The Quelling Eye

by John Gordon

Chuck faced his mother.
"I don't want to leave. Not now. Not just at this minute."
"Why?" Her face was troubled.
"What's so special about now?""Because. . ."He had to pause to gain courage."Because there's something magic happening."Perry Falconer used to day that he could quell anybody with his eye. He even reckoned he could fly - when conditions were right. Now he had returned to Goss Beck, to persuade Chuck d mother to sell their house with its amazing views over the whole valley.Why is Falconer do desperate to own it? As Chuck and Tessa try to find out, something magic happened, plunging them into great danger and threatening the whole valley."A tense, exacting story." Growing Point

Hardcover

Published October 2, 1986

About the author

Librarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name

John Gordon was an English writer of adolescent supernatural fiction. He was the author of fifteen fantasy novels (including The Giant Under The Snow), four short story collections, over fifty short stories, and a teenage memoir. For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gor...

Reviews

[Rob Hopwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Quelling Eye by John Gordon

The content of this book was not quite what I expected. For some reason I had thought it might be something like Astercote by Penelope Lively, but in fact it was very different from the latter book. The Quelling Eye is a little difficult to review without revealing key elements of the plot, so I think I will restrict myself to discussing the general atmosphere of the work and the interpersonal dynamics between the characters.

Although the plotline is by no means weak, it is a very simple one which is not at all hard to understand. In my opinion, the strength of the book lies in the exchanges between the characters and the subtle points which are revealed by these interactions.

The atmosphere of the story is quite different from that of the other books by John Gordon which I have read. Both The Giant Under the Snow and Fen Runners contain powerful imagery related to physical darkness and mysterious deserted environments. Despite the fact that many significant events in The Quelling Eye do also take place at night, this book has a much less oppressive and claustrophobic feel to it, and it lacks the surrealness and almost frenetic tension and energy of The Edge of the World.

Considerable complexity is present in the relationships between the main characters. For instance, the incipient romance between the young people Chuck (Charles) Hoskins and Tessa (Theresa) Barton is handled in a realistic and tasteful way, and although Chuck is an intelligent young man, he has certain blind spots which Tessa mercilessly brings to his attention. The relationship between Chuck and his mother is a curious one, since he often calls her by her first name (Trudy) and they occasionally act like brother and sister rather than child and parent. However, although Trudy is childlike is some ways, she rejects Chucks reports of strange and magical happenings with a closed-minded adult resolve. Interestingly, it is the man Trudy is dating who seems much more able to relate to what the young people have to say. Thus, it appears that certain adults are still able to tap into the wonder and magic of childhood, while others seem to lose this ability pretty much completely.

The magical events portrayed in this book are more overt than implied. If it were only Chuck who experienced the magic, we might be able to suppose that this was due to his vivid imagination working in conjunction with certain situations affecting his life at the time. However, the fact that Tessa experiences the same phenomena points to the conclusion that the magic is to be taken literally, and indeed the conclusion of the story and the villain’s demise seems to hinge on this interpretation too.

I enjoyed this book probably as much as The Giant Under the Snow and Fen Runners, but not nearly as much as The Edge of the World, which totally enthralled me with its plot, pacing, and bizarre phantasmagorical imagery.

[Capn · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Quelling Eye
"Peregrine Falconer!" Tessa's grandmother gave a snort. "More money than sense. The sort of tales he used to come out with you'd never credit. One time he reckoned he could fly. He said all the Falconers could when the conditions was right, but they never was. Hardly likely, is it? But he was that cocky he acted just as if his family still owned the valley like they used to do."
"I was wondering," said Chuck, "if they ever had been able to fly."
"What did I tell you! Boys are so stupid you can tell them anything and they believe it. It's a good job they've got us women around, ain't it?"
"Yes." Tessa sipped her tea delicately. "Boys have very simple minds."
Chuck, meaning only to tease her, proved it. "I can tell you something about Tessa," he said. "She thinks she can go small, about as big as a paper clip."
"Girls is used to going small. They got to pretend to because of you men."
"That's not what I meant," he said, "I'm just the same as her."
"Then you're the first man that ever admitted it, unless things have changed a lot since my young days."
"They have," said Tessa, and grimaced at Chuck.

