Moonwise

by Greer Gilman

Ariane came to visit Sylvie at midwinter, hoping to rekindle the old magic of their girlhood game: the Nine Worlds, a fantastical universe founded in a handful of marbles and a tarot of cards, whose myths and kingdoms the two friends had chronicled between them. But when Sylvie disappeared in a moonlit wood, Ariane followed her - not into the familiar ground of their fantasy, but into the thorns and winter of a Cloud they had never invented, a world where ballads were constellations and the moon hunted souls by night...

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Magic, Speculative Fiction, Novels, Fairy Tales

373 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published February 1, 1991

About the author

Greer Gilman has been writing stories set in Cloud, her Northern mythscape, for a quarter of a century. Her love of British lore and landscape, of its rituals and ballads, is a constant in her work; her love of language at its roots. Her books are written for the ear, as much as for the understanding. Like the earliest stories, they are meant to be sung.

Greer Ilene Gilman was educated at Wellesley College and the University of Cambridge, where she studied on a Vida Dutton Scudder Fellowship. At Cambridge, she read Renaissance English and met with Jomsborg, a circle of fantasists. There she heard Alan Garner speak, had tea with Lucy Boston, and began to think of writing myth. A sometime forensic librarian and cataloger of the polyglot at Harvard, she lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and travels in stone circles.

Reviews

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A female author. Writing genre fiction. That is difficult, dense and ambitious.
Triply cursed so far as best-sellers go. Which is why you are unlikely to have heard of her.
This is a shame. I know I have friends on here who are fans of the "experimental", the unusual, the complex, the Buried and neglected gems. Her work should be on your radar. See my review of "cloud, ashes" for more, and for an extract from an interview with her that gives more of a sense of her project.
Not always perfect, and sometimes loses itself, but frequently stunningly beautiful.

As all the best books require secondary texts, a rather helpful partial dictionary can be found here, though you may find google of assistance if you get really stuck:

https://www.nyrsf.com/2012/07/a-cloud...

Note, though it does not say it in the dictionary, that the fact that "wood" in old english also meant "mad, insane" is important throughout the book.


The novel begins as follows:

"There was a green bough hanging on the door. The year was old, and turning lightward, into winter. Cold and waning, at the end of her long journey, Ariane looked back the way she'd come. Bare woods, bright wind that shook the rain from naked trees, a stony slant of field: the earth lay thinly here. The trees stood lightstruck, hill beyond blue glaze of hill. Then it darkened again, turned cloud and clods of earth, and crow-blotched trees: a drizzling thaw."

But, to give you more of a sense, the next chapter begins:

" He walked in the Cloudwood that they were to fell, had felled long since; though where he walked was autumn still, amid the flocks of leaves alighting on his face, his sleeve, his hair. He shook them from the folds of sleep. The nuts were brown and ripe; they clustered, thrang as stars. He filled his pockets as he walked. Awd coat were tattery as leaves, he thought; he'd weared it for as long as hallows, longer far as he could tell, being all athwart o years: no time at all. It blawed about him, tawny, same as wood. He thought as he'd taken coat frae off awd flaycraw in a field, and left sticks bare; though strange remembering green, since none were i't wood to keep, nor out out on high fells, nobbut stones. Ravens were. He'd clapped and cried them frae't Law. Ate souls, did yon ravens. Picked eyes. But they's scant i't wood, he thought. Awd craws fare ill. And wandering, he pulled and plucked the hazelnuts, the brown and starry beechmast, ash-keys, acorns, letting fall as many as he took, so many hung and ripened, fell and leamed amid the leafdrift, far and father still...

[.....]

"...Times changed, as time did not. They who had slain children in the fields, sowing blood with corn, hung garlands; still the seeds grew tall and winter died. Come wakenight, they stoned the wren, poor Jenny Knap, and hanged it in a crown of green, with rimes; they fired thorn, kept lightfast and langnight, so the sun would turn. They danced the years and died.
[.......]

