The Witch of Blackbird Pond, by Elizabeth George Speare

At its most basic, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, by Elizabeth George Speare, follows the pattern of a fairy tale. The main character is forced to wander from her home, enters a world where all the rules are different and strange (to her), undergoes trials and tests, grows up a lot, then resolves it all in a happily-ever-after marital conclusion.

The fairy tale ending was a bit disappointing, given the imaginative setting and wonderful characterizations of this book, but seems appropriate for a book published in 1958. In fact, for 1958, the hero of this book is wonderfully imagined--her inner life is rich and she faces the epic conflicts of all great heroes--sacrifice vs. safety, self vs. community, self vs. family, right vs. wrong, freedom vs. duty, and so many more. This book reads as current--I had many ideas as to when it was written. It's a fine book--interesting and, in the best sense, sweet.

Blackbird Pond follows Kit Tyler as she flees her home in Barbados--colorful, urban, lush--and arrives in cold and stony colonial Connecticut, home of her only living relative, an aunt. The discovery of the New England landscape, its charms and perils, is one key feature of the book. A second key feature is Kit's introduction to the culture of Puritanism in the 1680s--diametrically opposite to almost all she has been taught. The third key feature is Kit's submersion in self-subsistance (work, in other words). These three strands are interesting all in themselves. Seeing the landscape, culture, and work through Kit's new eyes illuminated it for me, made the Puritan period way more three-dimensional than I had viewed it before.

And then there's witchcraft. Kit is first suspected of being a witch as her ship from Barbados comes into port. A child drops her doll into the water and Kit jumps in and swims out to get it. Scandalous. People in New England, apparently, do not swim. Kit, if she fears not the water, might be a witch. Witches float. Kit is a peculiar bird in the Connecticut aviary. For example, she has no work clothes, she can't cook or sew, and she doesn't understand silent obedience. Against her uncle's direct order, Kit develops a relationship with an old woman considered to be a witch in the community, which casts yet more suspicion upon her. The old woman is a Quaker (another peculiar bird).

Anyway, Kit's characteristics put her at odds with the community; her actions put her and others in danger. The fairy tale ending is a bit of a cop out because Kit's marriage will remove her from the Puritan community and give her back most of the freedoms she had been denied. So, did she change and grow? Yes. And this is a children's book, so a portrayal of a lifetime as a questionable outsider is not feasible. I just worry that the fairy tale ending short circuits Kit as a true hero in the hero journey sense. The book is weakened by this, I think, made ordinary when it could have been great.

I don't think I've ever read a book set in this time period before, depicting village life in a Puritan community. It is interesting to see the seedlings of independence being sown, grown, and nurtured. The Puritans feared they would lose their autonomy when Charles II restored the British monarchy and actively prepared to resist. I never understood that before...that tradition of self-determination. And I never understood that Puritans and Quakers pretty much hated each other, resulting in severe persecution of Quakers. Kit's friend in the story had been branded.

This book is a Newbery Medal winner for good reason. You'll feel, like I did, like you've traveled through time and space to an alien land where the shape of the nation to come is just beginning to emerge.

The Sign of the Beaver, by Elizabeth George Speare

The Sign of the Beaver, by Elizabeth George Speare, will leave you feeling very sad because it is a very good book. Though it is told through the eyes of a white boy, the book illuminates the crisis of America's native people. If it were not written so well, your heart would be in less danger.

Set in the 1760s in the remote woods of Maine, The Sign of the Beaver tells the story of 13-year-old Matt, who is left in charge of his family's farmstead while his father returns to their former home to fetch the rest of the family. Matt is well instructed for, though fearful of, his long summer alone. His father gives him a set of sticks to notch--seven notches on each stick. After six sticks, he can look for his father to return.

