“How many twigs in a bird’s nest?” asked the enchantress suddenly. “Answer quickly. There, you see,” she added. “Poor chicks, you don’t even know that. How could you be expected to know what you really want out of life?”
“One thing I want,” retorted Eilonwy, “is not to be a toad.”-Lloyd Alexander, The Prydain Chronicles
Lloyd Alexander, author of the Prydain Chronicles, died of cancer Thursday.
I think children’s books break naturally into in two phyla: the kind you return to reread over and over, even as an adult; and the kind that sink away half-forgotten, never to be revisited. My regular destinations include LOTR, The Blue Sword, Madeleine L’Engle’s Wrinkle in Time trilogy, and Patricia McKillip’s Riddlemaster Trilogy. But Prydain was one of the latter for me: I didn’t even remember reading The Book of Three until I recently found an old report on it, complete with a plot diagram and a hand-drawn pig. The story of pig-herder- turned-hero Taran, bossy Princess Eilonwy, and their companions, it was a fairly standard coming-of-age tale.
Looking back, I got more than I realized out of Alexander’s books. They gave me a basic outline of Welsh myth (sufficient to make the Mabinogion awfully familiar a few years later). And more importantly, they gave me a proto-Hermione: Princess Eilonwy, quick-tongued, sharp-witted and attractive (when she bothered to clean herself up).
The Book of Three was released in 1964, when heroic fantasy books generally didn’t know how to handle female characters (we all know LOTR is exhibit #1). In Alexander’s words,
I was surely one of the first – maybe I was the first – to have full-blooded, real, female characters. This was quite new at the time. But to me this is reality. Every woman or girl that I personally knew, which is all I’ve got to go by, has been like that.
. . . There’s a certain type of fantasy which I personally dislike a lot. It’s very violent. It used to be completely male-oriented. The women were objects that [characters such as] Conan and his cronies sought after – in other words they didn’t amount to anything. Someone wrote an article about this, calling it “fascist literature”. I found that very expressive. I don’t like that kind of fantasy: it doesn’t give you anything to live on or to live for, and it doesn’t give you anything to live by. I much prefer the fantasy which is much more nourishing.
When I was a voracious young reader, it was hard to find “nourishing” fantasy literature. I read a lot of sensational, explicit, poorly written garbage along the way (Gor, anyone?). This pulp fantasy used women as stereotypical plot devices, temptations to be overcome, or treasures to be obtained, by the male hero. It was all very Legend of Zelda. Rescue the princess! Rescue her! Rescue her! I actually preferred the more misogynist portrayals of women: they, at least, were interesting, powerful characters who made things happen.
For a long time, women just weren’t integral to fantasy. (Or to SF. Only one Princess Leia is necessary for effective playground re-enactment of the entire original Star Wars trilogy; my experience in this role invariably involved re-enacting the drop into the garbage bin, whining, complaining, and being “rescued.” Sigh).
“I don’t like being called ‘a girl’ and ‘this girl’ as if I didn’t have a name at all. It’s like having your head put in a sack.” – Eilonwy
-Lloyd Alexander, The Prydain Chronicles
Of course there’s no longer a need to agitate for strong female role models in children’s fantasy. Represented handily by Harry Potter‘s Hermione, His Dark Materials‘s Lyra, and Sabriel, they’re thankfully ubiquitous. I don’t argue that Alexander was a prime mover in this shift, but he does deserve credit for being ahead of the curve, and for a long career summarized by this wonderful quote:
Someone once asked Einstein how to develop intelligence in young people. His answer was: “Let them read fairy tales. Then let them read more fairy tales.” I understand what he meant. Imagination is the source of everything else. Imagination is the source of all discoveries in science, in physics, in everything. They all hinge basically on imagination: the ability to ask “what if?” Imagination nurtures the intelligence. Start with that and you can go anywhere. Any fantasy that nurtures the imagination is deeply important. It nurtures the inner person.
(source: interview with Madalyn Travis)