Winter Rose

Reading Winter Rose felt like being trapped inside a strange and beautiful dream. The only writer I can think of that really reminds me of Patricia McKillip’s writing here is Scottish fairy tale author George MacDonald. I'm thinking specifically of Phantastes, where you barely know what's going on, but it's really beautiful and it's giving you feelings galore while you read it, so it's ultimately worth the sense of confusion. Winter Rose does have more of a plot structure than Phantastes, but it relies heavily on feelings, sensations and atmosphere.

The story takes place in a fairy tale setting and revolves around two sisters with contrasting personalities. One sister, Rois, is intuitive and able to see what lies beyond our world, and show more the other sister, Laurel, is a practical character who focuses primarily on reality. Although the story is told to us exclusively from the intuitive sister’s 1st person perspective, McKillip doesn't present either sister's way of seeing the world as inherently superior to the other, something I really appreciated!

If you're a more practical person and genuinely enjoy the feeling of having your feet firmly planted in the comfort of reality, like Laurel, the style of this book probably won't be your cup of tea. If you're an intuitive person with your head in the clouds who loves to feel all the feelings, like Rois, you'll want to live inside this book! If you hover somewhere in the space between those two types of people (like I do), it's a toss up as to whether it'll work for you or not. It worked out in my favor - I ended up loving it! 5 out of 5 stars, all time favorite book! show less

They said later that he rode into the village on a horse the color of buttermilk, but I saw him walk out of the wood. I was kneeling at the well; I had just lifted water to my lips. The well was one of the wood's secrets: a deep spring as clear as light, hidden under an overhang of dark stones down which the brier rose's fall, white as snow, red as blood, all summer long. The vines hide the water unless you know to look. I found it one hot afternoon when I stopped to smell the rose's. Beneath their sweet scent lay something shadowy, mysterious: the smell of earth, water, wet stone. I moved the cascading briers and looked down at my own reflection. Corbet, he called himself to the villagers. But I saw him before he had any name at all.

McKillip weaves a seductive tapestry with her unique wordsmithery. Perhaps some find her a wee bit over-the-top, but for me it's like a luxuriously scented hot bath in some luscious language. I've only read one other book of hers but it shared with this one such an alluring sensual and somewhat stylized description of 'The Woods' that they both made me want to disappear into those woods, despite the dangers that lurk in McKillip's.

I did subtract a half a star for what seemed like a slight drag in the story I experienced about 5/6ths of the way through. Maybe drag isn't the right word. To be more accurate I'd have to say I felt it became a bit repetitive. Overall it was a most enjoyable read, though.

This is the second time I've read it and I liked it much better this time around: one has to read Patricia A. McKillip in large segments not smaller morsels. Her language lends itself to this way of reading.

A re-telling of the Tam Lin myth/ballad in a way that is most striking and most feeling. Rois, a sheep farmer's daughter, lives with her beloved older sister Laurel and their father. Her mother had died when she was a small child, and we get hints of the wasting that took her mother's life later in the book when events begin to duplicate themselves.

Other differences, other than our heroine not being named "Janet" are a hall not named "Chester Hall" but is rather a damaged home that the wood takes back into its own, and a young show more Corbet who appears out of nowhere to rebuild this home. Rois is a daughter of the woods and is at home there as her father is when tending his sheep or her sister is when keeping house and preparing for her marriage, until Corbet becomes a frequent visitor and Laurel begins to fall for him and long for him over the winter.

Good twist, that, and one that lends depth to the story. Rois is also drawn to Corbet and she knows that only she and the wood can save him, even though the wood slowly transforms to the will of the Queen of the Fae; here, she is an amoral entity who wants what she wants regardless of the harm it does to the humans who she holds. And yes, she wants to keep Corbet because of his grandmother's desire to remain in the Fae, and it is here in this land that Rois begins to see bits of her mother that had been lost.

And yes, the language is gripping and winter is cold and long evenings spent by the fire making lace are not always things to take for granted. show less

This one was pure poetry. Reminded me very much of Bradbury's Dandelion Wine, although a completely different story about a completely different season, almost like the other side of the coin. But the dream-like language casts the same evocative spell over the reader... This sort of story is hard to describe without giving too much away, but I will tell you it's about harshness of Winter, the pain of love, and way all things - good and bad - will eventually pass... There's a simple plot here, a love triangle, a tale of two sisters, one wild and one domestic, and a boy who comes between them, but for myself, I also found a deeper metaphor... the only way to know your true self, is to dream it...

McKillip's prose is undeniably gorgeous. She paints worlds and scenes which a reader can fall into and breathe in fully, and the effect is wonderful. I'd agree 100% with the reviewers and readers who compare her work to fairy tales in scope and tone--from beginning to end, that what Winter Rose feels like. At the same time, there's a part of me that things that that element exactly, wonderous as it is, is what holds back her books from being five-star reads for (or has so far, anyway). Much as I love the language and the worlds, the characters don't always feel quite real--it's as if they stepped out of fairy tales as they are, unchanging, and without quite the depth that normally makes me feel for and love a character. I suppose it's a show more matter of feeling like the plot and language are prioritized over character, to the point that all of the depth falls there rather than in either the protagonists or antagonists, and that alone keeps me from truly falling in love with the books vs. the language.

I'm sure I'll keep reading McKillip, waiting to fall in love with characters like I fall in love with her imagery, but this book did (like others) leave me wanting more in a not entirely good way, much as I enjoyed swimming through the world itself. show less

And to think, I had this in the giveaway box.

Reminded me of the darker Robin McKinley (Deerskin, etc.), and that's certainly a compliment.

Dark and cold - I'm glad I didn't read this in January, when the weather was the worst. It's a good book to read in March, when you can already see signs of Spring.

Bitter, complex, evocative, transporting.