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Any book by Susan Cooper is worth a read, but this one, an alt-universe fantasy/allegory about Life and Death - and those capitals say it all - is a bit heavy-handed.
I don't know what it is about this book, but even the first time I read it, I had the feeling I'd read it before, as though it were a very old story, retold in such a way that I can't figure out what the original is.
I’ve been meaning to reread this one for a while. It was lovely to go back to it. It’s a bit more mature than The Dark is Rising, I think; certainly, there’s a physicality between Cally and West that isn’t even hinted at in The Dark is Rising. The first time I read it I said that this book ends perfectly, “neither too early nor too late”, and I still feel that way. It’s enough to have the promise of Cally and West’s future, at the end of the book; I don’t need to read about it, and that would ta...
Cally pushes herself through a mirror to escape an endless, unearthly voice. Westerly escapes his pursuers through a hidden doorway. They each find themselves in another world, where magic and thought have power beyond their imagining. This is very much a coming of age adventure story, full of chases and near-escapes, but it is told in such beautiful language that I found myself re-reading the descriptions of the countryside.
A short, subdued novel which packs an astonishing amount of emotional punch. With its fantastic journey toward growth and (self-)discovery, Seaward feels like a sister of The Neverending Story: sometimes younger, sometimes older.Full review:https://choveshkata.net/forum/viewtop...
I beleive I read this sometime in highschool when I thought reading lists where romantic and wanted summer reading. I read a lot of fiction that indicated that sutdents received summer reading lists and I was jealous and therefore hunted one down (yeah I was that kind of book nerd - English was by far my favorite subject as I adored the creativity). Anyways, I am pretty sure this was a book I had read that summer. And I was completely captivated by it. It is one of those alternative worlds, slip...
I was one of those rare children that came to Seward before I came to The Dark is Rising. So, years later, when I did an internet search with a few vague keywords during the dark hours of a read-a-thon to try and re-find this childhood novel that I half remembered I was shocked (no, seriously, shocked) to discover that it was by none other than Susan Cooper. And then… I wasn’t shocked at all.In a lot of ways Seaward is a short story version of all the things that made The Dark is Rising so incre...
This one really surprised me - like something between a fever-dream and a living metaphor, and, I think, all the better for it. I did see a review that notes Seaward as feeling "unrooted," and this is an apt description, though this is often a boon rather than a negative thing: my only complaints would be that this unrootedness occasionally detracts more than it gives the overall atmosphere, and that there are a few points that feel slightly dated rather than timeless (as in the rest of the stor...
When I was in sixth grade I had a teacher who was a real fantasy reader. And the man could do the most excellent voices for every character. We sat enthralled at his feet as he read aloud to the entire class each day. No mean feat to keep a mess of eleven and twelve year olds' attention like that day after day. He's a huge part of the reason I love the genre and he is responsible for introducing me to so many of my all-time favorites, including (and perhaps most memorably) the incomparable Lloyd...
2017 update: still a very good read.-------"Whatever happens, believe that the journey is worth taking, and then you will reach its end."I initially picked this up because when Catherynne M. Valente tells you a book was "formative," you pick that book up. It was brilliant and I devoured it in under three hours.So. Seaward. Seaward is what happens when Irish mythology invites Diana Wynne Jones, J.M. Barrie, the Brothers Grimm and every bit of magic left on earth over for tea and philosophy. Cally...
Well, the writing itself was beautiful! This is good if you like metaphorical journeys along the lines of Narnia or Labyrinth (I couldn't stop thinking of Callie as Sarah). There's a hint of Earthsea, too, in the worldbuilding and the philosophical life and death stuff.It wasn't the greatest read ever, a little wanting in character development and believability and.... the presence of weirdly sexual acid trip.... it's the 80's I guess? I was skeptical of how almost everyone they meet wants to he...
Susan Cooper is a master at atmosphere, but I rarely connect with her characters. This was again my largest difficulty with enjoying this story, as I wanted to know so much more about West and Cally. About their families, where they come from and what their lives are. But we get thrown into the story even as they are thrust from our world into a separate dimension that together they traverse as they head seaward, encountering figures of myth and legend.It has an otherworldly tone and feel to it
I knew of Susan Cooper because of the Dark is Rising series but I never thought to look for any of her other books. That is until a co-worker gifted it to me as a Christmas present, it was her favourite growing up which is quite an honour. I was really glad she did, it's been an incredibly long time since I've read a book that's just this...Joyful. Cooper does a really good job of blending mythology into her stories in a way that is both true to the source and also kind of new. I would recommend...
Sneaky, Sneaky CooperThis is a little known Cooper gem that has undoubtedly been overshadowed by Cooper's classic "Dark is Rising" sequence. So, appropriately enough given its themes and structure, it lurks in the shadows waiting to be discovered by Cooper completists. Cooper has written other books as well, including her successful Boggart books for younger readers, so "Seaward" keeps drifting lower and lower on the Cooper search return list. Congratulations on finding this book. And what have
An extended metaphor that's mostly beautifully written, if a little cheesy and containing some awkward plot holes and leaps. But honestly, it's probably nostalgia and my love for Cooper's 'The Dark is Rising' series that compels me to round this one up to 4 stars.
When two children find themselves carried away from a set of catastrophes too haunting to accept, into a world just as complicated as perilous they each are filled with a desire to find the answer to their being there and set off Seaward. Both Cally and West begin their journeys alone and the land they cross is full of a magic and people beyond the realm of their understanding yet there is something about the reality which they are unquestionably a part of. The more I reflect on Seaward, the mor...
This pretty different from the way I remembered it from reading in my childhood. That said, all I could really remember from this book was a reference to "the girl with the selkie hands". This is a very different form of prose than I what I more commonly read now; much more description and long passages of narrative flow compared to more contemporary fiction that I find tends to read a lot faster because it's so often broken up with more dialogue and more centered on action than description.In t...
I originally read this as a middle schooler after loving Cooper's The Dark is Rising series, and reread it a million times after that. The story didn't have the staying power for me that TDIR has, so I anticipate that it was the romance and some surprisingly sexy parts that made this an adolescent favorite. The book definitely has echoes of TDIR - Tyrannis and Lugan mirror The Rider and Merriman in some ways, and young strangers navigating a larger than life quest is also a familiar theme, as we...