A review by thumbelinablues
Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling

4.0

I hadn't read any Kipling in a loooong time, but I got turned onto Peter Bellamy's text settings of his poems, and I remembered that he also wrote books. Puck of Pook's Hill reminded me a little of Watership Down, successful with the kind of pastoral charm that usually gives me a toothache, but it was also very dated. The conceit is that a brother and sister encounter Puck one Midsummer Day, and he brings them people from history to tell them the stories of their little corner of England. I like all his narrating characters, and how the stories intertwine in the end, but what Dan and Una really learn is that only war is worth remembering and only men make history: the sword gave the treasure, and the treasure gave the law. Not surprising coming from Kipling, but it did get between me and the book. I mean, literally, Sir Richard's story stops when he marries Lady Aelueva and picks up again when she's dead. And then there's the Jews and the Picts... Clearly my not-so-inner feminist academic came out to play, but it is also a pretty delightful book if you're into knights, centurions, and fairy lore, which I am!