thread: 2005-08-30 : Coming-of-age Fantasy for Adults
On 2005-08-30, Piers wrote:
Yeah!
It's interesting how Taran Wanderer, by far the most low-key of all the Prydain series, is actually the pivot point around which the whole set of books turns. It's the book in which Taran learns what it means to be a man, and comes to terms the fact that he doesn't come from a noble linaeage, and that that is alright.
As for dealing with rape: Another thing I think that needs inclusion, and which allows us to sort of sidle up to some of the issues, is arranged marriages—particularly ones in which at least one of the spouses is definitely not in love with the other one, but they have to make do.
It's a Dogs issue too, but again, by stepping away from judgement and having to deal with and accomodate the experience in your life.
Also worth reading: John Christopher's Sword of Spirits Trilogy, which is actually a post-apocalyptic retelling of the Arthur story, but told at the end from the point of view of the spurned husband; the man who was once King, who has lost his wife and his country to his best friend, and as the books end is now a grown man—firm in his resolve to take them back.
I read it at about the same age as the other books you mention, and it put its print on me.
