"The trick of growing up is to remember to grow."

The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue was inspired by the W. B. Yeats poem of the same name (which was also used in the wonderful film~in my ever so humble opinion A.I. {based on the short story Supertoys Last All Summer Long by Brian Aldiss})

Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water-rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berries
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim grey sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances,
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And is anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's morefully of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,.
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For to world's morefully of weeping than you can understand.

Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal-chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
from a world more full of weeping than you can understand.

The novel seems to be a metaphor for the strangeness of childhood; which is really the life of an outsider and growing up is learning to fit in, which some of never seem to do. I remember when i was a child i sometimes would feel like i was even outside myself looking in and wonder if i would ever feel like i was truly myself, like maybe when i grew up i would feel like myself. It's kind of funny to remember that now, because i don't ever feel that, even when i stop to observe my own life, does that mean that i've grown into myself now? That i've grown up (perish the thought~for to grow up is to let go of imagination).

A changeling is a member of the fay, a hobgoblin who steals a child and takes his place, the child then becomes a changeling himself until his (or her~don't want to be gender exclusive here) chance to kidnap/return to the human world presents itself. The Stolen Child is the story of both the changeling who steals a child's place, and the child who is then forced to become the changeling. Both feel out of place, and both must learn to find their place.

We all are strangers in this world, and we all wander. I know other adoptees who are convinced that the reason they feel out of place is because they were stolen from their true place, i think that must be too easy an answer. Don't we all need to make our own place in the world? (And what's in a name~to coin a phrase~i mean that's something~most of the time~given to us by parents who don't even know us~though most of us~me included cling to that identity with our very lives~funny really, if you think on it)

This book touched me, perhaps it will touch you, perhaps not. Donohue writes in an artful voice, a voice removed from his characters. It is a voice from another age; some may feel put off by it, but i believe it is appropriate, because his is a tale of days gone by. A tale told to explain away nameless dangers that no longer frighten us. We have new fears now.

*interestingly enough i stumbled on The Other on cable the other night, a movie i had never seen or heard of before, but also on the subject of changelings (why is it that things start popping up once the subject is on your mind~are they always there and you just don't notice them or are there other forces at work? I really had no idea what i was getting into when i clicked that particular OnDemand button...)