"...He slept in a ruined sheepfold, back of Cloudlaw, and dreamed: he lay on the fell, stark cold and turning to a cloud of stone, stars icy at his cheek, unturning. He was blind. His mouth was stopped with earth, ribs hollowed round a heart of stone, but hands took root, thrawed sinews down and downward, warping. He were tree. Awd craw i't branches cawed and cried: "Bone, bone o branches, ah, and eyes o leaf, o leaf". Leaves falled away till dust. Bones stood bare. But hands, they hawded fast, the warked i't earth. Hand scrat at summat sharp, not stone, but fire-warked: cawd iron, siller, gowd. Awd broken ring, he thought. Awd moon. Could never get it back i't sky, were darkfast. Cawd and dead. But the ring grew fast to him, turned O and handfast. Moon leamed under earth. O now he saw: the fell was cloud, and starry back of cloud, and deeper still. And all turned headlong, he was branching into dark and moon, turned lightfast with his roots in sun. Broke leaf. Bright swans above him, and his leaves arising in a crown of wings, and crying out: a thrang of birds. He woke to a fleeting sense of joy, winged with a glory and taloned with want."

You will note that these two chapters are linked through the word use - a lot of repetition of specific words and themes - as the first chapter (set in the "real" world) and the second "set in the "mythical") are similarly linked and rhyme off one another).

Though this is not a particularly difficult passage by any means, some definitions (because they are fun):

thrang: A variant of throng [a thrang of birds] or thronged but also meaning busy as well [Mally went owling about her hovel, thrang at her obscurer wintry tasks]. “She’s thrang as Throp’s wife” is idiomatic for being over-ears in work.

thrawed: Twisted, turned awry.

Hallows: All Hallows Day, when Annis wakes and hunts souls. November 1 or Samhain, depending on which calendar one uses. Hallow means holy or sacred; but to hallow is to chase with shouts or even to rouse to action with a sharp cry.

Blawed: Scots/North of England - blew

Frae: Scots for "from"

law: In Yorkshire, a roundish hill, also a word for a monumental tumulus, a cairn of stones. The word "Cloud" also had a similar meaning (the play between the meanings of law and cloud are important throughout the text - from wiki: "The origin of the term "cloud" can be found in the Old English clud or clod, meaning a hill or a mass of rock. Around the beginning of the 13th century, the word came to be used as a metaphor for rain clouds, because of the similarity in appearance between a mass of rock and cumulus heap cloud. Over time, the metaphoric usage of the word supplanted the Old English weolcan, which had been the literal term for clouds in general." ).

Flaycraw: Scarecrow - Flay” is a variant of "fley", to frighten.

Leamed: Scots - gleam or shine

Lightfast - is not only, of course, holding fast to light, but the shortest day of the year - and obviously a highly symbolic and resonant time

warked: Dialect mainly from "worked" but - From Middle English werk, warch, from Old English wærc, wræc (“pain, suffering, anguish”), from Proto-Germanic *warkiz (“pain”), from Proto-Indo-European *werg- (“to suffer”), *werǵ- (“to make”), *wreǵ- (“to work, act”). Cognate with Swedish värk (“ache, pain”), Icelandic verkur (“pain”). Related to work.


See now, isn’t this fun?

But more importantly, isn’t it wonderful that someone devoted 10 years of hard study and craft to write this?

[Genevieve · Rating 5 out of 5]

A tangled wild wood of a book, written in a sort of low Jacobean style that I found mostly delightful but occasionally infuriating. It's a quest story, except not. Its magic is very much in touch with the seasons, the turning of the year; it builds a world in which the bones of myth jut up out of the earth, the one subtending the other. Also the first and probably the last book that I've read in which knowing the vocabulary of contra dancing came in handy. A wonderful book to dip into and savor a little at a time––I worked through it slowly, keeping it on my bedside table for months while the year crumbled away from fall to winter, and that was just perfect.

[Valissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

"There is a type of young woman we have all either known or been; who worships at the alter of the Romantic; plays old border ballads on pennywhistle, recorder, or hammer dulcimer; tacks a hand-lettered sign reading MAGIC IS AFOOT on her dormitory room door; reads the Tarot for friends and The White Goddess for pleasure; and treasures a hundred obscure books by measure of how close they come to an ideal world in which gypsies and scarecrows, old marbles and long skirts, elves, quilts, candles, hot chocolate with cinnamon, feathered caps, rainy days, and snug houses with big fireplaces are part of a single, inexpressibly significant enterprise."

[Capn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Utterly unique, this is a fantasy for those well-versed in ballad, mythology, the occult, fairytales and rhymes...

Back cover:

Forever lost in the seductive madness of a world out of time
Ariane and Sylvie had spent endless hours spinning fantastical worlds out of the depths of their shared imagination. But when Ariane returned for a long overdue visit, she found herself swept up by old Sylvie-sung spells, caught by the same madness - or was it magic - that still possessed her friend. And even as Ariane sought to recapture the dreams of their youth, Sylvie vanished, lost in some real or otherworldly woods. For Ariane, the search for her missing friend would send her on a quest no mortal could hope to complete, as she journeyed into a darkness far deeper than night to challenge an enemy who had stopped Time itself...

