Lud-in-the-Mist

I have mixed feelings about this book.Pros: It was intelligently written, at times engaging, and I had to look up a lot of words (I hope I remember some of them; I really liked the word "valleity"). At times, the book evoked a sense of mystery and dream-like qualities.Cons: 1) To my taste, the author has a somewhat turgid style, with too many circumlocutions. (Of course, the book is almost a century old.) 2) The pace is slow at times 3) To me, the characters are not all that engaging. 4) The plot relies on a lot of hackneyed devices--e.g., there are several times in the book when a message or messenger arrives "just too late" to provide some important information or head off some "dastardly" chain of events. This is a book in which the "good guys and gals" get their happy endings, and the bad guys get their just deserts. 5) There are times when the characters' reactions lacked psychological reality, to me. A prime example is when Mayor Chanticleer and his wife, Marigold, lost both their daughter and son to kinds of kidnapping/abductions. However, they were not as distraught as they should have been in this situation. And Mayor Chanticleer's relation to his son was not totally credible to me. He starts the book not seeming to even realize that his son is an individual with his own subjective experiences; but he ends the book willing to enter the most frightening place in his world in order to rescue his son. It's not clear why this transformation took place. 5) A lot of the dialogue seems "stagey," as though it could occur in a "grade B" play or movie 6) The plot is, at times, amazingly incomplete and elliptical. For example, we never learn what ultimately happens to Mayor Chanticleer in "fairy land" or how he was able to rescue the "crab apple" girls and his son. And WHY did the fairy army march into Lud at the end? If J. K. Rowling read this book, I can certainly imagine that she got lots of ideas from it for her Harry Potter series--e.g., the use of comically descriptive names for characters, combining the procedural template of a mystery story with a fantasy tale, the use of various kinds of "Dickensian" eccentric characters, underpinnings of class conflict and prejudices, the use of "secret passwords" to get into hidden places, etc. However, in my opinion, Ms. Rowling has the advantage of clearer writing, better plotting, and more effective intertwining of comedy and drama. (And yes, I realize they're very different sorts of writers and writing.)

You could easily be forgiven for never having heard of Lud-in-the-Mist. Heck, I only picked it up on a whim, thanks to a raving cover blurb from Neil Gaiman, who recommended it as one of his all-time favorite novels. Even then, it sat unread on my Kindle for a long while until, as I was reading some articles about Susanna Clarke's masterpiece Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, I found multiple references to the book as a possible source of inspiration. And having read the book, that connection is pretty undeniable - Lud-in-the-Mist feels like a clear ancestor to Strange, a quiet, quintessentially English fantasy book about dealing with a history that we're not quite comfortable with and questioning whether it's okay to acknowledge art, music, and such "frivolous" matters in the world.But more than that, Lud-in-the-Mist feels like a genuinely overlooked classic, a beautiful little piece of fantasy that's been ignored and forgotten for nearly a hundred years. Yes, Lud-in-the-Mist is nearly a century old, but you wouldn't know that offhand; it has a wonderfully timeless feel to it, as though it's outside of any typical signifiers of time and place. It's the tale of the titular village, where any mention of the Fairy Kingdom over the hills is verboten, where any reference to Fairy magic or efforts is among the greatest taboos, and where life is pretty simple, down-to-earth, and sensible. That is, until the children of one of the big families in town start eating fairy fruit, and a strange new dance instructor comes to town, and everything else starts getting...well, weird.Like Strange and Norrell, Lud-in-the-Mist is as much about its world and its characters as it is any sort of story. The plot is simple, and pretty low-key; in fact, the novel's climactic scenes take place entirely off stage, and are left largely to our imagination. No, it's a book about digressions, and character dialogues, and debates about the proper way to approach the world. It's about the strange things we observe when adults aren't around, and the ways in which we sometimes feel that there must be more to the world than the everyday reality around us. And more than that, it's about how we handle realizing that we don't fit in anymore, and when we have to follow our own spirit.It's a wonderfully human novel, and although I commented that it feels quintessentially English (it's very much a novel about restraint, shameful behavior, and proper manners, in some ways), it resonates far beyond its story and setting, touching on great and rich themes all while never betraying its fantasy setting. You could easily argue that the book is basically using its fantasy world as an allegory, and while that's not necessarily a false claim, it also overlooks just how rich and detailed the world is, and how committed it is to that world. The brief glimpses of the fairy worlds, for instance, are genuinely strange and odd, and they feel like something truly foreign to us, in a way that doesn't rely on symbolism or Big Themes. (It captures that sense of the strangeness of magic that Neil Gaiman so often relies upon; it's really no wonder that he loves this book so much.)It's a quiet little piece of fantasy, but it's no less wonderful for its simplicity and beauty, and it's not hard to feel that it's been unjustly forgotten. Lud-in-the-Mist feels utterly unique and timeless, and I mean that in the best way; it's a window into another world that still feels as relevant today as it did 100 years ago, and still feels fresh, engaging, funny, beautiful, and rich, even with 100 years of imitators who could have come after (but don't seem to have done so). If you're a fan of Gaiman or Clarke, this is an essential read, plain and simple; if you're a fan of true fantasy - and not just the epic kind - you might find something wholly new and remarkable here. But one way or the other, it's a book that deserves to be embraced and more fully recognized as the beautiful work that it is.

This book is full of parables that you can feel the essence of, but never quite get with your conscious mind. But same as how in the book it's told that the characters understood certain things not with their mind but somehow differently, you understand it as well, without really understanding it. It's like remembering a dream after waking up - somehow it all makes sense, although nothing really does, and things can't be arranged in order at all, happening simultaneously but at the same time one after another, and having logical links without really having any at all. It's weird, but I think that's the way this book works as well. At the same time it's really sad, and also nostalgic in a sad way (as opposed to the sweet kind of nostalgia you have about, say, things from your childhood), of things that never really had anything to do with you and your life. It's like you're hearing the Note too, same as Nathaniel Chanticleer, but you have no idea what it is. It's one of those books that leaves you wondering about what happened in it at all, but then you're also not sure if it's only just a book you read..

Quirky read, unnerving at times,these are not the sweet romantic fairies, something much more sinister.....thats' if they really do exist!

Not since Tolkien's Smith of Wooten Major have I read such a brilliant work about the perilous realm of Faerie. Lots to dig into here - highly recommend.

A most delightful and charming novel. Truly a lost classic!

A book all lovers of reading should read. One of the more difficult but surprisingly rewarding books I've ever read.

the most amazing fantasy adventure ever!