Book Review: The Arkadians by Lloyd Alexander

I've read a couple books by Lloyd Alexander lately. I saw several of them on a list of my brother's books and I was reminded of how long it had been since I had read them and how much I remembered enjoying them.


I ought to read again his most famous series, that about Taran Wanderer, but I also decided to read some of his other books; some that I had, and some that I had not, read before. The first to arrive from the library was The Arkadians. Once I began reading I immediately remembered the two outstanding characteristics of a Lloyd Alexander story. The first, more obvious, and more important is how his stories suck you right in and carry you along like a leaf on a stream. He writes well and clearly without a great deal of excess verbiage to get in the way of moving things forward. Moreover, he took well to the idea that, though it is very difficult to be completely original, one can still craft a marvellous tale by taking an old story and retelling it in a new and interesting way.

This particular story contains elements of a lot of Greek myths and is set in a land much like Greece, but with a wink and a nod rather than an open acknowledgement. It follows a young man on his adventures around a land trying to escape being killed by the villains since he discovered their villainy and to restore a man transformed into a donkey who aided him in his initial escape. It's not high art, but it's fun.

The other thing that I remembered about Alexander his how none of his female characters are at all attractive. I don't mean that he describes them all as being ugly hags. Rather, he often describes them as having great beauty, but all of them with very, very rare exceptions have the lowest possible opinion of men. Not only that, but they display their open disdain at every possible opportunity, they are insulting, rude, dismissive, condescending, cruel and unforgiving. Things tend to work out in the end for the romantic prospects, however, since all the men are perfectly willing to be emasculated doormats for the women in their lives. They put up with the abuse with a rueful smile and a shrug because, hey, that's just how women are.

In my mind, I think of this as the Meg Ryan Phenomenon. In most of the films in which I've seen her, she may have a physical attractiveness, but her personality is almost always one that seems repellent. I have difficulty understanding why anyone else in the film finds her pleasant to be around and so I can't believe in the romance angles that are set up for her. Because I can't imagine that the men around her find her company enjoyable in anything other than a physical way, the attempt to convince me that it's True Love™ falls flat. In other words, most of Alexander's stories are a fun ride and a good time, but you need to be able to overlook his complete inability to write a convincing relationship between a man and a woman.