what’s wrong with talking to the leaves but Dunsany is far to clever to actually tell a story so he quickly abandons that topic.
Then she decides to go back to elfland so the prince — who is now King — asks the local witch to raise his son for him because he’s suddenly obsessive to the point of completely abandoning his entire kingdom and following a madman on a quest for the next twenty years.
Never mind the fact that this witch has lived here the entire time and been doing magic — making the point of the original quest somewhat moot.
The boy grows up spends many long drawn out chapters hunting unicorns on the edge of elfland with portentous language to make it sound like finally, maybe, against all odds, there will be some consequences to somebody’s actions that might actually mean something interesting. But, we are saved once again by Dunsany’s inability to actually talk about anything beyond tritely repeated phrases. Nothing comes of it, we get a chapter inserted in the middle that tells us about the Pope and his unicorn horn (this chapter actually tells us that people want the story to have something that will make it sound like it is real history so here is a made up bit of history for those people), then the story returns to mindlessly wandering prose that seems to have gotten lost following the same madman as the absent hero.
It ends eventually after carrying on for far longer than any book this bad has a right to and I breathed a heavy sigh of relief that it was finally over and I could go do something more pleasant like pluck out my beard of rub sand in my eyes.
There is a lot of high praise for this book and seems to be one of the seminal works of fantasy. However the prose is viciously repetitive — using the phrase ‘the fields we know’ (108 times in 240 pages according to Google) so often that it will forever be ingrained on my brain. The people do not talk or behave like real people and don’t seem to care much about anything until they are demanded to react in that Arthurian dramatic fashion that is completely insane. Alveric, the Prince, and Lirazel, the titular daughter, don’t really get along, don’t seem to care for each other at all — the text even says that they were troubled by each other’s presence and felt uncomfortable together — but when she decides to return to her father’s kingdom he abandons sanity and camps outside with a madman on a never-ending quest to find her.
This is not love. This is pure idiocy.
Author and reader of many books Jo Walton has said that Dunsany “isn’t at his best writing characters, which gets peculiar at novel length.” I would argue that he isn’t at his best at keeping focused on telling a story or on making sense, or on being interesting in any way.
I can’t say that I recommend this book even as an interesting piece of literature. It really holds no merit to me.
This book seems to have gained legendary classic status because of comments from some of the genre elites including Tolkien, LeGuin and Lovecraft as well as, seemingly every other fantasy author in existence. I secretly believe that none of them actually read it, they just said it was great as part of a great hoax that all authors swear to participate in upon getting published — I’m pretty sure it’s in the contract you sign with your publisher.
I really wanted to like this book. I’ve read Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and I love the otherworldly feel of the magic and fey worlds that Susanna Clarke has built up. I was expecting more of that strangeness. Instead I got something bland and senseless.
First there is a group of men who say, “we want the prince to marry somebody magical because that sounds cool.” So he goes on a quest into the elf lands and comes back with the King of Elfland’s daughter. They get married, seemingly because she thinks it might be kind of fun since it’s rather boring being in elfland as all you ever do is sit on your father’s lap and sigh contentedly.
She has a son and there is a very brief hint that there might be a story when her husband won’t let her follow her fairy beliefs and she doesn’t understand what’s wrong with talking to the leaves but Dunsany is far to clever to actually tell a story so he quickly abandons that topic.
Then she decides to go back to elfland so the prince — who is now King — asks the local witch to raise his son for him because he’s suddenly obsessive to the point of completely abandoning his entire kingdom and following a madman on a quest for the next twenty years.
Never mind the fact that this witch has lived here the entire time and been doing magic — making the point of the original quest somewhat moot.
The boy grows up spends many long drawn out chapters hunting unicorns on the edge of elfland with portentous language to make it sound like finally, maybe, against all odds, there will be some consequences to somebody’s actions that might actually mean something interesting. But, we are saved once again by Dunsany’s inability to actually talk about anything beyond tritely repeated phrases. Nothing comes of it, we get a chapter inserted in the middle that tells us about the Pope and his unicorn horn (this chapter actually tells us that people want the story to have something that will make it sound like it is real history so here is a made up bit of history for those people), then the story returns to mindlessly wandering prose that seems to have gotten lost following the same madman as the absent hero.
It ends eventually after carrying on for far longer than any book this bad has a right to and I breathed a heavy sigh of relief that it was finally over and I could go do something more pleasant like pluck out my beard of rub sand in my eyes.