Within two weeks, trouble comes knocking--or, rather, bursts through the door of Matt's cabin. Much of his food and weaponry is lost and he becomes dependent on fishing every day for his meals. Trekking out to his fishing spot, he often feels like he is being watched. After an accident with a bee tree, it turns out Matt was right. Two Indians--an old man and a boy--rescue him and return him to his cabin. The trio become friends.

Attean and Matt learn much from each other and come to understand both cultures from a different perspective. Matt, especially, sees how it seems to the Indians for more and more white people to move into their hunting areas, how that encroachment threatens their survival.

The book's setting is beautiful... much of it I imagined as woods I have been in, creeks I've followed, deer I've seen. When I am out in the woods, I am aware of how much I do not understand about the interactions of all of its living and nonliving aspects. I am in the woods, but not of the woods, although I have approached "of" a couple of times. Attean and his grandfather give Matt (and us) a glimpse of "of."

As in The Bronze Bow, the writing completely disappeared from this book. It was like all of my surroundings--reclining chair, dozing cat, furnace humming, the weight of the book, and the words on its pages--just fell away, leaving me in front of a cabin in thick forest and alone. Somehow, Speare's writing cuts through layers and layers of awareness into the experience of a fictional world. Excellent. I again pay tribute to Speare's skill and giftedness. She did it again.

I appreciate that Speare did not take sides in the whites vs Indians issue. She merely portrayed what happened. As whites moved into the Maine woods, less game was available for the native people living there. They had to move to maintain their way of living or assimilate into foreign ways or fight. The fighting of the French and Indian War had just ceased...that was not the choice of Attean's people.They moved. It reminded me of the ending of the outdoor drama Tecumseh when, at the end, the Indians leave, moving slowly to the west (and at the amphitheater, it is actually west) and into death. It's one of the saddest images I know, a kind of fall from paradise, but through no sin of the faller. It's like Adam and Eve had been kicked out of the garden by squatters. (And reminds me of Faulkner's Snopeses, who infiltrated and mocked the mythical South.)

At the end of this book it is winter and when I re-emerged from the book I found that it had been snowing. I awoke into Matt's world and had to shake myself free. That's a good book, when you have to shake off one reality for another.

SIDEBAR: Tecumseh Outdoor Drama

The outdoor drama Tecumseh is performed every summer in Chillicothe, Ohio. To find out more, go to www.tecumsehdrama.com. It's an amazing pageant and drama and lots of fun.

SIDEBAR: Man's Worlds

It's funny to me that both The Bronze Bow and The Sign of the Beaver take place in a boys' and men's world. Female characters are somewhat ancillary, even with the inclusion of the sister and girlfriend in The Bronze Bow. In both books, women are noticed and their work is respected, but the action of both books is decidedly male. From her biography, I cannot tell whether this maleness is a common thread throughout her work. Her most famous book, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, is about a girl. It is on my list and I will read it as soon as I can procure it.

SIDEBAR: Where is your frontier?

I love that The Sign of the Beaver is set in the 1760s. Being an Ohioan, my frontier of interest is the pre-Western frontier...the settling of the Appalachian area rather than of the Great Plains and West. My war is the Revolution, not the war between the states. In an old tree identification book I have, Ohio is considered "the western lands." I have a fascination with the 1750-1800 time period and with Daniel Boone and Simon Kenton, adventurers who walked alone through my land, the land of my ancestors (at least as far back as about 1840). They walked alone through the pre-Columbian paradise and didn't even know it--they probably just saw a bunch of dollar signs or Christian settlements or utility. I don't know. But this book was right up my alley.

The Bronze Bow, by Elizabeth George Speare

A mountain in Galilee overlooking farmland. Much of The Bronze Bow takes place in this setting.

When I think about The Bronze Bow, by Elizabeth George Speare, I don't think of reading it. I think of living it. I was right there with the hero Daniel on the mountain above his village in Galilee, in the blacksmith forge in the village, and in the presence of Jesus, who is a character in this book. I had no consciousness of reading or of the writing. The writing dissolved into an experience of Daniel's journey into adulthood. The Bronze Bow is a hero journey--Daniel starts out as an angry adolescent, alienated, in hiding. As is typical of a hero journey, he undergoes trials and temptations, gains tools for his quest, and transforms into a strong man of love and understanding.

