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Prepare yourself for some off-the-cuff book talk as I tackle another middle grade book chapter by chapter.
So, the Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander, Chapter Two, features Taron meeting Gwydian,
this figure out of his fantasies, this figure out of myth and legend as he knows it.
I mean, he thinks he's true, he knows he's a real person, but in his mind Gwydian is this mythic feature,
mythic creature, rather, and he has certain expectations of him, and when he meets him, when he sees him,
he's nothing like he expects.
We learn that Taron has never left...
Sorry.
We learn that Taron has never left Cairdolvin, and at one point it says,
and this was the farthest he'd ever gone, ever dared to stray, or something like that, from Cairdolvin,
and at this point Henwin is just looking at it, and he keeps chasing after her.
If we go back real quick, he encounters the Horned King and his horde, his warband, I guess you would say,
and when that happens, he is attacked by one of his men.
What's the significance?
No, it's just this guy's like a cruel face, so he runs over, he pulls out his sword because he spots him,
and Taron tries to run, and he splashes him across his back.
I don't know if it's like shoulder to hip, or if it's shoulder to shoulder, or where the slash lands,
but anyway, the guy splashes him, and he doesn't give chase after him.
I wonder if he thinks he killed him, I don't know, or if he figures it's good enough.
I'm not really sure. I'm not sure why the guy tried to kill him.
I don't want to just assume that he's a mustache-twirling villain, and he's going to kick puppies and things like that
as his heart leads him to.
So, anyway, I don't really understand the full context of this guy and why he attacked him,
but yeah, that was interesting that he did that, and anyway, that led to Taron meeting Gwydion.
Somehow Gwydion found him, and he took care of him.
He put his cloak on him and kind of patched him up.
It doesn't really say, it doesn't fully say that he rendered care to him, but it sounds like he rendered care to him.
And they have this conversation, and really my main point that I want to get back to is that when he sees Gwydion,
he doesn't believe it's Gwydion.
I think he actually says, like, you're not Gwydion.
And then after taking him in for a moment, he realizes, oh, I guess this guy is Gwydion.
And it's because his skin is dark from the sun.
He looks ragged.
He's wearing, I think, a gray cloak.
His hair is gray streaked, and I think they described him as having wolfish eyes.
No, it's the gray streaked hair of a wolf is what it is.
He's got these green flecked eyes.
And anyway, just Tarin doesn't expect him to be him based on what he knows and based on, I guess, his preconceived notions and his prejudices.
And that's really interesting.
And it reminds me of the great line from The Fellowship of the Ring about how Frodo doesn't want to trust Strider at first.
He says, actually, if you were an agent of the enemy, I think you would look fairer and feel fowler.
And obviously, if you think about that for a moment, he's saying that Aragorn Strider looks foul, but he feels fair.
So there's something. He's a grim guy.
He doesn't look like a friendly person or whatever.
He looks like somebody you should be scared of, but he feels like somebody you can trust.
And that feeling only comes after the interaction.
And we have kind of a similar thing here.
And I wouldn't be shocked to find out that Lloyd Alexander was inspired by Tolkien at all.
I mean, I don't know for a fact, but I wouldn't be shocked.
And it reminds me of that in a really positive way.
So I like that a lot.
But the overall chapter, it's well written.
It draws Tarin out of his world.
It gives him a moment to see the enemy.
He sees the Horned King, and he's terrified by him.
The dude's shirtless in a cape.
Why not?
And his arms are stained crimson with blood.
Whoa, he's blue. So I don't know.
It was something.
And he's got these crazy flashing eyes that are contrasted by the pale skull skin, human skull.
Or not the skin, but by the pale bone of the human skull that is on his face with these cruel antler horns coming out.
That's how Eligintiger describes it.
And it makes the guy scary. It makes his warband scary.
And yet Tarin is so foolhardy that he says, give me a sword.
We'll go attack them. We'll stop them.
And we'll stop them from getting to Cairdalldun and whatever.
