Hope Mirrlees - Lud-in-the-Mist

Publisher: Collins
Author: Hope Mirrlees
Title: Lud in the Mist

It is curious how some books stay in your minds despite being largely forgotten.  All you remember is how impressed you were by the book, some details lingering, teasing you. I have often tracked down half forgotten books, aided by a few keywords. In case of this book, I remembered it was about straight laced folks in a town beset by fairy influence.  One by one, its citizens fall prey to the lure of fairies. Along with these plot lines I remembered a phrase 'blackish canary' used in the book.

After several failed attempts to locate the book based on plot, I typed the words 'blackish canary' in inverted commas in google and wrote 'book containing phrase'.  My search landed squarely on the amazon page of Lud in the Mist  almost as if the book wanted to find me too. A quick read of the plot of the book made me go 'Yes Yes Yes'.

I was surprised to find that the book was published first in 1926, not so surprised to find that it is a classic in the fantasy genre. More about the book after a quick plot outline.

Lud is a prosperous merchant town located between the rivers Dapple and Dawl in the state of Dorimare. The elite of Dorimare are a small group of merchants. They are conventional people, creatures of habit. The Mayor of Lud is Nathaniel Chanticleer, a man addicted to habit who loathes adventure. His familiar and humdrum life is disturbed by strange happenings. First his son admits to having eaten fairy fruit. He tries to control the situation with the help of the doctor, Endymion Leer. But things get out of hand when the students of Primrose Crabapple's finishing school run away to fairyland after consuming fairy fruit. Nathaniel Chanticleer is forced to forgo his staid ways and think out of the box to get the youngsters back.

The best description of the book I found was in this quotation ascribed to David Lanford and Mike Ashley,  "a moving book, shifting unpredictably from drollery to menace to a high poignancy that sticks in the mind".

Like all great fantasy novels, this is also an allegory perhaps, referring to the necessity of being receptive to new ideas and art. Nathaniel Chanticleer is opposed to change and like most of his upper class, fears any disturbance in his way of life. Fairy fruit that addles the mind and makes people dance is not even mentioned by them.

I found it to be a delightful mix of the droll and fantasy, almost like it was a mix of The Well at the World's End and Pickwick Papers. To get to the bottom of the fairy influence, Chanticleer has to exhume a murder case that is decades old. Which makes it a mystery also.  This mixes in well with the comic and fantasy elements of the book. The fictional world that Mirlees recreates is no less delightful than Narnia or the Middle World.  Do take a moment to consider that Lud in the Mist preceeds both, Narnia Chronicles and Lord of the Rings.

It is a magnificent book which must be on the list of all fantasy fiction readers.