Here's Jeffrey Hunter as Jesus with his strangely
glowing gentile blue eyes. From King of Kings.

The book takes place at the time Jesus was preaching in Galilee--shortly before his journey to Jerusalem. As in Ben-Hur, a book also reviewed in this blog, the Jews of the time were looking for an earthly king to lead them in overthrowing their Roman occupiers. One of Daniel's friends is a Zealot named Simon, who has made it his mission bring freedom to the land. After fleeing his village, Daniel is befriended by another band of rebels led by the warlord-esque Rosh, who lives off the land (meaning he pillages the local farms and fields). Daniel believes that Rosh will be the one who throws off the Roman yoke.

The most important gift of Daniel's hero journey is a set of friends--Joel and Thacia. For the first time, Daniel has someone with which to share his hopes, his dreams, and his story. Daniel's life has been harsh, filled with violence, losses, and poverty. The camp of Rosh seems like luxury to him--plenty of food, a warm fire, a mission to perform. Joel and Thacia enlarge Daniel's view of the world and bring him face to face with some of his prejudices.

In addition to playing Jesus in King of
Kings, Jeffrey Hunter played an equally
intense James T. Kirk in the pilot episode
of Star Trek. Those limpid eyes!

Daniel's friend Simon invites Daniel to hear Jesus preach at the local synagogue. Jesus is somewhat romantically presented, like the Jesus portrayed by Jeffrey Hunter in the movie King of Kings. Even the camera seems to have its breath taken away whenever Jesus is shown in that film. In The Bronze Bow, Jesus has a magnetism about him, and a magical voice, and a huge amount of somewhat fevered charisma. In other words, he is not portrayed as a man, but as an already-god. As with Ben-Hur, Daniel wishes Jesus would use his powers to call together an army and to establish an earthly kingdom. Like Ben-Hur, Daniel must come to terms with the idea of a heavenly kingdom, a kingdom of the heart and soul.

I think Daniel's conversion is somewhat elided. It doesn't make logical sense in terms of the story. It sort of happens because it is supposed to happen, because if you meet Jesus it must happen. And, I know that religious conversion is not necessarily logical, but a novel must play itself out in certain ways and this one doesn't. However, that is the only flaw I find in this book, and less critical readers will probably be OK with Daniel's change of heart. And I was glad for it. He was so miserable. Still, how would his situation have been resolved in a purely Jewish context? People from all faith traditions deal with developmental crises. I guess it bothers me a little bit that the only solution presented for Daniel was Jesus. I worry that Christian writers don't fully take into account the seriousness and cultural dissonance of a conversion of a Jew to Christianity. It makes me a little queasy.

Daniel's sister is a weaver. The weaving seems to be her
way to bring order to her disordered psyche.

The book is deeply humanized by the character of Daniel's sister Leah. Her response to the losses and violence was withdrawal rather than anger. Over the course of the book, she is brought out, drawn out, by Daniel, by Thacia, by a Roman soldier, and eventually by Jesus, who cures her of her maladies. Her gradual reaching out into the world is beautifully drawn; and Daniel's relationship to her illuminates him also.

The Bronze Bow is a book rich with love and the conflicts that love sometimes brings about. How much sacrifice is too much sacrifice? How does being true to oneself relate to sacrifice? When is love not enough? What is healing? What is a commitment? These are big questions and they are addressed in this book. They are the questions of fine literature and so are appropriate to this fine book. I am still amazed that the writing in this book sort of disappeared in the experience it was describing. That's a huge accomplishment and I salute Elizabeth George Speare for it.

I have a few more books by Speare on my list. I'm very interested now in how they will strike me. Is the transparency of Speare's writing particular to The Bronze Bow? I can't wait to find out.