(Page numbers are for the omnibus edition.)

Well, I finished The Crystal Cave (a while ago in fact) and have now moved on to The Hollow Hills, which picks up right where the first book of the trilogy ends.  Merlin is still rather unlike the wise old wizard as whom I'd so far seen him and is becoming ever closer to what I'd so far imagined young Arthur to have been ... but I'm still enjoying the read as such.

For those who care, I thought I'd share a couple of photos from the location of the final chapters of The Crystal Cave and the first chapters of The Hollow Hills, Tintagel, where legend has it that King Arthur was conceived ... or, well, photos of what's left of the Tintagel castle ruins (which incidentally date from the 12th, not from the 6th century), as well as the paths that Merlin and Uther would have had to climb, first down to the beach and then back up along the face of the cliff, to get to the castle high up on the promontory:

The Crystal Cave
by Mary Stewart
Book 1 of Arthurian Saga (a.k.a. Merlin trilogy)

This series is being read as part of a Buddy Read @ BookLikes, to be read over approximately three weeks.

I got a lot of reading done this week, but since I got a late start on The Crystal Cave last week, I'm still a little behind in the tentative scheduling, so I'm just going to have to make my own schedule.  Anyway, it seems that much has been happening, and each section of The Crystal Cave almost feels like a new story unfolding.

A new chapter in Merlin's life, maybe?

Book II: The Falcon -- Completed
Progress on 11/10/16:  232 of 519 pages (45%)

"This is a strange meeting, Merlin.  So much to say, and yet so little.  Do you see now why I asked so many questions?  Why I tried so hard to find what had brought you here?

"The gods at work, my lord, the brought me here," I said.

-- Page 223

I'm starting to get a sense that everything that's happening is very much a work of fate.  Or the gods, I suppose.  There is a lot of destiny at work here, and yet, at the same time it feels really deliberate in the story line's set up.  Was it deliberate?  Or are we trying too hard to give Merlin a magical presence?  Except that I feel like it's doing the opposite and making me question everything that's going on around Merlin.

Because how is it that one moment he's still a child, and then the next he can see everything that will happen without actually seeing?  It's more like knowing.  His Sight seems a little flighty, really.

And then, on top of that, we've got family secrets being revealed and all that jazz going on here.  All of the events that lead up to Merlin's current position, at this point in the book, feels too coincidental to be realistic.  His travels were not random at all, and again, he seems to have an on-again-off-again Sight that is telling him where he needs to be, how he needs to act, and what he needs to say.

I suppose with the gods being at work, this is entirely believable...

Book III: The Wolf -- In Progress
Progress on 11/14/16:  310 of 519 pages (60%) 

This third section of The Crystal Cave is actually getting quite exciting, and I attribute that to the fact that there's more action.  Merlin hasn't changed much from his childhood, and to be honest, I'm detecting no difference between twelve-year old Merlin to his transition to seventeen-year-old Merlin.  The voices are the same and the penchant for being omnipotent is also the same.

But there is a lot more going on in the world around him now that even if nothing about the boy stands out, at least the rest of the story in the background with war on the horizon is kind of interesting.  But to be honest, I often find politics and war strategy a bit boring, depending on how it's presented.  In this case, it's not capturing my attention all that well.

The new developments in Merlin's adventure are still quite intriguing though, and his return to his homeland is a nice new story spin.

The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart

Book 1 of The Arthurian Saga (a.k.a. Merlin trilogy)

This series is being read as part of a Buddy Read @ BookLikes, to be read over approximately three weeks.

I'm a little behind in the read-along, but it looks like everyone else is sort of at the same point I'm at, so I'm not too concerned.  Life has been a bit chaotic and distractions aplenty (both books and other).  I'm hoping that with my weekend off coming up, I'll be able to get more of The Crystal Cave read, to a point where I don't feel guilty veering off onto another book for a couple days.

Anyway...

I've decided to do a weekly update for this book, and each update will be broken down into each section of the book.  Mainly because, so far, I've had little to say about it and haven't really come up with anything significant or productive to share.

The Crystal Cave is well written and is proving an interesting, yet slow-paced adventure that is a little focused on set-up right now.  I'm enjoying it, but it's still very easy for me to set it down and end up falling into a cozy mystery instead.

Book I: The Dove -- Completed
Progress on 11/05/16:  118 of 519 pages (23%)

To be honest, it took a little bit of time to get into this book because I might have gotten a little lost.  But even so, I'm finding myself enjoying it, though I remain still slightly confused about all the events playing out.  There are a lot of names and places and relationship connections that might have gotten a little muddled in my mind.

