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A review by justagirlwithabook
Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
slow-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
What a strange little book.
I seemed to only pick this up at night when I was tired, so there were times when I found myself nodding off while trying to read and falling into a weird dream like reading state (which only added, I’m sure, to the strangeness of the book). I highly recommend this one for fans of Gaiman and Susanna Clarke. This was the predecessor to books like Stardust and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. The blending of worlds concept, at the time, was really new within what we’d later call the “fantasy genre” ... there were moments of faerie bleeding into the reality that characters of Lud-in-the-Mist had come to know so well, there was an off-centeredness of not quite knowing what was real, what was dream, and what was a different world pushing in ... as a reader at times, I felt like I was drifting off and snapping myself back no different than the characters were (again, I chalk this off to reading in a tired state). It was such a strange little read, and much more slower than I prefer (it took a dear bit of time to get going and even then, just a trot), but by the time I had maybe third to a quarter left, there was a weird bit of it that had grown on me, and by the end I felt a little sad even.
Strange little book.
I seemed to only pick this up at night when I was tired, so there were times when I found myself nodding off while trying to read and falling into a weird dream like reading state (which only added, I’m sure, to the strangeness of the book). I highly recommend this one for fans of Gaiman and Susanna Clarke. This was the predecessor to books like Stardust and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. The blending of worlds concept, at the time, was really new within what we’d later call the “fantasy genre” ... there were moments of faerie bleeding into the reality that characters of Lud-in-the-Mist had come to know so well, there was an off-centeredness of not quite knowing what was real, what was dream, and what was a different world pushing in ... as a reader at times, I felt like I was drifting off and snapping myself back no different than the characters were (again, I chalk this off to reading in a tired state). It was such a strange little read, and much more slower than I prefer (it took a dear bit of time to get going and even then, just a trot), but by the time I had maybe third to a quarter left, there was a weird bit of it that had grown on me, and by the end I felt a little sad even.
Strange little book.
Content Warnings
It was written in 1926 by a female author which is worth considering before diving in.