Book Review: Lud-in-the-Mist

Funny that I had never heard of this book until recently, as it's been around since 1926. To me it falls into the same category as The King of Elfland's Daughter by Dunsany. In either case, they inspire me to include a more timeless or perhaps, time-blind, element to my fiction. 

Nathaniel Chanticleer hears a musical note from Faerieland as a child and it haunts him for the rest of his life. He sometimes finds the facts of life to be a little too overwhelming and this melancholy settles on him. I can definitely relate to that feeling, though I'm not certain how I feel about that fact. It hit very close to home. When he confronts the crisis and finally looks up from the bottom of the metaphorical well, he sees The Way Ahead like a shining path. At that moment, reading the book, I was totally with him. I've felt that certainty, though not very often, and I can relate to the tenacity with which he clings to that path.


I had twenty pages left when I got off the Metro, so I went into my office, shut the door and finished the book in 15 minutes or so. Of course, I cried right at the end. I hate it when they make me cry at work. Stupid book...

Both S_ and I agree that there is a dreamlike quality to this book, in the sense that both of us felt that this book came to the author fully formed in a dream or vision. It is not like anything else she's ever written. It makes me wonder if something is waiting out there for m in the ether, that will rush into my brain at some point.

ether brain rushes.

That's a funny phrase. :)