Not the right kind of mermaid for this book, I know. |
That’s not necessarily a complaint. A rich and detailed background that is also
consistent lends the book a pseudo-historical feel and staves off any feeling
that the reader knows where the author is going next. It just means that the reader should adopt a
more passive attitude of going with the flow.
As Gil learns, good things come to those who wait, and this is true for
the reader, too. Watching Wright set up
the dominoes adds to the anticipation of the coming climax. When he flicks that first domino over, you
know that the results will be spectacular.
Even Nerea’s explanation of half of Gil’s lineage serves as
a set-up. Her admission that she sought
out Gil, and they they are cousins draws back the curtains on the background a
little more, but somehow still manages to leave most of the stage in shadow. At last, after a number of hints, we learn
that Gil a member of an extended family known as the Moths. Collectively, they are part of the Twilight
crowd. Not the sparkly vampire Twilight
crowd, but the not-quite-human and not-quite-faerie crowd. Within the Twilight population are several
families, of which the Moths are the most numerous, just ahead of the Cobweb
family.
The symbolism here is obvious. The Moths are drawn to light, the Cobwebs to
dark. Several lesser families get
name-checked, providing a useful classification schema that is at once more
organic and more easily understood than the most obvious comparison, J.K.
Rowling’s houses of Hogwart’s.
More dominoes are set-up when Nerea agrees to take Gil to
observe a tournament between the two most powerful elf kings in the world come
Lammas Day. We also learn that Nerea
considers Ruff to be a pooka, and that she doesn’t want Gil to mention to Ruff
that they had spoken.
It is these moments of doubt by Gil that make him such a
sympathetic character. This is a little
thing, don’t tell a friend we talked, but as a lie of omission it still leaves
Gil with a bad taste in his mouth. It’s
hard not to like a character with strong of a sense of honor and loyalty to his
friends, even in the little things. Because as all men of honor and loyalty know,
if you take care of the little things, the big things will take care of
themselves.
Of course, even as Wright gives us more reason to like Gil,
he also leaves us with another mystery.
What is it about Ruff that Nerea finds so troubling? Looking to the sum of all knowledge, Infogalactic tells us that a pooka is an Irish spirit that brings good and bad fortune. The connotations between dogs and coyotes, and the parallel development between the Irish and the Native American tribes (at least those who considered Coyote to be a trickster God) is interesting, but doesn't really answer the question. For that, we'll just have to remain patient a little longer.
Rather than seeing it as merely a slow rollout, it can also be seen as an aspect of the whole 'the real world isn't what we think it is' storyline. Not to get too lit crit, but Gil does need to be Everyman to some extent, and so his experience - not knowing who he is, not knowing what he is supposed to do, not knowing who he can trust or just how far he can trust them - has to be our experience, too. Thus, he has to find out slowly and with few clear answers; his mother must be a teller of riddles; his cousin, partly out of fear of the elfs and partly because she can hardly grasp his ignorance, doles stuff out furtively and maddeningly incomplete; his pooka, we suspect even this early in the books, wants to tell him more than he can, but is hiding stuff as well.
ReplyDeleteGil trusts a dog, a bear and a mermaid. He doesn't trust a school principal or any school 'friends'. He loves his mother, but hardly trusts her to tell him the plain truth. The connecting thread is beauty - Ruff, Bruno and Nerea are all archetypically beautiful after the manner of their kind.
Like real life, the answers may be out there (or in here) but do not come with a handy one-page cheat-sheet. One must trust *appropriate* beauty, such as the beauty of a loyal dog, yet be wary of the beauty of the elfs, which hides hardness, a certain viciousness - and sadness.
Like the fairy tales it is based on, and like life when properly considered, Swan Knight's Son is often sad, yet mysterious, beautiful and true.
I'm way late in responding to this comment. It's a great point, and one that should have jumped out at me.
ReplyDeleteNever apologize for lit-crit on this blog. That's the whole point of the exercise!