There is a lot of high praise for this book and seems to be one of the seminal works of fantasy. However the prose is viciously repetitive — using the phrase ‘the fields we know’ (108 times in 240 pages according to Google) so often that it will forever be ingrained on my brain. The people do not talk or behave like real people and don’t seem to care much about anything until they are demanded to react in that Arthurian dramatic fashion that is completely insane. Alveric, the Prince, and Lirazel, the titular daughter, don’t really get along, don’t seem to care for each other at all — the text even says that they were troubled by each other’s presence and felt uncomfortable together — but when she decides to return to her father’s kingdom he abandons sanity and camps outside with a madman on a never-ending quest to find her.
This is not love. This is pure idiocy.
Author and reader of many books Jo Walton has said that Dunsany “isn’t at his best writing characters, which gets peculiar at novel length.” I would argue that he isn’t at his best at keeping focused on telling a story or on making sense, or on being interesting in any way.
I can’t say that I recommend this book even as an interesting piece of literature. It really holds no merit to me.
Lord Dunsany could calm the harshest salt-choked sea into a crystal softness to float upon.
This book is a gem of a story, at once both steeped in tradition and original.
Wonder washed over me, my heart became peaceful, and gentle tears ultimately slid down my cheek.
I've loved many books but none have truly enchanted me to the same degree as this story about "the fields we know" and the "the twilight frontier" with it's unknown colors, eternal peace, and a palace that can "only be sung of in songs".
Beautiful.
This book is a gem of a story, at once both steeped in tradition and original.
Wonder washed over me, my heart became peaceful, and gentle tears ultimately slid down my cheek.
I've loved many books but none have truly enchanted me to the same degree as this story about "the fields we know" and the "the twilight frontier" with it's unknown colors, eternal peace, and a palace that can "only be sung of in songs".
Beautiful.
slow-paced
This was written very beautifully, but unfortunately I found it quite boring. Maybe I'll catch some obscure references to this story in books I read in the future.
adventurous
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
relaxing
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
Lord Dunsany's The King of Elfland's Daughter opens up in the land of Erl, with a council of elders petitioning their lord to bring magic into their territory. This, they believe, will bring them much needed notoriety – will put them "on the map", so to speak – and the lord in question grants their request by sending his son and heir, Alveric, off to Elfland to bring back and marry its princess, Lirazel.
This was an odd one. I mostly decided to read this because Lord Dunsany was a great source of inspiration for good ole Loveycraft, especially when the latter started writing speculative fiction. So, you know, when he wrote about the non cosmic horror-monstery bits of the "otherworldly". And Dunsany's tale certainly deals with the aforementioned "otherworldly", here incarnated by the parallel dimension of Elfland. It, I'm going to assume without having done any research to confirm or infirm said assumption, is loosely based on the Celtic or post-Celtico-British concept of Elfland, or the Realm of Faerie as the English would've called it (Elfland being more of an Early Modern Scottish designation if I recall my recently expanded history correctly – thanks to Mr Hutton and Ms Dashu for that).
However, Lord Dunsany certainly put his own spin on it. His Elfland felt a tad empty and, for lack of a better expression, "artistically frozen" at times. There are fantastical creatures besides the King and his daughter Lirazel, but this magical land felt a smidge sterile at times. It only really came alive when it was compared to living things such as song, or the play of light upon water and organic surfaces. Or when it was compared to dreams... and the lost memories and emotions of our own world, liltingly referred to as "the fields we know" in the story.
This "both/and" compare and contrast between our world and Elfland weaves in a delicate thread of theming on the magic inherent in life itself – something I appreciated and certainly respected. Though it needs be remarked that the world-building, as such, isn't watertight by any stretch of the imagination. I'm still not exactly sure what Elfland really was, to be honest. Christianity seems to exist but it's called "Christom", and there are a couple of off-key references to the real, real world, including a tangent involving the gifting of a unicorn horn to the Pope in the 16th century. Alright. So... is Erl supposed to be in England? Well, you tell me, because I honestly don't know. Thematically, there's also a very strong "be careful what you wish for" motif at the heart of the story, and it is the main provider of narrative tension... in a story that otherwise doesn't have much plot to speak of.
