The Silver on the Tree, the last book of Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising series, begins on several ominous notes, as Will begins to see people and images from the past, removes his oldest brother’s memories and then almost immediately witnesses a despicable racist act.
This is the first time racism of any type has made an appearance in the series, and Will and his siblings are all horrified. It also adds to the general sense that evil is growing in the real world, not just in the hidden magic behind that: first sheep killing, now racism and outright cruelty to kids. Not surprisingly, the racists turn out to be oblivious agents of the Dark, which uses racism to seep into people’s minds and turn them into tools for evil. Chilling.
After this initial interlude, Will finds that he’s been invited back to Wales and the landscape that gave the previous book such power. By what is probably not a coincidence, he and Bran run into Simon, Jane and Barney—the three kids from the first and third books. Everyone feels the shivering hand of doom, but none of the five know where to search next, or exactly what they will be doing. And at least at first, the five do not get along all that well, partly because Simon, Jane and Barney resent the unexplained inclusion of Bran, partly because Bran resents their assumption that he is less educated than they because he is Welsh and lives on a farm. And Jane, at least, can tell that once again Will is initially hiding something from her—and as I’ve noted before, in this series, hiding stuff just does not go well.
Perhaps fortunately, they do not spend the entire book travelling together. Simon, Jane and Barney experience dizzying time shifts with John Rowlands, another character from the fourth book, and Will and Bran take a considerably more interesting and lyrical journey to the Lost Lands. Their quest is perhaps the highlight of the book, which becomes somewhat less interesting—if still beautifully and lyrically written—when Will and Bran return for the final battle against evil.
But for all its beauty and fear, I find this a less satisfying, and occasionally more irritating, book than its predecessors. For one, Cooper more than once uses a damsel in distress motif, with various characters needing to save Jane from monsters. Given that Jane was perfectly able to rescue herself in previous books—and at least some of these monsters are attacking her mentally, not physically, this is irritating. And yes, Simon and Barney also need rescuing—but Simon needs rescuing only after he goes on the attack, and Barney is never in real danger. Jane needs rescuing just because she has wandered off. About the only thing this does is add to the small hints of a possible romance between Bran and Jane, which, since this book does not have time for romance and has no sequel, never really goes anywhere, and ends up vaguely dissatisfying as well.
But the book has a larger problem. At the end of the book, Cooper once again has almost all of her characters completely forget almost everything that has happened, except in dreams. The one exception is Will, who gets to remember because, well, he’s an Old One, and he’s special.
Quite apart from the cruel isolating effect this has on Will, I also find it aggravating in other respects. Partly because I’m wondering just exactly how Simon, Jane and Barney are supposed to carry out the command of remaining vigilant against evil and darkness if they can’t remember the command or why it’s important. Partly because, although I understand why the Light feels that erasing John Rowlands’ memories is kinder, I think it would be wiser for Rowlands to remember how he was tricked, however bitter that memory might be.
But mostly because, with the possible exception of the “be kind to John Rowlands” amnesia, most of this memory wiping is done out of a sense of elitism, a sense that the mortal characters just aren’t good enough to know about magic—even though several earlier scenes in this series and even in this book have shown just how dangerous this “tell no one” attitude is. And, of course, it seems to render the first four books completely pointless for four of the five kids.
Cooper tries to structure this as part of the rules, the way life just is, and even has an adult mortal character claim that it’s not proper for these supporting characters to know, because they are not of “their kind”—their kind referring to the Old Ones. The problem is, he makes this statement in the same book that begins by saying that racism and assuming those unlike you are lesser beings is wrong. Yes, I realize the counter argument here—the Old Ones, unlike normal humans, can do magic and can see the other world hidden behind reality. But the Old Ones—even those defending the Light—are constantly putting these supposed inferiors into danger and then saying that mere humans aren’t good enough to understand anyway.
I hate that Simon, Jane, Barney and Bran all risked their lives, and in Bran’s case, led a rather miserable and isolated existence for years, for something they will not even be allowed to remember. And bear in mind: this isn’t something small that they are forced to forget. They are forced to forget that magic is real, that other worlds interact with our own, and that, yes, King Arthur really existed.
And I hate, in a book that speaks about choices and about free will, whose climax depends on just this very thought, fails, in the end, to give its characters that choice.
