Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope MirrleesMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is one of those books that, over the years, I've attempted to read on a couple of occasions but something never quite clicked. Originally recommended to me back in 2013 or so by a friend, Lud-in-the-Mist is equal parts fairytale whimsy, vivid world-building and reflective melancholy and I loved it. For some reason, on my third attempt it clicked. Perhaps I had more patience with the rich prose after having been relaxing on the coast for a few days (I did the same with The Silmarillion many years back - it, like Lud, wasn't for me a bedtime book in between working days at t'pit (euphemism only, I'm not really a miner)).
Hope never wrote any other fantasy novels and this one appeared to have languished in some obscurity for the thick end of a century, only being kept alive in those wonderfully covered 60s and 70s pulp paperbacks, but it's had something of a renaissance in recent years. Lud-in-the-Mist has been championed by the likes of Neil Gaiman and it made number 11 in Gollancz's Fantasy Masterworks series and deservedly so. I finished it around 6 weeks ago and the end is still lingering at the back of my head, becoming ever more profound with each successive rumination.
I suspect I will return to it more than once.
View all my reviews
No comments:
Post a Comment