REVISIONS: THE CHRONICLES OF PRYDAIN BY LLOYD ALEXANDER

This is a revised post from my old blog.  The original can be found here for comparison.

Abstract: Amongst children’s literature, this is a great series.  The world feels generic, but the characters are distinct and engaging, and Alexander managed to parallel Taran’s development with the developing themes, which alone makes this series worth reading.

Content Warning [highlight to view]: magic/sorcerer, mild cursing, some scary scenes

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“Is It Good Enough for Children?”

Madeleine L’Engle, author of A Wrinkle in Time, asked this question in a essay of the same name, concluding that “if a children’s book is not good enough for all of us, it is not good enough for children” (L’Engle 431).  C. S. Lewis voices a similar idea in his essay “On Three Ways of Writing for Children.”  With this conclusion, both authors confront the assumption that children’s literature needs to be what we might call “childish,” stories that lose most, if not all, of their power as we mature as readers and as people.  Instead, children’s literature should grow with us, should increase in power and meaning as we age.  Examples include The Chronicles of Narnia, The Wizard of Oz, and the subject of this week’s post: the under-appreciated Chronicles of Prydain by Llyod Alexander.

The Chronicles of Prydain is a somewhat unknown (at least in my circles) five-book series following the adventures of Taran, assistant pig keeper and wannabe hero.  After an evil sorcerer, the Horned King, attacks his home and the pig Henwen escapes, Taran chases after the pig in order to bring her home.  In so doing, however, he begins a series of adventures that will change his life forever.  Each of the five books tells one of these adventures, and someday I will probably review each individual volume.  However, I find it better to start by describing my experience of the series as a whole.

The world itself is pretty bland.  It’s a generic fantasy setting without much to set it apart from other stories in the genre.  I honestly can’t recall much to say about it outside of plot points.  The characters, on the other hand, are quite engaging.  Every recurring character has a personality, a manner of speech, and a unique relationship to Taran.  Almost every emotional moment feels earned (and there are some moments where I felt very strong emotions) because of how well the characters are built.  Even annoying characters can become endearing as Alexander fleshes them out across one or multiple books.  The characters never become fully fleshed out, but each one feels like an individual with a part to play in the story.

Plots between stories are also different.  There is some repetition here or there, but for the most part each story builds upon the one before, putting Taran and his companions in different locations against different challenges.  A kingdom of fairies, a witches’ swamp, a field, mountains, wastelands, villainous castles, each place presents logical and interesting hurdles for the characters to face as they chase each individual story’s particular goal.  When I do reviews of each volume, I will go into more detail, but that summary will have to be enough for now.

Prose-wise, the series is pretty good.  It’s nothing special, at least not nowadays, but it’s not bad, and it’s an easy read if you’re willing to gloss over names of people and places.  Welsh pronunciation is not my strong suit.

Where the stories really shine, though, are their themes.  Two major themes play throughout the whole series: identity and what it means to be a hero.  Sub-themes, such as loss and the importance of sacrifice, also come up, but they largely feed into those two main ideas.  Identity and the nature of heroism shape the stories, and it is through the development of these two themes that we see the development of Taran as a character.  At the series’s start, Taran is a teenager who wants to be a hero.  He desires honor, prestige, recognition, to be somebody great.  Over the course of five books, however, Taran’s understanding of what a hero is and who he as a person is changes.  The question remain the same: What is a hero?  What is honor?  Who am I?  But the answers do not.   With each book, Alexander takes these questions and unpacks them, adding more layers and maturity to his themes, so that Taran has grown into a different version of himself by book five.

There is one more issue I want to mention, but as it involves a major spoiler for book five, I will have to leave it for next week.

Combining well-constructed and often likeable characters, varied plots, and maturing themes, The Chronicles of Prydain has definitely earned the label “good enough for children.”

Source(s)-

L’Engle, Madeleine.  “Is It Good Enough for Children?”  The Christian Imagination,    edited by Leland Ryken, WaterBrook Press, 2002, pp. 427-431.