Much more witchcraft/pagan ritualistic than I expected from the blurb (and I feel like a background in such practices might help with some of the contexual references). Utterly, madly unique - now that I have gotten used to its rhythm, which I found jarring and alien at first, I can't really put it down. I would like to listen to the author read it as an audiobook once I finish, to see if I experience it differently a second time around. Here's a sample of the text. It is from the first page onwards, and I can attest that the style is static:

There was a green bough hanging on the door. The year was old, and turning lightward, into winter. Cold and waning, at the end of her long journey, Ariane looked back the way she'd come. Bare woods, bright wind that shook the rain from naked trees, a stony slant of field: the earth lay thinly here. The trees stood lightstruck, hill beyond blue glaze of hill. Then it darkened again, turned cloud and clods of earth, and crow-blotched trees: a drizzling thaw.
She turned back on the doorstep, and stamped her muddy feet. While we poor wassail boys do trudge through the mire sang mocking in her head (though her tape ran silent). They could beg, she though ruefully: they brought things, garlands - Dear, oh dear, I've done it now. Should I turn my coat? Or break a twig of holly? Snare a wren? Would I know one?
Softly, she rapped at the door. No answer but the wind. Cold by the door, it sang. Louder. Again. A crow yelled. Round the side? Another door, a garland, muddy boots. She peered in at the window. It was dark in the front room, so she saw her face, a late pale moon, and trees with brass pulls and leafless tallboys and a chair of yew; but a fire burned: she saw it in the glass among the branches, burning in the air.
"Sylvie? Hye, Syl?" No one there. The rain came on, sudden, cold and sharp. A wind in the door blew it open. She went in.
Doleful and crumpled as a child, Ariane sloughed her bundles, dumped her books and bags and suitcase, and wriggled out her backpack. Her air of gravity and desolation was, she knew, rather spoiled by her wraggle-taggle trail of clutter. In the eluding mirrors by the doorway, in her long coat, she looked a cross between Prince Hamlet and King Herla's rade, distraitly wandering through time. In comes I, little Johnny Jack, with my obsessions on my back. An owlish, cat-stumbling sort: but her own absurdity did not console her.
Dripping, she wandered toward the kitchen, ill at ease. She had no place here. Time, that had changed nothing in this house, had estranged her; yet she knew no other haven. She hung back at the doorway, at once fond and guilty and forlorn, coming back to what was never hers. She'd not been asked.

Gilman's just getting going. Partway through the next chapter, a new voice:

Tha'st tholed a few fell winters, awd lass, he thought: tha'st seen wood and waste. Cawd now: would tha like my awd haggard coat?
The stone was silent. She had never spoken to him; she was not always there. Some said she walked the moors, peering and prying into sheepfolds, owling after souls. But he thought she alone stood, unmoving, though all else turned: hills, clouds, and reeling stars.
He slept in a ruined sheepfold, back of Cloudlaw, and dreamed; he lay on the fell, stark cold and turning to a cloud of stone, stars icy at his cheek, unturning. He was blind. His mouth was stopped with earth, ribs hollowed round a heart of stone: but hands took root, thrawed sinews down and downward, warping. He were tree. Awd craw i't branches, cawed and cried: Bone, bone o branches, ah, and eyes o leaf, o leaf. Leaves falled away til dust. Bones stood bare. But hands, they hawded fast, til they warked i't earth. Hand scrat at summat sharp, not stone by fire-warked: cawd iron, siller, gowd. Awd broken ring, he thought. Awd moon. Could never get it back i't sky, were darkfast. Cawd and dead. But the ring grew fast to him, turned O and handfast. Moon leamed under earth. O now he saw: the fell was cloud, and starry back of cloud, and deeper still. And all turned headlong, he was branching into dark and moon, turned lightfast with his roots in sun. Broke leaf. Bright swans above him, and his leaves arising in a crown of wings, and crying out: a thrang of birds. He woke to a fleeting sense of joy, winged with a glory and taloned with want.

