I remember really liking The Sorceress and the Cygnet the first time I read it, but as I began re-reading the novel, I was hard-pressed to remember why. The book starts slow as it meanders through the unexceptional boyhood and adolescence of the nominal hero, Corleu. Corleu has unusual hair and unusual ancestors; he grows up immersed in folk tales based on constellations; his wandering people become stuck in a never-ending loop of time. Given the latter plot point, you could argue that the book is attempting to recreate the weary tedium that drowns Corleu, but...no. It's a lousy beginning, full of unimportant details that could easily be summarized elsewhere.

But then Corleu stumbles across a bleak swamp, an unreliable house, and an amoral sorceress, and I remembered why I liked The Sorceress and the Cygnet. Nyx Ro has discarded her morality and humanity in exchange for knowledge, and she never regrets the bargain. She is neither evil nor malicious; she is simply indifferent. She is the novel's secret protagonist. More than that, her terrifying dispassion refines the principles of the other characters. Corleu begins the novel with a single, desperate aim. After he spends a winter watching Nyx kill small birds for her spells, that desperation is tempered with compassion and patience.

The Sorceress and the Cygnet's narrative is split between Corleu and Meguet, Nyx's cousin. Meguet's purpose in the book only becomes clear at the very end, when she and Corleu become the unexpected engineers of Nyx's salvation. In the novel's climax, Corleu attempts to prevent supernatural creatures from killing Nyx while, simultaneously, Nyx -- who has finally left her swampy den and returned to her estranged family in search of Corleu -- is trying to convince Meguet not to kill him. Corleu's defense of Nyx is ironic, given his earlier disgust, but Nyx's defense of Corleu is nothing short of miraculous. A season of being watched by the repulsed Corleu has changed her in small but important ways.

Which is not to say that Nyx dissolves into wholesome dreariness. Nyx never becomes sweet or affectionate. She never falls in love with Corleu. She's still severe and knowledge-hungry; she just carries a regained sense of perspective. She remains a great character. She's better, in fact, than her novel. There's plenty of other good stuff in The Sorceress and the Cygnet, including Nyx's tight-knit family. But there's also lots of junky stuff, including the main plot and its eye-rollingly pat resolution. (Not to mention the free-wheeling approach taken toward commas and adjectives.) I like the novel for its grace notes, not its main body. And for Nyx Ro, an anti-heroine of the finest caliber. ( )

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Title: The Sorceress and the Cygnet
Series: Cygnet #1
Author: Patricia McKillip
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 235
Format: Digital Edition



Synopsis:

Corleu, a wayfolk man, gets lost with his love in a fog. He escapes, only to find it was all a setup by powerful characters from what he assumed was only folklore. The Gold King, the Blind Dancer, the Fire Bear, the Warlock and others all promise Corleu the return of his love and any wish he desires if he'll only find and deliver the heart of the Cygnet to them.

Nyx Ro has spent the last 9 years running from her responsibilities as Holders Daughter and gone far and wide across the land, learning more of magic than anyone even knew existed. Her Hold, symbolized by the Cygnet, is now in danger and Nyx must decide what she'll do. What she does is teach Corleu the magic he'll need, for she desires the power of the heart for herself.

Meguet Vervaine, sworn champion of Hold Ro, is without magic but she won't let that stop her from stopping Corleu OR Nyx. Only it turns out she isn't without magic, but filled with a different kind of magic, one to protect the Cygnet.

Everyone comes together in one climactic showdown, where it turns out that the Fairytale Powers were there simply to show Nyx her way, to awaken the powers within Meguet and to show Corleu his roots.

The book ends with them all eating cake and singing kumbaya around a campfire. That's me being a smartass, not how the book really ends. Just in case you couldn't tell.



My Thoughts:

When I first read the Cygnet Duology in '07 I was particularly annoyed with Corleu for being a muzzy headed muckerhead. That hasn't changed one bit in 10 years. I still found him just as annoying and stupid this time around as I did last time. I don't know if it is because I'm pigheaded or my Yankeeness or what, but if someone starts trying to manipulate me, my reaction is to just stop. There are consequences to that kind of in/action, but I just put my feet down. Corleu, and like characters, tend to float along like dandelion seeds being blown hither and yon, simply reacting to the threat right in front of them without thinking about what it means or anything. That always sets me off.

Thankfully, Corleu isn't the focus for the whole book. He's the focus for the first third, then Nyx gets her third and then Meguet gets her turn.

