A Knot in the Grain and Other Stories

Last summer I read Robin McKinley's two novels of Damar, The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword, and I enjoyed the former a lot, though I was ambivalent about the latter.  The "About the Author" blurb of The Blue Sword promises that it is the first of many novels about Damar, but in fact, no more ever appeared.  There is, however, this collection of five short stories, four of which take place in Damar, or at least on the same fantasy world.  (One character from the novels shows up in two of the stories, though he is not really one of my favorites.)

I feel like I have high standards for children's/YA fantasy with female protagonists; I don't like it when the protagonists seem ineffectual or incidental, or if they're empowered in a show more way I find over simplistic, or if too much emphasis is placed on their relationships to men. (All of these are my problems with Tamora Pierce's Tortall novels.) I don't think I have these same standards for YA fantasy about boys, but then, I don't think I read much of that, either.  Anyway, this is a long way of saying that three of the five stories in A Knot in the Grain and Other Stories fail those standards, and so I don't like them, but I don't know if ideology is a good reason to dislike a story.  But I'd like to think that these are just bad stories.  Bizarrely, obnoxiously bad.

The first two stories, "The Healer" and "The Stagman" are almost the same.  The protagonist is a girl in difficulty ("The Healer" features a mute; "The Stagman" a princess about to murdered by her uncle), then the girl is rescued by something/one supernatural (a traveling mage; a stagman), then the girl is taken to the realm of Luthe (who also appeared in The Hero and the Crown), then the girl hangs out there for a while, then she goes home and gets married to a man she met while hanging out with Luthe.  That's it?  Neither character overcomes any danger or obstacle herself; in fact, in "The Stagman," the army to overthrow her uncle is raised by her soon-to-be-husband while she is content to do nothing!  The girl in "The Healer" is healed by Luthe with no risk to herself, preempting what could be a potentially interesting story about someone who's never spoken learning to speak, while the overthrow of the uncle happens in passing in "The Stagman,"  I don't find either very inspiring or interesting.

The third story, "Tauk's House," is no better.  A witch takes a newborn girl from a poor family as payment, she raises the girl alongside her half-troll son (who is seventeen years older!), the girl grows up and walks to a far-off kingdom where she heals a prince, and then she walks back and marries the troll.  So what?  Is there even a plot?  I don't know if it's because McKinley is trying to work in a fairy tale aesthetic, but in fact, fairy tales do not conform to contemporary notions of plotting, and neither do these boring tales.

Thankfully, things picked up with the fourth story, "Buttercups," which is where the beautiful cover image comes from.  It's about a hardworking farmer and the woman he marries and the strange force residing beneath a hill on their farm.  The characters are engaging, the themes are interesting, the prose is excellent, and the magic is lurking-- I really liked this one.  The story kind of just stops at one point, but in a literary way that makes you think you've learned something.  (I am pretty sure that that is true.)

The last story is, unusually, set in the 1990s, when it was written.  "A Knot in the Grain" is the tale of a girl moving across the state and adjusting.  It's full of nice details, showing the thoughts and feelings of someone adjusting to change and the coming of adulthood.  I particularly liked how McKinley used the books the protagonist was reading to tell us stuff; she reads Diana Wynn Jones, The Last Unicorn, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Charles Dickens, and even Mistress Masham's Repose.   It could be a piece of nongenre fiction, almost, but there is magic, which is subtle, but disconcerting and powerful.  Again, the ending is kinda off, but overall I liked it a lot.

I'm glad to have read both "Buttercups" and "A Knot in the Grain," but frustrated at the rest of the stories here.  I don't know that I'll be reading more McKinley after this; my experiences have been too mixed, and I'm not really interested by all the fairy tale retellings anyway. show less

It was interesting reading reviews of this and comparing my reactions. It was an important reminder that readers can have completely opposing views, and that I should be careful about letting negative reviews dissuade me from reading something I otherwise think looks interesting.

"The Healer" is possibly a Damar story. I had a very subjective reaction to it - I just didn't warm to it, and I don't think there's any objective reason why.

I really enjoyed "The Stagman" for its prose. The characters are types more than complex personalities, unnamed for much of the story and identified instead by their role or relationship. If it were a longer story, I would want complex personalities, but in a short story - especially a short story that show more reads like a fairytale - there's something appealing about that, about the way you are left to fill in the blanks yourself.

Both "Touk's House" and "Buttercups" are similar, in so far as that the characters' names aren't revealed until well into the story and there is a fairytale feel about them. Neither of them unfold as I expected them to. There is something lovely and gentle about the romance in "Buttercups", partly because of the way the story captures the way the farmer has not questioned his loneliness and his utter delight at unexpectedly discovering someone he wants to spend his life with.