Which means yes, The King of Elfland's Daughter is fairly boring in places. This is not helped, at all, by the fact it is written with an overwrought (or too flowery, purple, use whichever word you prefer) prose style that over-indulges in unnecessarily long and lyrical descriptions. And given the very nature of Elfland as a place or concept, devoid of Time, it felt at times as if I was reading the elaborate description of a painting, not a story as such.
Still, I'll give a point for the fact that, as stories written in the 1920s go, this one felt different. Daring even, in a way. You have, for instance, a witch character who isn't portrayed as being evil – she's kinda neat actually! 😄 One scene shows a playful troll having a good time with pigeons – which was kinda cute. Lirazel, the princess of Elfland, is given a small measure of agency and keeps to her elfin ways despite the lamentations of her husband. And the very premise of a bunch of elders living in – I think – a Christian cultural context convening to petition their lord for an import of magic is, itself, a bit different, especially once again given the time period during which this story was written.
All in all, this means it was just neat enough to read this as someone interested, not only in SFF stories themselves, but in SFF literature and its evolution as a broader topic. And it is along those considerations that I would recommend it, or not. 😉
PS: I do think the story had a near-perfectly fitting conclusion as well.
Not cool hunting those unicorns though... 🥺
This was an odd one. I mostly decided to read this because Lord Dunsany was a great source of inspiration for good ole Loveycraft, especially when the latter started writing speculative fiction. So, you know, when he wrote about the non cosmic horror-monstery bits of the "otherworldly". And Dunsany's tale certainly deals with the aforementioned "otherworldly", here incarnated by the parallel dimension of Elfland. It, I'm going to assume without having done any research to confirm or infirm said assumption, is loosely based on the Celtic or post-Celtico-British concept of Elfland, or the Realm of Faerie as the English would've called it (Elfland being more of an Early Modern Scottish designation if I recall my recently expanded history correctly – thanks to Mr Hutton and Ms Dashu for that).
However, Lord Dunsany certainly put his own spin on it. His Elfland felt a tad empty and, for lack of a better expression, "artistically frozen" at times. There are fantastical creatures besides the King and his daughter Lirazel, but this magical land felt a smidge sterile at times. It only really came alive when it was compared to living things such as song, or the play of light upon water and organic surfaces. Or when it was compared to dreams... and the lost memories and emotions of our own world, liltingly referred to as "the fields we know" in the story.
This "both/and" compare and contrast between our world and Elfland weaves in a delicate thread of theming on the magic inherent in life itself – something I appreciated and certainly respected. Though it needs be remarked that the world-building, as such, isn't watertight by any stretch of the imagination. I'm still not exactly sure what Elfland really was, to be honest. Christianity seems to exist but it's called "Christom", and there are a couple of off-key references to the real, real world, including a tangent involving the gifting of a unicorn horn to the Pope in the 16th century. Alright. So... is Erl supposed to be in England? Well, you tell me, because I honestly don't know. Thematically, there's also a very strong "be careful what you wish for" motif at the heart of the story, and it is the main provider of narrative tension... in a story that otherwise doesn't have much plot to speak of.
Which means yes, The King of Elfland's Daughter is fairly boring in places. This is not helped, at all, by the fact it is written with an overwrought (or too flowery, purple, use whichever word you prefer) prose style that over-indulges in unnecessarily long and lyrical descriptions. And given the very nature of Elfland as a place or concept, devoid of Time, it felt at times as if I was reading the elaborate description of a painting, not a story as such.
Still, I'll give a point for the fact that, as stories written in the 1920s go, this one felt different. Daring even, in a way. You have, for instance, a witch character who isn't portrayed as being evil – she's kinda neat actually! 😄 One scene shows a playful troll having a good time with pigeons – which was kinda cute. Lirazel, the princess of Elfland, is given a small measure of agency and keeps to her elfin ways despite the lamentations of her husband. And the very premise of a bunch of elders living in – I think – a Christian cultural context convening to petition their lord for an import of magic is, itself, a bit different, especially once again given the time period during which this story was written.
All in all, this means it was just neat enough to read this as someone interested, not only in SFF stories themselves, but in SFF literature and its evolution as a broader topic. And it is along those considerations that I would recommend it, or not. 😉
PS: I do think the story had a near-perfectly fitting conclusion as well.
Not cool hunting those unicorns though... 🥺
adventurous
emotional
lighthearted
relaxing
slow-paced
This was mesmerizing and spellbinding; a dreamscape that lulls. Highly recommend!