I wasn't quite flummoxed - I know an Northern accent when I read and hear one. But the hard part for me were passages full of ritualistic and Tarot card references that I struggled to follow. For example, pages 31-32:

The cards lay scattered all about her. Sylvie had been playing with them, had left them as they fell. Ariane felt a pang of jealousy for her creation, so lightly held, profoundly known, yet occult to her own desire; she longed for Sylvie's careless grace of insight. She had never seen the lands beyond. She smoothed out a bent card and began to gather them; the paused, looked sidelong. Sylvie worked on, unheeding. Ariane half turned aside. Warily she shuffled and covertly laid out a handful of the images in a wavery huddling sort: not longways, but a knot of nine. What then? Knotting and unknotting the unravelled fringes of her shawl, she fell into a blurry revery.
Here was the Witch, a mirrored figure, dark, undark of moon, chiasmic; there, aslant of it and sinster, the Wren turned tail. Unlight, unturning. Blood. And there, the Swans, reversed: black frost and barren labor, the weaving of nettleshirts in silence to unspell; earthbinding. The Cup was inmost. Being stone, the child was blind; the water of the fountain wept for it, slow tears, unsalt. The cup it held was cracked; the moon lay drowned in it, unseen, as deep as heaven in the shallow leafy water.
Now, she said, I am that O, that eye within the maze, the moon's garden walled in thorn: my clew is light. Now I will journey outward, will undo the knot of thorn. Will see.
Beyond her lay the wood, Sylvie's element, undreaming. A wind in her boughs stirred Sylvie's darkness, shook the rain from her bright leaves; it shivered starlight in her living water. Even in her stillness she was poised, like the moon new-bent in heaven, like a sword. Ariane had only to find the door into the wood - Witch or Wren or Tower - and walk through it as Sylvie did, becoming wood and journeying and moon, at once the traveller and the tale.
She could not. She was darkfast, vexed and riddled at every turn: a captive in the black-thumbed, ink-blotched garden, in the papery henge of cards. Staring, she unfocused; the woodcut image slewed and blurred. She saw only the configured cards in a knot of mirrors, oppositions, ambiguities, turning ever inward to the maze, the cup, the moon: which was illusion, a mirror at the heart. No other where. She stared harder, til it broke in tears, dissolved: the water's tenure of the moon.
No door, no dance, no clew. Uncrystal.

The Italian edition, La saggezza della luna, translates to "the wisdom of the moon", rather than the directional vector my mind always traced when reading "moonwise". What totally lacks wisdom, however, was this choice of covers:
(Nothing shown on this cover depicts ANYTHING from this story. It does have female leads, but in the cold of winter, as fully-clothed as possible (obviously). Ignore this. Laugh at it after the fact. The ROC cover is much, much more fitting, but even then is more colourful and less bleak than the story...).

This is not a Conan-but-a-chick sort of book. It is its antithesis. It is very female, and the female relationships within are more complex and nuanced than most books can even approach.

I child and I devour; I am grave and lap, annihilation and O reborn: light eaten by its inward fury, crown rising from its root in darkness...

"Lap and grave", both "birth and death", "making and unmaking" are constant companions and intertwined within a variety of characters rather than simply juxtaposed between opposites (though I say that, and find myself immediately wanting to contradict that.). This book is incredibly complex. It's a bit above me, if I'm honest - I found it challenging but self-improving. I have never read a book like this before, and I'd be surprised if there are many more like this out there.

I've rounded up to 5 stars from 4.5, because I simply couldn't appreciate it all. I found it almost inaccessible, but I know that won't be the case for others. Most of the time, I was hanging on by the skin of my teeth, getting most references (I think), but also aware that there were gaps in my knowledge that would have allowed me to get more out of this.

Give it a try - I hope some of the excerpts above give you a sense of the prose, and many of the key references are made in the first 30 to 40 pages or so (I think?). If you can make sense of the first little bit, then you'll be fine. It definitely made me feel like a hard science student thrown into a notoriously difficult graduate level folklore course...

One other thing I wanted to mention - this is the sort of book you might want to dedicate an entire weekend to, in an isolated cabin in the woods, alone. It's a bugger of a book to try to read piecemeal between school-runs. :p

Some requisite reading (at least, the references I caught - probably missed a 100 others):
The Princess and the Goblin (& The Princess and Curdie)
The Hobbit
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
All of the Grimm's Fairytales...
All of the classic Greek mythology...

Folklore to know:
Everything about wassailing and, specifically, the hunting of the wren
Tarot cards - falls, knots, how you read them, the major arcana and minor
How to play Jackstones
Child(e) Rowland

Songs to know:
Green Grow the Rushes, O
Who Killed Cock Robin?
... another bazillion I don't know (and also Chaucer?!)

[Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

What can I say about this gorgeous little book? This world contained within two, flimsy paperback pages? It’s stunning. There are, I’d imagine, a lot of folks who wouldn’t find it as endearing as I, that would find it tiresome and confusing. That’s fine. It’s not a book for everyone. It IS, however, a book for those who love exquisite world building and who love language. Correction: Gilman doesn’t build a world: it’s already there and she is simply its scribe. She uses words in their truest and, sometimes, most archaic forms. The book actually works best when read aloud. It may sound crazy, but I have read most of it aloud to myself. It’s simply gorgeous! If anyone finds an audio recording of this, please let me know!!

The story is beautiful, ancient, odd. Like fairy tale turned backwards, or inwards, upon itself. The base of this story is rooted deep in the world of fairy tale. Not “Once upon a time” and “Happily Ever After” but real, raw, and Eastern European Black Forest fairy tale. If you’ve done any type of study into old world lore (or if you’re a big fan of the original Gimm’s tales), you’ll recognize the themes. These stories go back, mind out of time, but Gilman has roped them in and used them for this glistening tale of rebellious elemental entity and threat of eternal winter. Sound familiar? Of course! The White Witch of Narnia is another elemental borrowed from old world folk lore. This type of tale stems from the old legends of the Snow Queen. No Disney-eque fairy tale there, either.

The magic in Moonwise is real and raw. To paraphrase Professor Snape in the first Harry Potter movie: There's no silly wand waving here. Everything is connected and turned in on itself and really demands the entire attention of the reader. I promise you, if you begin this book and finish it, you will not be disappointed. It is a real treat and a delightful experience!

[Belinda Vlasbaard · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,25 stars - English Ebook

Sylvie and Ariane, two recently reunited friends, become inextricably caught up in the fantasy world they created years before.

This is a difficult and gorgeous book. It's written in a style both literary and dialect, and readers who don't like poetry may not enjoy it.

Sometimes the plot is hard to follow.

I had to read it twice.
Ariane and Sylvie become lost in a world which I suspect is meant to be more a part of our own world, an inner part, than an "other universe".

Symbolism, dualities, and images from ballads fill this world. The symbolism is deeply powerful, because at its root it reflects natural themes: the turning of the seasons, the rise and fall of forest life, the orbit of the moon. European folkloric material also enriches the text very much.

Despite the admitted inaccessibility of the work, the characters are appealing, particularly the wandering "Mad Tom" persona, and there is humor to be found.

It's not a book for everyone, but I'm very glad that it exists. For the second time around I enjoyed it.

[Oriana]

From the great Read Max:

I think the best way to describe Moonwise is as a kind of amalgamation of John Crowley, Susan Cooper, and Gerard Manley Hopkins--which is to say as a mix of occult mysticism, folktale strangeness, and knottily inventive language. The book tells the story of a woman named Ariane, who is obligated to follow her missing friend Sylvie into a fantasy world they had created together as girls, encountering along the way strange woods and witchy dealings, described in Gilman’s remarkable (and remarkably dense) prose. Gilman shares with Crowley a tremendous formal talent and an abiding interest in the way the deep structures of myth and folktale might resonate in a disenchanted world--but Moonwise is its own strange beast, not always easygoing, but a unique and fulfilling read.

[ribbonknight · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have a hard time rating this. Individual sentences were beautiful, and by this I mean all of them and not just some of them.
I had a difficult time following most of the time, though. Second-guessing whether what I was reading was a metaphor, or meant to be taken literally? Or both?
This book references more things than I have read, so my inability to catch some of the references didn't help me, either.
A beautiful, frustrating book.
It is also possible that I couldn't follow because I was reading this book while traveling on a long vacation, and then with very bad congestion. So maybe it's the brain.
I wonder if with rereading it would become clearer to me, but I'm not sure if I could get myself to plow through it again.
This is a book I'd like to read other's thoughts on, though.

[Sherwood Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book caught my eye when it first came out. At times it was a struggle to read, not because the prose is awkward (far from it!) or difficult (which it is) but because the tone tended to sustain itself. Gilman's abilities have soared far beyond.

[Socialteaist]

DNF at about 20%, not really for me.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story centers around two friends who, in their childhood wrote several fantasy stories about a land called Cloud, with complex worlds and characters. Over time these young women, Ariane and Sylvie, grew apart, but have now reunited. However, their seems to be a mysterious outside force that is about to meddle into their lives and is connected to these supposedly made up stories. One night while they play their game again in the woods, Sylvie disappears into Cloud. Ariane then follows her and discovers that Cloud is real, and unlike anything they imagined.

