The Dark is Rising

Having amazed myself last month by reading the Hunger Games trilogy -- and I'm holding off seeing the movie that opened Friday night until the teenagers have drifted out of the theaters and on to some new excitement -- I then moved on to another level of young people's fantasy -- Susan Cooper's series of books, The Dark is Rising. I finished the fifth and final book, Silver on the Tree, yesterday.

Like all such fantasy/adventure stories, I'm left feeling dizzy, neither in the "real world," nor in the fantasy world from which I've just departed. It's an enchanted state, leaving me excited, regretful, and with a certain tearful blurriness in my eyes. Just as I felt many years ago when I completed the last page of The Lord of the Rings.

You yourselves -- my readers -- probably either read the The Dark is Rising when young, or have long since found that kind of reading to be not quite your cup of tea: I don't intend to describe the intricate plot of the series in any detail here. I'll just remind you that it is a very English story about contemporary English (and Welsh) children; about one boy (Will Stanton) who discovers on his eleventh birthday that he is not quite like the rest of his family, but is rather one of "the Old Ones"; about Arthurian legends; about the illusory nature of Time; about an age-old Manichean conflict between forces known as "the Light" and "the Dark," forces that contend -- unlike forces in those religions that tend toward Manicheism -- subject to rules set by a greater force, neutral and implacable, called "the Ancient Magic."

The second book, itself called The Dark is Rising, written in 1973,¹ stands out from the other four as the best and purest presentation of the magic world that hides behind our own perceptions. The first book, Over Sea, Under Stone, written earlier in 1965, is a much milder story, more a traditional English children's adventure story, gently flavored with hints of magic. The later books -- Greenwitch (1974), The Grey King (1975), and Silver on the Tree (1977) -- chronicle the growing power of the Light, as the various protagonists (Will himself, the mysterious and avuncular Merryman (who turns out to be Merlin), Will's slightly older friend Bran (son of King Arthur, but brought to our time as an baby and reared in Wales), and Will's three young friends from Buckinghamshire) successfully complete their assigned quests, leading to the final triumph over the Dark in the final volume.

During the course of the five books, we -- and more importantly, young readers -- learn about the great disasters in British history, disasters that are described not as random evemts, but horrors that have occurred during periods when the Dark was ascendent. The Saxons and the Danes might well have invaded England in the normal course of events, even apart from the Dark. But without the Dark, the invaders would not have killed and destroyed on such a devastating scale, killing and destroying for the sheer enjoyment of death and destruction. (Will sees the Dark working in a small way even in his own neighborhood, when he comes upon local bullies aimlessly tormenting a small, dark "Paki" child.) Each wave of invaders eventually settled down and became "British," but only after the Light had once more for a time gained the upper hand, thrusting the Dark back into the hills, back into temporary withdrawal -- licking its wounds and preparing for the next assault.

Cooper is a beautiful and compelling writer. Peculiar to these books -- compared with, say, the less profound Harry Potter books -- is the author's loving and detailed descriptions of natural and human environments in the parts of Britain -- Buckinghamshire, Cornwall and Wales -- in which the action occurs. Cooper has the knowledge and sensitivities of a gardener, a botonist, a zoologist, an architect, an oceanographer, an historian. No butterfly passes unnamed and undescribed; no architectural style goes unremarked. Her research seems meticulous, as she describes in loving detail the actual towns, mountains and coastlines in Cornwall and Wales where the story takes place. Her characters make free use of the Welsh language where appropriate.

In a sense, the story is profoundly conservative -- not only because of the conflict between absolute good and absolute evil that it portrays, but in its implicit lament over the steady despoiling of the British countryside -- throughout the centuries ever since the days of King Arthur, as well as, in an accelerated fashion, the changes in our own day. Every casual tourist encountered elicits scorn and distaste from her child protagonists; every new dwelling for big city vacationers incurs their contempt.

"Cars, cars," said Will. "D'you know there's even something on the Machynlleth road called a chatel? A chatel! Presumably a cross between a motel and -- " He broke off, staring at the road ahead.

And the books' tale seems conservative also through the underlying, deeply-felt lesson that it teaches, a lesson that Edmund Burke would have well understood, that the history of a people must be viewed as an organic whole, that a nation consists not just of today's citizens, but of those in its past and its future as well. The travel by Cooper's heroes back and forth in time -- from the time of Arthur, the Saxon invasions, the pillaging by the Danes, the nineteenth century, and back to the present -- isn't time travel merely for the sake of excitement, as in some science fiction novels. It is the author's device to show how Britain's past lives on through its present, and how its present population has debts, and consequent obligations, to those who guided Britain through its past.

(Whenever one of Will's young friends asks about some paradox that seems to result from travel through time, an Old One replies that his question is just the sort of thing that a human would ask! The passage of time, we are reminded, is a human illusion; all events throughout time are occurring (in a sense) simultaneously. Got it?)

And in these ways, the story line stakes out a philosophically conservative position in the same way that many of us -- despite perhaps our liberal political views -- often feel conservative. Cooper's story teaches and encourages values -- historical, architectural, environmental, moral -- that should be of use to young Britons today. Or to young Americans, for that matter, insofar as we still derive our values -- even if not, for most of us, our blood -- from our country's British heritage.

In the end, on a day in the late 20th century, when the final book was written, the Light wins its battle. With the help of Will, Bran, and the English youngsters, the Light totally and with finality vanquishes the Dark. Cooper seems to treat this final battle -- a pagan Armageddon -- as the breaking of mankind's bonds to supernatural forces, an ending of mankind's susceptibility to unseen forces of evil ... or of good. But it does not free mankind from the darkness found in the hearts of each of us. From now on, the children are told, it is up to each human being, and to humanity collectively, to fight for what is good. They will have no supernatural Dark to blame for the evils they encounter, and no powers of Light to save them from their own mistakes.

"For remember," he said, "that it is altogether your world now. ... We have delivered you from evil, but the evil that is inside men is at the last a matter for men to control. ... For Drake is no longer in his hammock, children, nor is Arthur somewhere sleeping, and you may not lie idly expecting the second coming of anybody now, because the world is yours and it is up to you. ... Now especially since man has the strength to destroy the world, it is the responsibility of man to keep it alive, in all its beauty and marvellous joy."

"We'll try," Simon said. "We'll try our best."

Merriman [Merlin] gave him a quick startling grin. "Nobody can promise more than that," he said.

And with that final admonition, in a farewell reminiscent of the final scenes in Tolkien's The Return of the King, the Old Ones -- the great powers of the Light -- sail off, away from Earth and out of Time. Only one Old One remains, the now 12-year-old boy, Will Stanton -- the last and youngest of "the Old Ones" -- who will remain with his family and with the young friends he has made during his quests and battles. A young boy, but also an Old One and immortal, his life on Earth will continue as a "watchman" for the Light until the proper time arrives for him, too, to depart and join his fellows of the Light.

When the Dark comes rising, six shall turn it back;
Three from the circle, three from the track;
Wood, bronze, iron; water, fire, stone;
Five will return, and one go alone.

-----------------------------------
¹Filmed as a highly unsuccessful movie with poor reviews in 2007, and released in the United States under the title The Seeker.