And at times, I swear, I forget that Merlin is only a twelve year old boy at this time--he sounds, literally, wiser than his years, which I assume is deliberate.  Of course, I suppose that with everything he's been going through, and how he's been treated while growing up, you kind of have to be a bit ahead of everyone else to survive.

While the beginning of the book seemed to build up in a rather slow pace, by the time we reach the end of Book I, things seemed to have escalated very quickly.  And now young Merlin is off on his official adventure, I assume.

Up to this point, it all just feels like world-building, which I appreciate, but at the same time, doesn't bode well for my blogging since I don't really have anything productive to say about it.

Book II: The Falcon -- In Progress
Progress on 11/08/16:  143 of 519 pages (28%) 

Okay, it took a little bit of thought to realize that twelve-year-old Merlin sounds wise beyond his years, because the story is sounding more like an account of Merlin's life by his older, and wiser self.  I think there's a sentence that even intuits that older and wiser Merlin is penning what he remembers of his childhood.

Except that, having noted that twelve-year-old Merlin sounds more mature than one would expect a child to sound, there are times where I have a hard time connecting the twelve-year-old child to the old wizard we all know as Merlin.  I know it sounds like I'm contradicting myself, but I truly am seeing two different sides of this kid: on the one hand, he sounds older; on the other hand, he really DOES come off as just a kid.

Anyway, the adventure starts now and I'm feeling really excited about it.  It gives me impressions of some young children's fantasy adventure I might have read a long time ago.  We've got a catalyst for Merlin to travel aimlessly, we've got sticky situations, and now we've got some significant scenarios to continue propelling young Merlin's journey to his fated destiny.

I'm only four chapters into the second section, so the action so far still feels like world-building, but at least there are some potential significant events happening.

Again, I'm finding I don't really have much of significance to say about what I've read so far, though hopefully I will by the time week two of the read-along is over.  It's taking a while to get into this book, but I'm still really drawn to it.

(Note: the page number is for the trilogy's omnibus edition, which is the book I'm actually reading.)

"Thanks" to having contracted some sort of cold or flu bug and having been out of commission for pretty much all other purposes over the weekend, I've progressed fairly well with this book -- well there has to be at least one upside to fever, perpetually running nose and clinging headache, I suppose.

Anyway, I'm enjoying this enormously, and I'm so glad I joined this buddy read, so a big thank you to Moonlight Reader for setting this up!

I confess I'm not, or perhaps just "not yet" reading Merlin as the same person as the old wizard known from most other incarnations of the Arthurian saga, though.  It actually struck me, especially in Part 1, how similar this trilogy's young Merlin is to the young Arthur of some of the other narratives -- a misfit and a loner, the kid that nobody really knows where and how to place him, entirely too bright for his own good, and intensely interested in books and learning (even though that doesn't mean he wants to be shut up behind the walls of a monastery),

And in Parts 3 and 4 we're now getting the one thing that I sorely miss in accounts like T.H. White's Once and Future King, great series though that is in all other respects ... a glimpse of our hero's coming of age and (with apologies to James Joyce) a Portrait Our Hero as a Young Man.  So, yey for that, too!  The magic stuff starts when he's still a boy, but he's learning more about his own magical powers as we go along now, too, as well as how to deal with other people's expectations of him (well, that's bound to happen, I suppose, especially looking at Stewart's source material and the story -- or throw-away line -- that she herself says inspired the whole trilogy).

A great read so far, in any event; here's hoping it's going to continue this way!

I'm reading this book both for the Merlin Trilogy Buddy Read and for The Twelf Tasks of the Festive Season (Task the Twelfth: The Wassail Bowl).

Merken

Details:

Our read along of the first book in the Merlin trilogy, The Crystal Cave, begins tomorrow! We had planned to read each book over approximately 3 weeks, so I've come up with the following schedule:

Tuesday, 11/1-Monday, 11/7: Book I (The Dove) & Book II (The Falcon)

Tuesday, 11/8 - Monday, 11/14: Book III (The Wolf) & Book IV (The Red Dragon)

Tuesday, 11/15 - Monday, 11/21: Book V (The Coming of the Bear)

I'm planning on starting the second book, The Hollow Hills, on November 22!

In terms of posting, not everyone likes to read to a schedule. If you want to just devour the whole thing, use spoiler tags and go for it. If you want to wait until the last week, that's fine, too! The schedule is intended to be helpful, not troublesome.

Use "merlin trilogy buddy read" to tag your posts! And, let me know if you plan to read with us, in the comments below!

At Themis-Athena's suggestion, I added a thread to the Buddy Reads group, which you can find here!