This leads to a related problem: I am honestly not certain why Simon, Jane and Barney need to be in this book at all, except, of course, that they were in the first and third books, and might as well show up in the end. But for the most part, they are distractions: the real story here is Will, fighting against the forces of the Dark, and Bran, demanding his rightful heritage, and getting an invitation to, er, live at the back of the North Wind. Yes, Cooper wanted to bring back her first characters, I suppose, and yes, it’s useful to have several people able to hold up signs, but their presence makes this book more diffuse, without the tight suspense and plotting of the second and fourth books of the series.
Silver on the Tree does provide a solid ending for the series, and it’s certainly not the weakest of the books. But still, it left me unsatisfied, and rather wishing I’d stopped with the fourth book.
Housekeeping note: Next week, I’ll be blogging about Seaward, and then after that, it’s off for the delightful charms of the Edith Nesbit books where whatever the flaws of the books, the characters get to remember everything.
Mari Ness wants to remember magic and mystery, no matter what the rules might say. She lives in central Florida.
100% agreement with everything you said about the ending. I didn’t care for this book, and I almost wish that I hadn’t read it. Almost, because it has one of my favorite lines in literature.
“[It’s not a lie] because you did love her, and all love has great value. Every human being that loves another loves imperfection. Nothing is so simple as that.”
It’s been 17 years since I read the book, but that line has stayed with me all this time.
The memory wiping wasn’t done because the mortals “just weren’t good enough to know about magic”, it was done because magic was leaving the world. The Dark was exiled, the Light was self-exiling, and the other Magics just don’t care about humans or mortals and seem to be sealing itself off/self destructing/fading away for other reasons.
Plus, you’re ignoring that the last book is simply chock full of the thinly veiled commentary on religion: “There are no more supernatural saviors waiting to save you, kids. And no more devils to blame the bad stuff on. If humans don’t figure out a way to save themselves, they’re screwed, and it’ll be their own fault.”
Oooh, subtle. *grin*
@Lsana – And I’d like that line a lot better if it weren’t countered by the slight problem that Rowland will never remember the lie….
@John R. Ellis – Except that WILL is still able to remember everything, solely because he’s a Great Old One and the others aren’t. If you are genuinely memory wiping because all magic is leaving the world, then Will’s memory should have been wiped too – and it wasn’t. The only ones with their memories wiped are the mortals.
Plus, given that part of the argument for the earlier memory wipes is that magic can kill, why continue to wipe memories if magic is no longer around to do any killing?
Will’s memory wasn’t wiped because he still has a final task to complete, according to Merriman. We aren’t given the details because his task as “Will the Wachman” will apparently not involve mortal concerns.
But hey, feel free to assume Merriman is just lying and hates humans.
No commentary the blatant “This is a metaphor for why humans need to give up religion and beliefs in a supernatural power, GET IT?” content? It was even spelled out explicitly in the coda, in case the reader didn’t pick up on it.
I don’t think Merriman hates humans. But he does seem to think of them as inferiors, and even after several incidents show him that this attitude can be actively dangerous (it almost gets him, Will and the other kids killed, more than once). And yet, here he is again.
Regarding the humans giving up religion – I’m not entirely sure I read it the exact same way. I definitely get the sense, in the last four books, that the Light is really not as kindly and beneficial as humans might like to believe, which would be the real reason for giving it up. This is a Light that will put you in danger and lie to you and use you for its own purposes all while saying, Yay Free Will! It’s not just that the Light is leaving the world, but that maybe it wasn’t particularly good for the world in the first place. At the same time, that might be part of why those memories need to be wiped – the Great Old Ones want humans to believe that the Light is still good. And Cooper has spent most of these books arguing that these powers are very very real – even if they cannot be sensed, and are not physically on this planet.
You missed Merriman’s “There is no savior waiting to rescue you, no dark other you can blame your problems on anymore, mankind will doom or save itself” speech?
This wasn’t something I read between the lines, it’s actual text. And going back over the final three books, it was blatantly foreshadowed. All magic is ultimately harmful to humans, we’re ultimately better off without it and can NOT depend on it to solve problems, moral or otherwise.
The memory wiping isn’t done to preserve the Light’s pristine reputation (they don’t even remember the Light exists. What would there be to preserve?) It’s done because Cooper thinks the world is better off without a belief or reliance on such things. This is spelled out by her favorite Old One, just in case the readers needed the extra shove.
I agree with you about the lack of choice given to the characters–and the way you put it gives words to the dissatisfaction each time I read the fifth book (also agree that the 2nd and 4th books are the best).