There's a reason you likely haven't heard of this book - it's a little flawed. It still made my "favourites" shelf, so hear me out: in spite of some weak plot underpinnings (motives of the villain, in particular, are half-baked, as is his character; the excerpt above comes from the fly leaf and suggests a different sort of gender-based story, which would have been interesting), it's a rollicking ride of fantasy and has wonderful adolescent (thirteen year old) identity crises sprinkled throughout. I think you can read this as a final summer of childhood before the realities of young adulthood obliterates the magic.

I'm now absolutely convinced that John Gordon suffered from an Oedipal complex. Trudy, Chuck's playful and beautiful widowed young mother, and her private life, looms large (despite, to my mind, not playing a very important role to the story). There is much jealousy from Trudy over Tessa, Chuck's female friend, and Chuck is jealous in turn of his mother's lover. Chuck calls Trudy by her first name, and they have several tickle-fights and lay together, heaving and panting, after the fact. If this had been my first John Gordon book, I might not have made much of that, but following on the heels of the terrible The Ghost on the Hill, I flinched through the bulk of the first half of this book. But nevermind, this is my reader's baggage I bring with me (I seriously do not recommend The Ghost on the Hill, which sucks on many levels!).

Without giving too much away, The Quelling Eye is a bit like a Reader's Digest highlight reel of The Box of Delights, if you kept all the action and left out the backstory. I know another reviewer said that he was expecting something akin to Astercote by Penelope Lively but was disappointed; strangely, Astercote and a Penelope Lively book is precisely what The Quelling Eye reminded me of - set at the summer solstice (boy did I time this one right!), it has the hot summer haze and rural isolation and bored children and mysterious fantasy feels as the former. It's not as good a book as Astercote, but one worth seeking out if you're a fan of that sort of story.

And now here's the part where I air all my grievances. Spoilers follow, in case the app is still doing that thing where it ignores spoiler tags: Gordon gives us all this great backstory of the Hungarian defector, Horvath, who was Chuck's father. Horvath had been interested in the Falconers of the valley and the mythology surrounding it, and had even kept photos and newspaper clippings, etc. Why? Search me. We never find out! I guess it was just the aerial photo aspect, since he had been a pilot? Weak.

Far worse is Peregrine Falconer. The entire plot hinges on the fact that Chuck's widowed mum (sexy young Trudy with her schoolgirl charm) can't continue to afford living at the grand house at the top end of the valley. And Falconer, who lives in his ancestral home of Creance Hall with the Falconer's Mews attached further down, is somehow desperate to purchase Chuck's house. He needs it, and we don't yet know why. Don't hold your breath on this point.

I don't want to spoil all of it, because it is a fun little story, but it turns out that Falconer only really needs access to the grounds to fulfill his goal, and he just trespasses at leisure to do so, and they don't stop him, so the entire we-have-to-move-away-and-what-about-my-girlfriend-Tessa and my-mum-hates-Tessa-and-is-trying-to-separate-us narrative deflates comically at this juncture.

And then there's the exciting mythology of the Falconers (quite interesting), and the interesting missing statue at the church, and... well, Gordon just sort of skips through all this until the exciting final climax and duel to the death. Why? I still don't know. The Falconer wants to crush his enemies like beetles, but who are his enemies? Chuck and family aren't even standing in his way.

The biggest questions are the least satisfying here - the whole why of Chuck and Tessa's involvement in the magical aspects of this story are never fully or even satisfactorily partially explained. I still don't get why they wanted to oppose the Falconer at all! Were they necessary to his goal? And what was his ultimate goal - it sounded pretty harmless to me, anyway!

I was having a totally unrelated conversation with a friend last night about Patricia Wrightson and how great her books are, and I realised that while John Gordon is our Author of the Year for the Forgotten Vintage Children's Books We Want Republished group, he doesn't stand up well against Lively and Wrightson. Still, he is imaginative, and this book now sits amongst my favs. But keep your expectations light - he's rather like Ann Halam in terms of creativity and atmosphere, but much more primitive than the greats. Still well worth a read, especially if you aren't going to get hung up on the my-mum-turns-me-on weird undercurrents. ;)

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gordon's writing technique is masterful here. He's an absolute magician when it comes to viewpoint and to depicting a human mind's encounters with the paranormal. Also, the well-drawn relationships among the central characters are noteworthy.

As I neared the end of this exceptional YA novel, I often thought: this isn't far below the quality of The House on the Brink (maybe Gordon's most famous "weird tale" novel). And then I hit the story's brilliant climax. In a footrace between the two novels, I'd say that House wins only by nose!