However, "A Knot in the Grain" is my favourite, about a teenager who (reluctantly) moves house with her parents and the summer she spends borrowing books from the library, writing letters to her friends back home and slowly adjusting to her new life. It's not an almost fairytale, and it is much more about Annabelle as a person - her thoughts, feelings and relationships - than it is about what happens. What I loved most about it, apart from Annabelle's reading habits, was the way it captured being 16 and dealing with change - and the bittersweetness of change. show less

Though Ms. McKinley says she has a hard time with short stories, these five are satisfying. With the exception of "A Knot in the Grain", they are all set in a fantasy world. The first two, "The Healer" and "The Stagman" are certainly set in McKinley's world, Damar. Both feature the character of Luthe. I found "The Healer" satisfying and "The Stagman" a little depressing. Why Ruen has to give up happiness for most of her life is beyond me! "Erana" was a unique twist on the fairytale Rapunzel, though there is no tower or long hair and Erana is free to go when she grows up. "Buttercups" was probably my favorite. I loved how Coral and Pos are both beset by doubts and worries, but they learn to turn to each other. "A Knot in the Grain" has show more fantasy elements, but I liked it most for how Ms. McKinley captures those feelings I had each time I moved as a child. I could relate completely to Annabelle's experiences. show less

Five stories, of varying interest. The Healer, about a mute girl and an injured mage - a Luthe story, though not, as far as I can tell, a Damar one. The Stagman, which annoys me - it's written fairy-tale style, with very little personality to any of the characters, and it's too similar to Luthe & Aerin. The princess marries for the good of the land then runs away to her true love when her duty's done...don't know, it bothers me. Touk's House - an interesting variant on Rapunzel (and a couple other fairy tales), with a touch of the same marrying-for-duty thing but it goes away and she makes her choice. Buttercups, which I like - it follows patterns of several fairy tales, but does it with plenty of personality involved. Pos and Coral are show more very real; so is Buttercup Hill, and the way they paid and how the cost was not destructive. I wonder what would have happened if they hadn't confessed to each other? Nothing good, I suspect. Finally, the title story. Very different in setting and somewhat in flavor; rather than fairy story set in unspecified lands, a teenager in modern America dealing with moving to a new home and a highway coming through...with just a bit of some old magic sticking its nose into matters. I like that one, too. show less

I like this better than Door in the Hedge (another anthology of Mckinley's short stories) - the stories here are more concrete, the characters are more realistic and easier to relate to.

The Healer
This takes place in Damar.
This may be my favorite story in a book where I like them all. It's about Lily, a girl who is born without the ability to speak. She has the Gift of healing and earns her place in the village and countryside where she grows up, but she can never forget what she doesn't have. Everything changes, however, when she meets a mage who can mindspeak.

The Stagman
This is also set in Damar.
Ruen's parents died when she was a baby and her uncle is to be Regent until she is of age, but of course he doesn't want to give up the show more power. Instead of just sending her away, he leaves her to die at the hands of a monster, who instead saves her and brings her to find her destiny. Ruen frustrates me, because she's so totally passive most of the time, but given her upbringing I guess it makes sense. I do like the end, though.

Touk's House
Erana is adopted by a witch and grows up with her and her half-troll son Touk. She has to go away before she can realize what she had there to return to. I like Erana, she's smart and persistent.

Buttercups
Another one of my favorites, I read this story in a new way after reading recently how McKinley and her husband met. Pos's first wife died years ago and he never considered marrying again until he met Coral, a young woman new to the town. Then he began to doubt, as the difference in their ages and his lack of wealth made him more and more uncomfortable. What happens when a most unusual disaster strikes - and who caused it?

A Knot in the Grain
This story is in a totally different vein and it always seems odd to me, coming after four high fantasy tales. It's sort of a pre-urban fantasy story - it's not urban in the sense of big city and so on but it is set in modern times and has a very different feel than the others. Anabelle's family moves the summer before her junior year of high school and, partly as a protest, she picks the attic to be her new bedroom. Something happens that even she doesn't expect, though, when she finds the knot in the grain. show less

These stories were just OK. To me they felt very YA. Very little suspense or action. The emphasis was on the fairy tale style. I've already forgotten the first stories I read in the book. The last three, Buttercups, Touk, and a Knot in the Grain, I probably remember because it was the last ones I read. I like other things I've read by this author so this was very disappointing. Well-written but ephemeral. Actually, now that I've read a precis of each of the stories, the one I liked best was The Healer because it was set in Damar.

YES, Robin McKinley. A buddy was rereading her books and so I glanced on Hoopla, picked this one (had never read it before) and was NOT DISAPPOINTED. A short book of wonderfully smart fantasy short stories. Now must reread everything!