However, I read the memory-wiping and withdrawal of the Light and the Dark as being part of the genre Cooper wrote in at the time–e.g.: Narnia and Middle-Earth–where the fantastic element is a modern way of conveying human contact with Faerie: in which, whatever one may experience and however much it changes you, is an experience that is dangerous, difficult to speak about (if at all), and something which you either cannot, or are-very-unlikely-to, go back to.
The saddest of all the books…
Wiping people’s memory of something that actually existed because the world is “better off” without belief in such things seems like a rather nasty message; it’s a promotion of blissful ignorance over knowledge, and done without consent at that. Apparently it’s better for mankind to doom or save itself without actual accurate knowledge of its own history. Blech.
I remember as a kid that I was really bothered by the memory wipe, because it’s like all the fighting the kids went through didn’t mean anything, and particularly for Bran it meant losing who he really was.
I was less annoyed by Rowlands forgetting, because if I remember right he was given a choice whether or not to forget, so if that was his choice… well, that’s what he wanted.
@John Ellis – No, I read it. But the speech to me is dwarfed by the not so small problem that nobody who hears will be able to remember it.
And maybe this is because I’ve spent too much time pouring over Greek and Egyptian and Arthurian legends and myth that no one believes in anymore, but I don’t think that I should necessarily forget the Iliad just because I have serious doubts that a thundergod directly interfered in a very whiny, overlong battle, or that a human could twist a river into another shape single handedly, or that we should stop retelling and creating King Arthur stories just because he (probably) never existed, or if he did, he never had a Round Table and knights in 14th century armor.
We get something from stories, even if they aren’t true, even if gods and magic aren’t real, even if we can’t depend on magic or religion and in the end must do something for ourselves. We get something from memories. We get something when we learn that someone isn’t who we thought.
@fadeaccompli — Plus what you said.
@missblake7 – Yes.
@laurie Tom – Well, they offered Rowlands a choice, and then he told them to make the choice for him, so they chose to have him forget. It’s…weird.
Memory wipe is one of my most hated plot devices. It significantly spoils the end of this series for me (and don’t get me started on Donna Noble…).
I don’t like the part where Will and Bran are in the otherworld. They run around and do pointless tasks and occasionally stop to chat with their enemies.
I didn’t have as much of a problem with the memory wipe because to me Will was always the real hero and I didn’t really care about the Drews children. Maybe that’s because I read the second book many times before I found out the rest of the books existed.
A problem with the difference between Old Ones and the humans they use is that the Old Ones and their enemies can’t really be hurt, they can only lose the game they are playing. It’s their human tools who get hurt, and they often don’t really know what’s going on. The kids are willing to help, but nobody tells them what is really going on. The other side often uses people who don’t even know they are being used.
Yay, Seaward!! :D *points to username*
And like Andrea K Host says above, ugh, parallels to Doctor Who. In fact, I just realized reading this post that I was probably primed to hate that ending by the ending to this book.
Recently read the entire series as a break from other stuff, had read books 2 and 5 about 20 years ago or more. I liked the memory wipe, it made me seriously doubt whether the characters weren’t just kids playing a pretend game with an eccentric old Welsh grandfather-figure who was in on the fun, which seemed possible all along given how non-threatening the Dark almost always was (the racism and ship-sabotage bits in the last book were a bit disturbing, I guess, but given that this series was written post-WW2, seems like the Dark could have done much worse). The main reason I liked the memory wipe though is that parts of the adventure are left behind in dreams, and the mortals all remember Merriman’s vision even after they have forgotten everything else: this ‘lingering in dreams’ thing seems a good explanation for why fantasy/celtic legend etc can feel so ‘true’ (Guy Gavriel Kay posits a similar idea in The Summer Tree where a figure suspiciously like Merriman (old scholar/professor/wizard, expert on Celtic myth, etc) explains that there are many worlds and ours has verged away from the pattern, but we still remember what that pattern is (ie the legendary stuff). Anyway I normally hate memory wipe but it seemed appropriate here.
Cordwainer Smith, whose stories are mostly legends in their own context, makes good use of memory wipe, because it’s the alternative to death. How would it be for Go-Captain Tedesco to have to live with the memory of what he thought he had done with the Golden Ship? Still worse for Prince Lovaduck, who committed genocide on a whole world. Even the few survivors of Raumsog’s men have their brains scrambled to keep the secret. The safest thing for the Instrumentality to do would have been to execute all of them. But they don’t do it, out of perhaps misplaced kindness.