Book completed

[eve_prime]

The Lost Years of Merlin, by T.A. Barron. Merlin Saga #1. My friend lent me this book, one of his childhood favorites, which I hadn’t heard of before. The premise is that Merlin’s life was very interesting before he met Arthur, and our author is filling in the blanks. Merlin (called “Emrys”) is mysteriously cast ashore in Wales as a small child and then lives there for years. Then, on the verge of adolescence, he causes a fire that (apparently) kills a bully and blinds himself, although he develops an alternate form of seeing, and comes to realize that he should set out to sea to visit a mysterious magical land. Most of the book takes place there, where he gradually learns more about himself through helping others. The descriptions are beautiful, and the story is interesting, although much of it is set up as just a long series of encounters. Merlin is a bit frustrating because he gets these ideas in his head and I suppose we’re to assume that they’re part of some magical intuition, although some of his ideas are clearly false.

Also – having read most of John Muir’s books, I was surprised when an early scene was clearly borrowed from Muir’s adventures in the Sierra Nevada. I wondered if the author had come up with this independently, or had read Muir at some point and forgotten, or what… but I learned that the author considers himself a great fan of Muir’s work, and when I discussed it with others over dinner we concluded that the scene was an “homage.”