I have to admit that I skimmed some of this and I know that when you do that to a McKillip book you miss out on details. Basically by the end I still had NO clue why the Constellations all ganged up against the Cygnet or what they actually accomplished. I felt a bit like a muzzy headed muckerhead myself to be honest. Definitely a book I want to re-read again in the future to try to tease out the real meaning hidden in all the words.

This is not a McKillip book I would broadly recommend to just anyone. If you've read all her other stuff, then try this. But don't start with this,not at all.

★★★☆ ½ ( )

The story was interesting, but I am cutting down on my collection and something has to go out. ( )

This is a tough one to review. McKillip's name often comes up when I ask for recs of the kind of books I like, and I am definitely going to read more of hers after this. The imagery, the concepts, the language (though occasionally a little overburdened for my tastes) were all the things I like.

Stories of sorcery, of powers that lie trapped and dreaming, of trickery and mazes and constellations and swamps and moving towers - this is all the stuff I love.

I think my problem came in with a certain flatness of the characters, and, especially in the climax, a lyrical vagueness to the writing that could leave me frustrated because stuff happened without...happening.

That aside, I loved the style of this one, and I'm feeling pretty inspired, which is always a great way to rise from the end of a story.

Mid-range McKillip, I'd say.

The first chapter features some of the author's most poetic writing, as she introduces Corleu, a young man out of place among the restless Wayfolk who, his great-grandmother tells him, long ago wandered out of the stars. Corleu is a "child of the horned moon," white-haired where all of the other Wayfolk are dark. He gets it from his grandfather, and his great-grandfather, a stranger whom his great-grandmother once coupled with among the corn one summer day. Who was he? A lord? A commoner? A sorcerer? One of his great-gran's dreams and stories? No one knows for certain.

I love the culture, the lore, and the world of the Wayfolk, and in this chapter McKillip provides one of the most beautiful descriptions of falling in love I've ever read:

Venn's younger sister, Tiel, crossed the camp one day carrying a bucket of water from the stream, and Corleu, chopping wood, glanced up to find that in the interim between her going to the stream and returning, the world had transformed itself under his nose. The wooden ax handle was of a finer grain; the ground her bare feet touched had never been walked on before. Even the air was different: too shallow to breathe....

When the Wayfolk choose to go south to the Delta for winter rather than the usual Hunter Hold, Corleu's father and mother see danger in this departure from custom, but Corleu follows the rest on account of Tiel. As they journey along through the hazy south, Corleu starts to notice that they aren't making any real progress, that time isn't passing, that they are trapped in some kind of enchantment. He finds a doorway out himself, but in order to free his people and his love, he must find the heart of the Cygnet for the Gold King, whom Corleu previously thought was a story, a constellation in the sky, the sign of one of Ro Holding's four Holds.

But this isn't only Corleu's story. It's also the story of Nyx Ro, a mysterious sorceress who lives in a swamp, and whom he goes to for help in finding the Cygnet. And it's the story of Meguet Vervaine, Nyx's cousin, who serves the Holder and is sworn to protect the country and royal family.

I like Meguet; she's got grit. I like her relationship with the Gatekeeper, one of the most grounded and mature romances I've found in a fantasy book. And I do like the royal family in general. There's one particularly wonderful scene where Iris, the daughter who seems the least magical of the lot, is the only one who is able to perform an important spell. It's a great character moment. And there's a great sense of tension as figures out of legend begin to appear in Ro Holding, although I still missed the Wayfolk after the first few chapters.

The structure bothered me a bit: Part One was from Corleu's point of view, Part Two from Meguet's, and Part Three switched between the two. One sad casualty of this set-up is Nyx. By the time you get to the end of the book, you come to realize that Nyx is in reality the most important character to the story, and it's she who changes the most in the course of it. But we are never able to see that change from the inside. Heck, we barely see it through Corleu's and Meguet's eyes. We have to be told about it. Weak.

I'm finding more and more that my enjoyment of McKillip novels varies depending on their endings. All of her books feature beautiful prose, complex and inimitably human characters, and a wonderful air of mystery. In the best of her novels, all of the mysteries come together and are explained in startling but entirely logical ways (well, logical for fantasy novels that place such a high value on symbolism and illusion). My least favorite of her novels are those that build up a great threat and then reveal it to be no threat at all, merely some kind of ploy by the universe to teach the characters a lesson. The Tower at Stony Wood and Solstice Wood fit this category. So does The Sorceress and the Cygnet. So despite the beautiful poetry of the writing, despite the Wayfolk, despite Meguet and her Gatekeeper, I can't say that it's a favorite. ( )