The plot itself is rather slow. Besides Sylvie disappearing into the Cloud world and Ariane following her, Cloud appears to be caught up in a battle between two ancient witches. Also, there are beings called the light born, which are hard to define, who are being hunted by these witches and having their souls stolen by them. Along the journey to find Sylvie Ariane must also fight these witches and restore Cloud to what it’s supposed to be.


The world building is, by today’s standards, non-existent. Still, we are introduced to its magic and people as the characters are . Again it’s hard to understand much of what is happening because of the stylistic prose and the bouts of Old English dialect. I wish this book had been illustrated, or would’ve been such a brilliant addition.

The language in the book is filled with alliterations, personifications, and metaphors. It can be hard to follow, but a reader has to use their imaginations to figure out what exactly is being referenced. There are also many references to old ballads and old literature. Some of it is recognizable, some isn’t at least to me.
The only thing I’ve had difficulty with so far is that the move is also filled with old English words that a reader has to derive the meaning of through context clues.

Still in spite of that, the reader can still follow the story pretty well. It takes place in the modern day (well it was written in the 90s) so the transition from flowery poetic language to modern day slang is a little bit jarring. However it does help the reader follow the story with minimal guesswork. It’s almost like reading Shakespeare or another old English writer, you have to sort of subconsciously read along and not take each word for its literal meaning.

Both Sylvie and Ariane have very different reactions to being in their childhood “fantasy”. Sylvie arrives and just starts right off to enjoy herself, and take everything at face value. Sylvie never seemed to grow out of this make believe game, and because of that takes it all in stride, even after seeing that things there aren’t well. Ariane on the other hand has trouble following Sylvie, and as a result continues to struggle through Cloud in spite of getting help from its native peoples. This is likely because unlike Sylvie, Ariane had to grow up quicker and make her own way in the world.

There is not much else I can say about the book without spoiling it. The resolution doesn’t come until the last 70 or so pages, and it’s a little difficult to figure out. I will say overall the language in this book is beautiful. I feel like I need to take a course on folklore to really understand everything in it. It is definitely NOT for everyone, and while it is something I would recommend to those who love folklore and balladry, the best way to comprehend it is to have prior knowledge of those things.

[Katherine Harbour · Rating 5 out of 5]

This lyrically written book is presumably set in modern Britain, but the language used to tell the story is old and fey. When young and practical Ariane comes to visit her best friend, Sylvie, in a house in the woods, Sylvie is lured away into a dark otherworld of witches and tricksters. There are stories woven throughout, which Ariane uses as a sort of map to find her friend. It's the language here that makes this book stand out, because it defines the world and the story you soon become lost in.

[Allen Garvin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the most poetic prose you'll ever encounter in a novel: this book is filled from beginning to end with delightful phrases, beautiful imagery, little bits of word play, achingly beautiful prose. The story echoes many traditional myths and folktales, and is engrossing in itself, but it's the fabulous writing that makes this one of the best fantasies ever written.

[Jim Leckband]

When the reader keeps wanting to find an exit to the expressway of any meaning at all in the torrent of unfamiliar words and unknown characters/places and instead gets lumpy wordy thickets of unsense obscuring the small paths the reader thought they cleared out - then it is time to get off the road completely.

[Peggy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I re-read this book every Autumn. I love the rhythm of her prose. Had a hard time when I first started reading it until I started reading it out loud. Beautiful book!

[Lily C · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found that the words hid the story.

[Tanya · Rating 4 out of 5]

But in Cloudwood it was endless hallows. There no wren was slain, no seed was scattered; though he cried the ravens from the turning wood, no winter ever came to green. The gate was lost... [p 23]

Two young women, Ariane and Sylvie, find themselves in balladland: in a chilly wintry wood, or on a moor, in the world of Cloud which they invented (or discovered) in a synergistic gleeful season of storytelling when they were younger. Ariane journeys through Cloud and encounters a child who is also, perhaps, an ancient deity or power: Sylvie's journey is (or seems) shorter, and she travels with a tinker who becomes her friend, but who, like the child, may be something more. There are two witches, goddesses, forces: Malykorne and Annis. Annis is winter and wants to freeze time. Mally wants spring, and the cycle of the year.

