Getting a Jump on #TheDarkIsReading

Distant Echoes in Harry Potter?

Age 11 - An Age of Magical Awakening

Will Stanton, like Harry Potter, learns he is special on his 11th birthday. But the specialness manifests itself slowly, eerily, without the bluntness of "Harry - yer a wizard."  Some info-dumping follows, but it's parsed out gradually.

Eleven years old is a shrewd choice of age, perhaps, for a child protagonist to discover magical abilities  -- the child is old enough to be smart and capable, but is young enough to avoid the complications and distractions of romance.  (And obviously a magical awakening may potentially presage, replace, sublimate, and/or symbolize a sexual awakening.  Yawn.)  But Cooper, unlike Rowling, calls attention to her hero's pre-pubescent state, particularly Will's high clear unbroken voice:

• "And just as he began to wonder, through the strange sweet accompanying music that seemed to come out of the air, how the next verse could be done, unless a boy soprano were expected to sound like good King Wenceslas as well as his page, a great beautiful deep voice rolled out through the room with the familiar words..." (II, "Christmas Eve" 106)

• "The room had stilled dramatically as he sang, and the boy's clear soprano that always seemed to belong to a stranger soared high and remote through the air." (III, "The Coming of the Cold" 217)

• "'Will has a lot better voice than me. [...] Till we both break, at any rate. Neither of us might be any good then.'"  (II, "Betrayal" 142)

Separation from Biological Family, Allowing Room for New Family By Selection/Affinity

Both are sundered from bio-family: Harry by death (his parents) and disaffection (his hateful aunt and uncle); Will by ignorance (his parents and siblings, even his very perceptive brother Paul).

Harry's initial circumstance is, of course, horrific, and he is well out of it.  Will's situation is far more poignant.  His family is warm and loving, boisterously human.  But by the end of the novel, Will is no longer a child in any meaningful way -- he has come into his own as an Old One and has cosmic responsibilities beyond his family's ken.  Indeed, Merriman admonishes him to "remember yourself.  You are no longer a small boy" (III, "The Joining of the Signs" 288).  Will's separation from family is sharp and painful.   Before the story ends, he wipes Paul's memory (II, "Christmas Day" 180) and is prepared to sacrifice his foolish sister Mary (III, "The King of Fire and Water" 256).   Perhaps the worst moment is when Will considers the qualities that make his brother Paul uniquely worthy of trust, and decides not to confide in him (III, "The King of Fire and Water" 238).  Needless to say, Will has quickly learned to deceive and manipulate his relatives to protect his mission; his love for them, like Merriman's for Hawkin, has been subordinated to the battle against the Dark.

(Harry's friends and mentors become his new family -- particularly the Weasleys.  Will's fellow Old Ones -- a strikingly diverse and numerous group -- become his new family.)

Opening Chapter - Style Time

Noticed a lot of alliteration, assonance, and consonance in the opening chapter - e.g.

• "their mother was bent broad-beamed and red-faced over an oven" (p. 4)
• This seems to have a bicolon as well (broad-beamed and red-faced)
• To my ears, the phrase over an oven does something similarly poetic, ringing changes on the vowels (o and e) on either side of the v.
• "Will dipped out a pail of pellets from the bin in the farm-smelling barn" (p. 4)
• "a long, low building with a tiled roof" (p. 4)
• "they seemed restless and uneasy, rustling to and fro, banging against their wooden walls; one or two even leapt back in alarm" (pp. 4-5)
• "the animal scuffled back away from him and cringed into a corner" (p. 5)
• "raucous with the calling of the rooks and rubbish-roofed with the clutter of their sprawling nests" (p. 6)
• "James heaved at the handcart" (p. 7)
• "a hoarse, shreiking flurry was rushing dark down out of the sky" (p. 11)
• "the head-splitting racket from the frenzied flock" (pp. 11-12)

Opening Chapter - Foreshadowing (SPOILERS)

• "He was a shambling, tattered figure, more like a bundle of old clothes than a man" (I, "Midwinter's Eve" 11)

• "[The rector] and Paul carried the Walker to the gate, like a muffled heap of ancient clothes" (II, "Christmas Day" 184)

• "As he jerked at the rein, the Rider seemed to cast something impatiently from his saddle, a small dark object that fell limp and loose to the ground, and lay there like a discarded cloak. [...] Still wondering, Will peered closer, and saw with a shock that the dark heap was not a cloak, but a man."  (III, "The Hunt Rides" 273-74, 275)

Edition Used:  Cooper, Susan. The Dark Is Rising.  Margaret K. McElderry Books, 1999.  (That's based on the ISBN 978-0-689-82983-3, but the book is obviously printed in 2013 or later, since it includes an introduction by Susan Cooper that was copyright in 2013.)