Lloyd Chudley Alexander

I learned today that Lloyd Alexander died the 17th of May, the National day of Norway and by other reasons an important day for me personally. When I recall my childhood as well as I want it will be in the library, childrens’ section with all its vast collection of books, books I could lend and take home in my back pack. To read and read and read and dream about all the wonderful places in those books.

I remember the librarians looking at me the first times I went there and the stack of books I wanted to bring home. “That is awfully many, love. You do realise you only have them for 14 days?” I nodded and my mum or dad, who usually accompanied me to the library, left me in the childrens’ section and walked the long walk up to the adult/grown up library to lend some books for them. Sometimes my dad staid with me and read the comics you could find in the children’s section though. And you were only allowed to bring three of them home, “otherwise it would be any left for others you see”.

I read, and still read, fast, especially when I was younger in comparison to other children my age. Therefore I could bring home many books in my little bag and read them all and then return them on time, or before time, and bring home new. I think it was then I started to reread books. It was like an old friend, someone you can count on.

I still remember listening to the radio during one summer and hearing the stories of “Westmark”, ”The Kestrel” and “The Begger queen” as a radio theater. I remember the horror I felt in the middle of The Kestrel when the rebels (or our heroes on a quest for freedom as they were in the book) were mortified finding their own soliders sitting leaning towards trees, dead, with no skin on them. I can hear the anguish and hate in the voice of [the actor of] Theo, ‘The Kestrel’, when he said “the are like meat, bloody and propped up towards the trees. Their eyes all bloody and there skin gone. The fiends that have done this is not human, so why should we.” I remember calling for my grand mother in the middle of the night when I relived the episode in my dreams, with me as Theo’s best friend – not Mickle though – never Mickle although she was and is a beautiful role model for a young girl when it comes to that.

I remember the bravado of the Rebel leader Florian, what a beautiful name, and the awful evilness of Skeit as well as Cabbarus, not to forget the fun yet enormously sad Count Las Bombas – the conman with his different potions and creams. And Justin, the rebel with the intense blue eyes and the madness to match it, the hurt and the loneliness that only those who have seen the world crumble down in front of them can really have. The lust of Theo to become one of Florian's children, like Luther, Stock, Justin and Zara. I realise in hindsight that these books might have given me a view of the necessity of rebellion, or maybe the necessity of realising the life is never ever fair, but we have to try and make it as fair as possible. And still it is a dream, a childish dream of the just war, the just means to make it all right.

To finish, if you haven’t read the books as a child (or adolescence maybe might have been more appropriate) I still think one can read them now. If I had kids for sure I’d give them the Chronicles of Prydain first, since they are more childlike and almost like a Fellowship of the Ring for children. And the stories of Vesper Holly, the third series of Mr Alexander, is also great for the independent girl who finds friends and adventures all over but never is portrayed as a second hand character. Then read the Westmark triology and see the influence from the French revolution, the fall of the Eastern Europe dictatorships [although that hadn't happened at the time] and other unjustly ruled countries all over the globe. I can not help but to speculate how much the series is inspired by Alexander’s own experience in the WWII where he trained in Wales and then moved over into the Rhineland and southern Germany in the end years of the war. After all the Chronicles of Pyradin are inspired by old folk lore from Wales and Alexander did translate more than a few books from French, among all Sartre as well. (The Kestrel does bring similar feelings as Sartre's The Victors, interesting indeed. Wonder if Alexander did a translation of that play as well?)

I realise now, when my eyes are filling up, that I probably never got over the fact that Theo, in all his splendor of being the brave rebel, lost his own faith in man when he became the Kestrel. The pseudonym hid more than just his name, he traded in the humanitarian side for the more vicious side and fought the horrible Cabbarus with his means – proving yet again that war will never be beautiful, fair or won. There are only those that loose more than others. And Theo put away himself for the cruel and innovative Kestrel, still the hero in so many eyes of the rebels to is own disdain.

I think I will look for the books on line and see if I can buy them. At least The Kestrel, since I am not entirely sure I really liked The Begger Queen… strangely enough in all this but I will probably buy all three of the books, after all it is a series.

In the end of the articles here and here it states that Alexander's wife, who he met in France and was married to for 65 years, died May 2nd. I guess that is somewhat beginning of hope for love and man for me, although I will miss the writer and my childhood feelings of innocence and grandness of rebellions.