This is an adorable fairytale about a boy who leaves his (mostly ordinary) home village, and sets out on a quest through the (magical) land of Faerie, to find a fallen star. As such quests tend to go, he is not the only person looking for the star, and at the same time, two other groups set out, both seeking it for different reasons.
Often sweet, regularly amusing and occasionally slightly gruesome, this book juxtaposes the childlike telling of a fairytale quest, with hints of the more realistic, the more worldly, and certainly the more adult perspective. The story is incredibly easy to read, because it is told in language that is, if not simplistic, at least easily comprehensible. And the tale that is woven is a wonderful mixture of the best that fairytales have to offer.
The strengths of this book, and its main source of charm, come from the way in which the protagonist, Tristran Thorn, finds himself in totally new and unfamiliar circumstances and how he deals with them. With his goal always in mind, he trips and stumbles through semi-typical fairytale adventures (all with a slight twist, so as to hold interest). There are those that help and hinder. There are witches, and princes, a unicorn, and talking trees, and almost all of the woodland animals seem to be enchanted humans of some form or other. The picture presented of this world is beautiful and magical, and it is described and explored wonderfully through Tristran's unfamiliarity.
Where I felt the book fell down slightly was in conveying the interactions between characters. While I often dislike books that over-labour the love-story aspect of the tale, I felt this book completely glossed over it, so that although you can tell from quite early on how the story will end, you don't quite believe it until it has already happened. It made more of a brief encounter between two other characters than it did of the love story that the book was leading towards.
However, in spite of this, this book was a very entertaining read, told in elegant style and well worth reading.
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