And Gwydin says something really interesting.
I have a quote from him.
But he says something else interesting, which is that,
I do not value my life more than another man's, but...
And then he says something.
But he's basically saying, I don't want to face this guy and die right now.
You want to be brave? You want to be heroic? That's great for you, kid.
But I'm not throwing my life away.
Instead, we should do this.
And by the end of the chapter, he's saying, it's kind of funny that we've met here.
And I can't take you back to Cairdalldun.
Henwin's not there. That's who I was going to see.
Yes, this great prince and warrior was going to see a pig.
Because she has information that is vital to the Rebel Rebellion.
To the Rebel Alliance, I guess.
And, anyway.
I was thinking, she's the MacGuffin of this story.
And I don't remember... We can talk about that later.
Anyway, so he is interested in talking to Henwin.
Or getting information from her.
And he can't do that.
But now he's met Tarn.
Tarn wants to fight with him.
And he's saying, no, I'm not going to take you to go fight, kid.
He does say, I will take you with me.
Because I'm not going to waste time going back there.
And I can't leave you there and have you be in danger.
If we get there before the warband, you'll be in danger and you could be killed.
If we get there after them, there's no point in being there.
Because Henwin is out here and we need to find her.
So you're going to ride with me.
And we're going to leave in the morning.
And, you know, get some sleep.
And this is another fun thing.
Which is that Tarn is shocked to realize that a hero would have to sleep on the floor.
Sleep on the ground.
And he is wounded in his back.
So I can understand why he's extra grumpy about that.
But, you know, the hardened, tested, proven Gwydian is just...
He's sitting up leaning against a tree to go to sleep.
Which cannot be very comfortable.
But he's making it happen.
And this kid's thinking, huh, I didn't expect that it would be like this.
And that's kind of where the chapter closes.
And I think it's really wonderful.
I think it's really wonderful for a couple reasons.
Like it shows us just how rude Tarn is.
It shows Tarn how unprepared he is.
And yet it closes on him still thinking that he could be handed a sword.
And he could stand up against the Horn of King.
And it also sets his expectation or sets this...
How do you say this?
How do I say this?
That's the board question.
I don't care how you say it because I can't hear you.
Gwydian's question about who's destiny...
Who's destined to help who and whose quest is, you know, kind of this book is about is interesting.
And I mean the obvious answer is, oh, it's Tarn's because he's who we started the book with.
But it's not always so.
And he says something else that is very important, I think, very resonant.
I think it's a great quote, which is that the deed...
Is it the deed is more important than the doer of the deed?
The task is more...
The deed matters more than the one who does it.
I think that's the exact quote.
The deed...
I have this in my show notes.
The deed matters more than the one who does it.
And I think it's a really interesting idea.
It's very deep.
And I don't know what to do with that, but I feel like it's part of the heart of this book, maybe part of the heart of the story, perhaps.
Anyway, I just keep thinking about this and thinking about this.
It was a joy to get back to the book of three.
I'm very excited to see or to get into the next chapter next week and talk about it with you.
I'm really enjoying it.
There's a lot of depth here, kind of more than I expected, more than I remembered.
And going through it slowly has given me the chance to really appreciate it.
So anyway, let me know what you think about it and how much you like this chapter, what you think of Gwydion and his horse.
Mary doing nuts on her name.
I don't know the name of the horse, but he's got a cool white horse.
And you get to see a tiny bit of a relationship between them because they've been through so much together, which is cool.
So, yeah, let me know what you think about this and look forward to the next one.
And also check out my chapter by chapter coverage of the Secret Garden.
I'm up to chapter six.
I finished chapter six of Secret Garden.
I have that in the queue in the podcast feed over on the website, mjwinos.com, where you can find everything else I'm doing.
And it's a really cool book.
I really like it a lot.
And I also look forward to continuing to go through that one.
It's pretty good so far.
I hope you enjoyed that.
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Until next time, keep reading, be well and do good things.
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