Aladore

by Henry Newbolt

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362 pages, Unknown Binding

First published September 27, 2015

About the author

Sir Henry John Newbolt, CH was an English poet. He is best remembered for Vitaï Lampada, a lyrical piece used for propaganda purposes during the First World War.

Reviews

[Matt Starr · Rating 3 out of 5]

What started as the pleasant dream version of Cartoon Networks’ “Over the Garden Wall” miniseries turned into a medieval military hero tale about the main character with no justification for how he attains his heroic skills.
I read on Wikipedia this book was meant to be an allegory, so I know I’m missing a crucial piece of the purpose of the story, but coming to it cold just left me confused.

[Tomek Piorkowski · Rating 2 out of 5]

Numerous references to 'The Rhymer' suggest that this novel was meant to be a sequel to the Ballad of Thomas the Rhymer. This book started off well, with a ruler giving up his kingdom to follow a mysterious boy into the unknown. I enjoyed the way the main character delighted in having thrown off politics and power for the sake of freedom. The story then goes on to how this ruler was teleported to the land of Faeries, and at that point the story becomes boring and stale - the main character has numerous meaningless adventures that seem to have no point and no antagonism to them, with a very artificial and stilted language. Unless you have a profound intense interest in Pre-Tolkein fantasy (one can even say Pre-Dunsany fantasy), it will be hard going to complete this book. A disappointing 19th century fantasy epic.

[Iyan De Jesus · Rating 3 out of 5]

It kinda felt like I was trespassing into someone else's long and vivid dream. Most details were forgotten as soon as I flipped the page and only the idea remains, yet even that is also vague and somewhat intangible - almost like a murmur.

Just like most dreams, this story was probably written to be experienced and not much to be understood.

[Matthew Morrese · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uniquely fantastical, with classic lessons for children, teens, and adults alike.

[George Lysy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was told that this book would be similar to those written by William Morris (which are some of my favorite books of all time) but boy, did it disappoint. Outside of the medievally story, writing, and strange occurrences, this story has not much in common with the rich storytelling, subtle characterfulness, imaginative worldbuilding and sense of wonder in a William Morris fantasy book. The plot was completely inane. I suppose Sir Henry Newbolt was going for a dreamlike plot structure, where events and episodes flit in and out between each other with little transition and things don’t make sense and everything disappears and reappears and it is all very dream-logic-- but it gets so tiring so quickly, that it feels like there is no beginning, middle, or end, in the worst way possible. The plot synopsis on the back of the book sort of describes what happens, at least, it pieces together the most important-seeming plot points, but it neglects that within the space of just a few chapters, Ywain the main character will have gone to and away from Aladore, back to Paladore and away from it again to a hermit’s cottage, seen the face of his lady Aithne in a passing small child, reunite with her for the umpteenth time, go back to Aladore with her, and have her disappear, only for him to fall in a pond and be transported into a meadow where he finds the hermit’s cottage again and goes back to Paladore-- this is seriously what reading the ENTIRE book is like. After a while my eyes just began gliding over the pages as everything happening seemed to feel ephemeral and meaningless, and instilled no emotion within me. I am going to give it one star, which might seem a little harsh, but I was very glad when I finished this book and frankly, the current goodreads score is too kind to it so I think it would be fair to take as big a chunk out of it as I can.

The most interesting thing about this book is the fact that the author, Sir Henry Newbolt, was in a polygamous marriage with his wife and her girlfriend, who was her cousin. Now if something like that was in this book it would be quite the curiosity.

[Janelle]

Dnf. Didn't like it enough to persist