The Hounds Of The Mórrígan (2003) - Plot & Excerpts
I picked this book up on a lark because it was in a used bookstore and I thought the cover art and back cover summary were interesting. I figured hey, it's only a few dollars, and I've found some great new reads by just picking a book off the shelf and giving it a shot. This book feels very clunky. In a lot of ways, it just feels off. A good book is a book you read, and you can visualize everything. Even if it isn't incredibly detailed, there's enough for your mind to work with and the way it is written is seamless and it feels like everything just flows with a good author and good editor. This book, I'm at about 60 pages in and I just can't stand how it's written. I'll break up my biggest issues so it's not a block of text.1. The children. They do not sound like children. The main character is 10 but speaks and thinks like an adult. His mannerisms are very mature, his vocabulary involves a lot of words I didn't learn until I was in middle school reading adult fantasy novels. His dialogue is just so awkward when you think it's coming from a 10 year old boy. He wants to learn Latin in school. Just read a line from early on and say it sounds like a 10 year old boy on summer break. "It's just like a student's trick, although it isn't Rag week and they are all supposed to be gone for the holidays. Maybe some of them are back early and they've got some kind of game going for Charity. I wish I knew more about it and where the real fun is."That doesn't sound like a kid. That sounds like an adult, pretending to be a kid. The 5 year old sounds almost like a child, has a few moments where she behaves like a little girl, but her dialogue is almost as bad. Her' it'd be passable, but the main character sounds so old and uses such advanced vocabulary that it's always jarring me out of the book when he talks.2. I'm not sure if I should blame it on the writing style or the editing, but there are a lot of useless one-liner paragraphs that are incredibly distracting and also pull me out of the book. Almost once a page, there's something like this."There was no wind.Not a whisper."I don't understand why there has to be a break between those two small lines that would fit so well together. And again, I'm not sure if it's the author, or the editor, but it feels really bulky and every time I see it it just takes me out of the world the book is creating and reminds me it's just ink on a page.3. The details. There simply aren't enough. I'm not asking for Tolkien-level detailing, but they don't even describe what the main character looks like. I know his age, but not if he's short, tall, blonde, dark-haired, skinny, pudgy, nothing. There isn't enough to build off of for me to make a good visual of this story. And because of that, I struggle against the book to try and visualize it and it just doesn't work. Neil Gaiman does a good job of balancing enough detail with a very casual attitude that it's easy to get into not only the world of the book, but the atmosphere and mood it sets. Jane Lindskold is a little heavy on the details at times, but it's not so overladen with it that it drags on and on. I will try and finish this book, but I read a few pages and just have such a hard time pushing through it all. Those are my three biggest gripes about it so far, and all of it really comes down to writing style. I know this book has a lot of positive reviews, and it seems like a lot of people love the story, I just can't even get to where the story starts because beforehand it's just so awkward to read through. Don't know if anyone else has that issue, but it's my two cents on this book. Has a lot of potential, but seems to be fighting with the reader to get there.
Once again, I'm starting a review by saying how devastated I am that I didn't get to read the book in question when I was a kid. Guess it's a lucky thing that I have no problem with being an adult who still loves books written for kids. Still, the fourth-grader who spent several months basically living in the world of Brian Jacques' Redwall would have eaten this one up with a spoon. Wish I could tell her so.Pidge lives a fairly normal, quiet life in a small village near Galway, in southern Ireland. He loves his family very much & could not get along better with his younger sister, Brigit. While in town one day, he discovers a new secondhand bookstore in which he finds a strange, very beaten-up, very definitely old book or manuscript that he is inexplicably drawn to. The man behind the counter suggests that he should just take it, as it's really not good enough to sell - & with that, strange & wonderful things start to happen to Pidge, things straight out of Irish folklore. Soon, he finds himself, along with the ever-game Brigit, heading off on a quest to keep the pages from the grasp of one of the oldest & most evil figures in Irish stories - the Morrigan, a woman who is out to gain back all of her power of old & then some. If she succeeds, the world will never be the same, & the only thing standing between her & success is Pidge & Brigit, armed with some help here & there from some more benign characters.This story reads just like I imagine Irish folktales sound in the recitation: constant adventure, deeply memorable characters, a plotline by turns hilariously funny & spine-tinglingly creepy, the constant human battle between good & evil. It's the kind of story that you accidentally fall into & then wish you could never leave. The guide to Gaelic pronunciations in the back is very helpful, too. I dare someone to read this & not want to learn everything they can about the old Irish stories.
What do You think about The Hounds Of The Mórrígan (2003)?
Just like the protagonist, Pidge, who finds a book under strange circumstances, I found this book originally at a library book sale and was strangely drawn to it. I loved it! O'Shea is (was?) a wonderful storyteller. The characters are alive and vivid. The dialogue is very well-written and gives a very Irish flavor to the book. The exposition is never heavy-handed or clumsy, which I always find is a tendency in books with a fantasy setting. The fantastic aspects themselves are told so simply and convincingly that it gives the entire book a dreamy feel, and it makes the reader leave the book with the sense that anything can happen in the real world as well.This was one of my favorite books as a 10-11 year old; it's also a favorite book in my family in general. I strongly recommend it.
—Elizabeth
This is an Irish rural fantasy in the tradition of storyteller Patricia Lynch. A boy and girl buy an old book in a bookshop and begin to notice strange events and people. Three sisters come and rent a glasshouse nearby to live in; they are actually three witches. The Morrigan is a Celtic goddess of war and death, and she sets her hounds to follow the children and try to frighten them into giving up the book. In this way a gap is formed between this world and the misty world of myth, where a crafty fox called CooRoo - Cu Ruadh is the Irish name for fox, meaning red hound - tries to guide the kids. The hounds have to stay at a distance as long as the kids stay walking, but if they run the hounds can give chase. In a town square market the hounds take the form of thin people in long tan coats. Other than being brave, the kids don't do much to get themselves out of predicaments and they gain help at times to escape so are not coming up with ideas themselves. That is why I am not giving this book five stars, and I read it before the Harry Potter books came on the scene and it got relaunched.
—Clare O'Beara
I found _The Hounds of the Morrigan_ to be a light fantasy. The story moves right along and probably is more appropriate for a YA audience, but I enjoyed it. I have a fascination with Irish mythology and history, so that was part of the attraction for me. There are many good life lessons throughout the story--pay it forward, be kind to the earth and its creatures, be attentive to the moment, distinguish between wants and needs, etc.--but the author manages to not lecture the reader. My main quibble is that I don't like the title--while the Hounds are important, they are not the key to the story.
—Kathi