For long swathes of this novel I was not sure I understood what was happening: but the plot is just one layer of this novel, varnish or garnish over an intricately woven web of words. There's a lot of north-country dialect here -- specifically northern English, with its Nordic roots ('Tha'st nodded again, and t'cake's kizzened up') -- and though the wood that Ariane and Sylvie enter seems to be somewhere in North America, there is a European, perhaps a British, feel to it. The wren is hunted, there are stone circles and thornbushes, scarecrows and stars, bleak fells and homely farmhouses shuttered against the night. The language is seductive and incredibly dense. I think I recall someone saying that reading Moonwise was like being inside a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins ... though there are also moments where it seems about to break into iambic pentameter, and the text is studded with echoes and iterations of folk-song, ballad, fairytale. Ariane, and especially Sylvie, bring a touch of modernity too, albeit modernity as of the novel's 1991 publication: '"What has it got in its 'pocalypse? Tell us that, precious."'

I have attempted to read this novel more than once and been distracted by mundanity: turns out what I needed was a quiet winter weekend (it's a very wintry book) and a melancholic nostalgia for the act of shared creation. And now I feel equipped to continue reading Cloud and Ashes, which is ... set in the world of Cloud, or tells tales from Cloud, or is simply a layer below the stories in Moonwise.

Unaccountably not available as an ebook: I do own the paperback, but reading physical books is increasingly uncomfortable on the eyes, so I resorted to the Internet Archive.

[Rose Paris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the most fascinating, poetical, gorgeous, riddling work of fantasy I have read for some time. I read this slowly, which feels like the best way to appreciate it, the language is dense and there are many, many allusions to folklore, ballads, children's games, English customs and holidays, and so much more. I was thoroughly surprised to find out the author was not a native northerner, and can't imagine the reading and research that has gone into this.

I think some people find they don't 'get' this book, which I can understand given the richness of references, but I think you can also overthink it, and then maybe miss out on a fantastic novel. I'm sure there were lots of puns and riddles and allusions I didn't get but it didn't take away from my enjoyment of the beautiful writing, and I feel the quest plot at the centre can be enjoyed by anyone, without necessarily needing to pin down every reference.

In a very simplified summary, two friends become lost in a world of their own creation, and become embroiled in a struggle between the light and dark aspects of a moon-witch goddess which threatens the balance of the world and the souls of the 'lighborn'.

If you love Alan Garner, and particularly Treacle Walker, this is a book for you! I am so looking forward to re-reading it. I am also looking forward to starting on the authors follow up work Cloud and Ashes, and pleased to hear a third work in this world is in the offing as well.

[Chrissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has been on my TBR for a long time. I would start, bog down, and put it back on the shelf. The language is just that much further from my vernacular that I would begin to feel that I was reading sentence by sentence, losing the story to the unfamiliar words rather than following the story thread through to understanding. I'd slip in a bookmark and, eventually, pick up another book.

I'm not sure why this time was different. Maybe the past couple of years and the oddly warm Texas winter gave me a necessary sense of displacement so that I could follow the story without anticipating it. I'm not going to summarize the plot (you can read the summary easily enough yourself)--for me, this was a story to be experienced more as solid dream, something that hangs together in the moment, in the sentence, and then leaves you with a sense that you've returned from somewhere. It was magic with the same cost as reality (change and change again) and I'm glad that I read it.

And now that I've got in the habit of beginning it regularly, it might be one of those books on the wheel of seasonal re-reading.

[Lyri Ahnam · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had high hopes for this book but found it too wordclogged and sense-tangled.
The prose has a dreamy feel, but it's repetitious and full of references to British carrols and folklore that might be meaningful to native Brits, but didn't resonate for this North American reader.
I didn't feel enough emotional connection to stick with the characters. Skimmed some passages, then gave up.
The book reminded me of Patricia McKillip at times, but not as accessible or rewarding as her books.
Life is too short to slog through books that don't invite me in, especially when there are so many other books to be read.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is this book for everyone? Nope. Is this book for me? Yes!!! To really appreciate it, you have to like fantasy underpinnings, language itself, and old ballads. That is probably a tall order for most people. Additionally, like the works of James Joyce or Virginia Woolf, it's simply not a book you can read quickly.

Nevertheless, Ariane's journey through "Cloud" to find her lost friend Sylvie, and the characters she meets, remain one of my very favorite stories of all time.

O, I was glad when this book came back into print because I'd already worn two paperbacks to pieces and now I have a good, solid, hardcover that should withstand my re-reading. ;)

[Lisa · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. I can’t understand what is going on in this book. I am not sure if it’s the prose, the disjointed descriptions, or the jarring sentences but I am struggling to read this after attempting to start this book a few time. Ariana comes to visit her friend Sylvie but the way it is written is not in plain language so it too-flowery that the story gets lost.

