Reading Roundup: The Enchanted Forest Chronicles

Book jacket for 1990s edition of Dealing with Dragons, illustration by Trina Schart Hyman. (I love her art style!)

Sometimes, even if you’re a woman in your mid-thirties, you feel an urgent need to revisit a quartet of fantasy books that told you it was okay to be a smart, unconventional girl when you were a tween; and even though you’re not a huge fan of e-books you discover you can read them on your laptop for free via your local library; and even though books 3 and 4 don’t quite hold up to your childhood memories of them, at least the first two can still provide the amusement and the reassurance that you needed.

Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Dealing with Dragons and its sequels were some of my favorite books when I was about ten years old, and I’m pleased to say that this one is still a great comfort read. Even now, I enjoyed escaping to this whimsical, enchanted world, with its droll fractured-fairy-tale tone. The villains (a cadre of evil wizards) are threatening but also kind of silly, and overall it feels like Patricia C. Wrede had a lot of fun writing this.

Still, I was a little worried starting this reread. I no longer have the eager, uncritical enthusiasm of a fantasy-loving child, and would the book’s 1990s feminism have aged well? After all, when it came out, stories about rebellious princesses felt fresh and inspiring, but 30 years on, we can see there are some common pitfalls with the trope. So I'm pleased to report that Dealing with Dragons deftly avoids those problems:

• I like rebellious characters who pick their battles while staying true to themselves; I don’t like authors who think that rebelliousness is synonymous with impulsivity and truculence. Solution: Princess Cimorene is defined more by being pragmatic and thoughtful than by being feisty and badass. She doesn’t suffer fools gladly, but she genuinely wants to find win-win solutions that’ll make everyone happy (and get those fools out of her hair).
  
• Heroines in these kinds of books are often frustrated by the limitations placed on women, but that can easily slide into frustration with everything that’s even remotely feminine-coded. Solution: Cimorene isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty, but she’s more of a nerd than a warrior. She genuinely enjoys cooking, organizing, and learning Latin; and she befriends a more conventionally sweet and timid princess.
  
• Also important: Cimorene isn’t the only admirable female character in the book! Kazul, the dragon who takes her in, is just as sensible and pragmatic as Cimorene, and they’re also friends with a cool witch named Morwen.
  
• Rebellious heroines need to assert their individuality and come into their own, but part of coming into your own is realizing that no person can stand alone. Cimorene may not have fit in as a princess, but she’s not naturally a loner; she finds friendship and community among the dragons, and a niche where her unique skills are valued.

So in the end, the greatest comfort I found from this reread is its message that you can be an unconventional woman while still being a valued member of society. Or, as Cimorene thinks at the end, maybe “happily ever after” is overrated; maybe we should try to live a life that’s “interesting and busy… that would go a long way toward making her happy.” A quarter-century after I first read those words, sometimes I still need to remind myself of that.

Searching for Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Another delightful, humorous fantasy-adventure from Patricia C. Wrede, this time centering on Mendanbar, the King of the Enchanted Forest, who is cute and single and 20 years old. He teams up with Cimorene after he discovers that parts of the Enchanted Forest are having their magic leached out by wizards, and she discovers that Kazul, the King of the Dragons, has gone missing.

So yeah, you can sort of tell where this is going: answers to the mystery, a fight with the wizards, a budding romance. But much of the charm of these books is the detours they take along the way. As she did in the first book, Cimorene helps out a lot of different fantasy characters—a giant, a dwarf, a bratty prince with a would-be wicked uncle—finding clever win-win solutions to their problems. I even think some of the satire here went over my head as a kid and is funnier now that I’m an adult, e.g. when Cimorene and Mendanbar tell a giant who is sick of his job (marauding) that he should “go into consulting” instead.

This one’s not quite as awesome as Dealing with Dragons because Mendanbar is the focus instead of Cimorene. Then again, Mendanbar’s character arc has a lot to do with recognizing how cool Cimorene is, and it is just as important for young boys to hear the message “strong and unconventional women are awesome to have around” as it is for young girls to hear “embrace your uniqueness and strength.”

Calling on Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Based on the reviews on Goodreads, this seems to be the least-beloved book of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles, and indeed, Patricia C. Wrede begins her introduction by saying she “didn’t want to write” it and had some problems figuring it out. I’m not sure how I would have reacted to that admission as a kid (the edition I had in the '90s didn't have that preface), but Adult Me was glad for the heads-up. I have a lot of residual affection for this series and I didn’t hate this installment, but it does feel less distinguished and less amusing than the first two.

The POV character here is Morwen, who was a fun and likable supporting character in the earlier books but doesn’t really have Main Character Energy. Cimorene’s and Mendanbar’s books were coming-of-age stories, but Morwen has already come of age and is very contented with her cottagecore witch life. She goes on the quest in order to help her friends and save the forest where she lives, but she doesn’t have an emotional arc beyond that. Instead, a lot of page time is devoted to Morwen’s clowder of pet cats, and maybe I’m not as much of a cat person as I thought I was, because I found it exhausting rather than charming to try to keep track of nine different cats.

Then, even more page time is devoted to a ridiculous new character, a hungry rabbit who keeps eating magical plants that change his size, his color, and even his species. I think what annoyed me so much about Killer (yes, that’s his name, and it’s not even a very good joke) is that he seems to have every personality trait that Wrede can’t stand. Time and again, the heroes of these books triumph because they are practical, prepared, and thoughtful. By contrast, Killer is impulsive, foolish, and whiny… and yet he somehow gets to go along on the quest and be a major supporting character?

Also, one of the magician Telemain’s spells requires the beneficiaries (including a pregnant Cimorene) to breathe bleach fumes. I was the sort of kid who would try to replicate spells from fantasy books, so rereading this as an adult, this strikes me as a horrifically irresponsible thing to put in a children’s book!

Talking to Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I remember Talking to Dragons as a childhood favorite, but it’s less satisfactory to return to as an adult. Written before the rest of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles (though serving as the finale to the series), it feels a little more simplistic, a little more “kiddie.” The fairy-tale tropes are mostly played straight rather than gently satirized and twisted, and the first-person narration feels like it’s striving too hard to sound casual.

I mean, no one would mistake the other Enchanted Forest books for works of adult literature, but, in my recent rereads of them, I found that I can still be inspired by the character of Cimorene and that the second book contains jokes that are probably funnier for adults than for kids. But I can’t say those things about this entry in the series. The character of Shiara here falls into all the pitfalls of 1990s spirited/rebellious YA heroines—the pitfalls that Cimorene adroitly avoids. Shiara is supposed to be sassy and feisty, but she just comes off as sulky and whiny.

Patricia Wrede has also written herself into a corner by saying that in order for Daystar to succeed in his quest, he has to fulfill it without being aware of his true identity/destiny. I think this trope can work fine when the reader is also ignorant of the hero’s destiny. But when there are three preceding books that make you perfectly aware of who the main character is and what he has to do, it isn’t so interesting to watch him stumble toward fulfilling his quest.