{"id":145,"date":"2002-07-03T13:40:14","date_gmt":"2002-07-03T17:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog-test\/?p=145"},"modified":"2002-07-03T13:40:14","modified_gmt":"2002-07-03T17:40:14","slug":"eager_edward_02","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/2002\/07\/eager_edward_02\/","title":{"rendered":"Eager, Edward: (02) Magic by the Lake"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a> <\/a> <\/p>\n

I stopped by the local used bookstore yesterday and picked up a fairly odd assortment of things: Edward Eager’s Magic by the Lake<\/cite><\/strong>, Jennifer Crusie’s Fast Women<\/cite>, and a second edition Oxford Dictionary of Quotations<\/cite>. A children’s book, a novel that (judging by past Crusie books) will include either literal or figurative headbanging sex, and a dusty reference work. I was almost disappointed that the store’s owner didn’t say anything when he rang them up . . .<\/p>\n

Magic by the Lake<\/cite> is the sequel to Half Magic<\/cite>, which was one of my favorite books as a kid. I have no idea why I’d never read this, but I rediscovered Half Magic<\/cite> a few years ago and have been vaguely meaning to read more of Eager’s other books since. I read Magic by the Lake<\/cite> last night, justifying it to myself as a reward for doing reasonably well on the first of the simulated exam sections in the bar review course; really, though, I was just too hot and tired to do anything useful by the time we got home from dinner and errands.<\/p>\n

Like Half Magic<\/cite>, ’tis a silly book. Four children are vacationing at a lakeside cottage for the summer; one of them sees a sign by the cottage that says “Magic by the Lake,” and another wishes it were true—unfortunately, in the hearing of a turtle, who grants the wish rather grumpily (apparently all<\/em> turtles are magic).<\/p>\n

\n

“You had to be greedy and order magic by the lake, and of course now you’ve got a whole lakeful of it, and as for how you’re going to manage it, I for one wash my hands of the whole question!” . . .<\/p>\n

The four children stared, transfixed.<\/p>\n

Every bit of the lake’s surface seemed to be suddenly alive, and each bit of it was alive in a different way. It was like trying to keep track of a dozen three-ring circuses, only more so.<\/p>\n

Water babies gamboled in the shallows. A sea serpent rose from the depths. Some rather insipid-looking fairies flew over. A witch hobbled on a far bank. A rat and a mole and a toad paddled along near the willowly shore, simply messing about in a boat. A family of dolls explored a floating island. On the other side of the same island, a solitary man stared at a footprint in the sand. A hand appeared in the middle of the lake holding a sword. Britannia ruled the waves. Davy Jones came out of his locker. Neptune himself appeared, with naiads and Nereids too numerous to mention.<\/p>\n

The two younger children shut their eyes.<\/p>\n

“Make it stop,” said Martha. . . .<\/p>\n

“And you needn’t go asking me to take it back, because it’s too late. Magic has rules, you know, the same as everything else.”<\/p>\n

“Yes, we know,” said Mark, “but you’d never think so, to look at it now. It’s all every which way.”<\/p>\n

They all looked at the lake again. Some Jumblies had appeared, going to sea in a sieve. A walrus and a carpenter danced with some oysters on a nearby shore. In the distance Columbus was discovering America.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

There is something ineffably English about these. For instance:<\/p>\n

\n

“We could take our lunch,” said Katharine.<\/p>\n

“What kind of sandwiches?” said Mark.<\/p>\n

“Jam,” said Martha thoughtfully, “and peanut-butter-and-banana, and cream-cheese-and-honey, and date-and-nut, and prune-and-marshmallow . . . “<\/p>\n

A time passed.<\/p>\n

Their mother came into the kitchen. “What’s all this mess?” she said. “Nobody leaves this house till it’s cleaned up.”<\/p>\n

And nobody did.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I read this bit last night as a prime example of “the English have weird ideas about sandwiches,” something I’d learned from experience. Of course, on the back porch, racing to finish before dark fell completely, I managed to miss the line right before that said “Let’s explore our own territory. See America first,” making a later reference to Indiana quite the rude shock.<\/p>\n

It’s a bit dated now in its assumptions about gender roles, but not in too objectionable a way. Half Magic<\/cite> is better, but this is light, fun, amusing summer reading.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I stopped by the local used bookstore yesterday and picked up a fairly odd assortment of things: Edward Eager’s Magic by the Lake, Jennifer Crusie’s Fast Women, and a second edition Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. A children’s book, a novel that (judging by past Crusie books) will include either literal or figurative headbanging sex, and … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Eager, Edward: (02) Magic by the Lake”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,82,15],"tags":[200],"class_list":["post-145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-half-magic-series","category-sf-and-fantasy","tag-eager-edward"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}