1/5 stars ⭐️

[Varadia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this. Sometimes the prose got a little much, feeling labored rather than natural, but a lot of the time it worked beautifully. Knowing folk tales and ballads helped, too, so I could see the references and recursions as the story went on. I want to read more of her Cloud works.

[Richard K · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not an easy read, but worth it. The language itself immerses you in a completely different world.

[Otto]

A

[Stefanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel like I need to preface this review: if you are a hardcore fantasy fan this might be something you should struggle through for the few moments of clarity and true fantasy. In my experience this is a seminal piece of fantasy writing, but its not an easy read by any means.

I had incredibly hard time reading this book because while the language was beautiful and Shakespearean, it was very difficult to parse out what was actually being said due to the use of rural speech patterns and old English. There are three main characters, Sylvie, Ariane, and Tom the Wanderer. Sylvie was probably the easiest character to follow because the way she talked was full or rhyme and song. Ariane struggled the most, so her language was a mix of difficult words and obscure references, but Tom was the hardest character to follow because he mostly spoke in a dialect as well as in very obscure terms. When I was able to read without distractions I tended to make more sense of the prose, but generally I skimmed the paragraphs that just became too wordy.

Regardless of the difficulty of the prose, Gilman certainly has a magic touch when it comes to creating worlds. I'm not exactly sure of the time period the book is set in. It seems at once modern and historic, but I think that is part of the charm because the book is ageless and transcends time well. Most of the book takes place in a parallel world, a primordial wood, that exists beyond the edges of our world, that has been infected by a darkness that wants to prevent the spring from returning. Gilman draws on lots of English lore, as well as classic fairy and nursery tales (MacDonald's the Princess and the Goblin and Beatrix Potter) to add weight to her story. The three character lines interweave and diverge giving the reader a real sense of loss when Ariane loses Sylvie in the woods and great joy when they are reunited.

At once ancient and new, poetic and heavily worded, this novel is a true treat for fantasy lovers. If you like world building, adventures, and characters that have a journey of self discovery, then you might just want to pick this book up. But be warned it is not beach reading or quick story, this will definitely suck you in and make you work at loving it.

[Catching Shadows · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is not a book review. It is not even the opposite of a book review. It is a sideways book review that takes a trip into the unknown lands of Faery, but not too far in because the reader is unable to figure out what the heck is going on, but the words look pretty so she keeps trying to delve deeper into the book. Unfortunately, she is soon brought up short by not being able to follow what the heck is going on, because the prose is not only purple, its purple in a completely different language. I first read the Roc edition of this book in the 1990s, not long after it had come out.

I have occasionally made it half way through the book. I have never finished it, though I have tried. The closest I can compare this book is maybe Mythago Wood (another book I was never able to get into), with maybe a dash of The Folk of the Air. The basic plot is that a woman named Ariane comes home to visit her friend Sylvie, and gets dragged into a fantasy world they had both built. Ariane has to remember long forgotten spells and mythology in order to navigate through the world and find Sylvie, before Something Very Bad happens. On the way she is helped or hindered by various mythic figures, and her adventures become very complicated.

The language of the story is very dense and very purple, with lots of dialect and constructed language. I have occasionally described Moonwise as “Like Under Milkwood, only more confusing.” The world building is vaguely Celtic, and there are many shiny, brilliant bits underneath the flow of words, but it is very difficult for me to figure out what is going on here, or why. I recommend this book in the hopes that someone will read it, and will be able to explain to me what is going on, because I’m pretty sure it has a happy ending.

[Yoon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is thin on plot--a mysterious man, two women and their fantasy world Cloud, and something of quests--but oh, how the language is rich. Unfortunately, it also contains a lot of dialect or archaic vocabulary that I never did manage to find in the dictionaries I had at home, so it's entirely possible I missed out on whole swaths of the action. Not something I'd recommend for everyone, but if you like the first chapter, definitely give it a go.

[Snail in Danger (Sid) Nicolaides]

Seems a bit like Lud-in-the-Mist, with slightly more obscure language. (I consider myself an extremely experienced end user of English but there were a couple words I had to look up because I couldn't completely infer their meaning from context ... this doesn't happen to me very much.) Seems intriguing, but my hands are just too full right now.

[Laura]

There should be a category for "about to give up on" under the "currently reading" heading. I'm finding it pretty much unreadable. I like the author personally and have always found her witty and interesting. I read her LJ posts (see nineweaving). I have been trying to drag myself through this book and just can't.