Cart and Cwidder

I finished this quick read in a day. This cute fantasy read combines covered carts, a family of performers, ancient secrets revealed, and musical instruments that become magical. The plot and characters were well developed for the first book in a quartet. I had already read some of Jones other fantasy works and, as with those, this book intrigued me. Your heart goes out to the children who are forced to grow up quickly and make difficult choices once their father is killed and their destiny is revealed. I look forward to reading the other books in the series.

In the Dalemark Quartet, of which this is the first volume, Diana Wynne Jones is attempting something fresh and ambitious. Unlike the standard fantasy series, in which each volume follows the continuing adventures of a single cast of characters - a series of tunes played on the same set of instruments - this one really is designed as a "quartet". Each of the first three books is all but independent of the rest, told in its own distinct voice. They interlock in many ways, but in subtle ones - common geography, a set of family names that link with the long history of Dalemark and its peculiar "gods", known in Dalemark as the Undying. Only halfway through the third book does the depth of the historical and the very original mythological patterns begin to come into focus. The "quartet" of voices - the travelling singer Moril in this book, the sailor's apprentice Mitt in the second, the weaver Cennoreth in the third, and the time travelling teen Maewen in the last - are neatly balanced. The two boys are from the Dalemark's "present," an age of political intrigues with a three musketeers flavor, and the girls are from the far past and the not so far future. One of each gender is from the North, the other from the South, and the ultimate task facing them all is to reunite the torn land under a single monarch.Each of the first three volumes on its own comprises a satisfying story, if a bit open-ended. Cart and Cwidder is the most successful as a stand-alone story. The lute-like cwidder that Moril's father plays for a living as the family's gipsy cart wends through Dalemark's towns gradually discloses its magical powers, but it's the play of personalities that will keep you turning the pages.There's the daydreaming Moril, his father Clennen, the jovial showman, his older brother Dagner, brimming with talent but painfully shy, his perceptive and sharp-tongued sister Brid, their mysteriously quiet high-born mother Lenina, and an elusive paying passenger whose humility seems like mockery. All these vivid first impressions are real, but they all turn out to be just surface manifestations of the deeper waters running through every member of the troupe. You'll want to hear more about Moril's adventures when you finish Cart and Cwidder. Be advised that you'll have to lay your eagerness aside. All the members of the quartet will be brought together again in the long fourth volume, where Moril's voice will carry only a little of the melody; and there are three solos to be played in full before the final harmonizing.

For as long as he can remember, Moril has been travelling around in a cart, singing for all of Dalemark with his family: His father Clennen the Singer, his mother Lenina, his brother Dagner, and his sister Brid. Things are wonderful for him. But when his father decides to take in a passenger, things change for the worse. Kialan, their new fellow traveller, is on is way North, and it seems that the journey is going to seem very long with him in the cart. Moril can't stand him. When Moril has his lessons with his father for playing his cwidder and singing the old songs, Kialan stands right next to them and listens. He claims that he doesn't want to watch their shows and will meet them at the edge of town, and yet Moril never fails to see him in the audience during their performances. Fourteen year old Kialan complains about Clennen's story about how the famed singer and Lenina met, and claims that it is all a lie. Moril can't take anymore of it. And things really take a turn when some men come and kill Clennen. Lenina immediately drives the cart to Markind and marries the man she was engaged to before she met Clennen. Moril and his siblings are astounded at how she just walked away from her past life and changed her personality and style entirely. So that is when Dagner, Kialan, Brid, and Moril decide to run away. They need to take Kialan North anyway, so it makes a good excuse. They have to rely on only themselves. They must perform for villages they pass and survive without the aid of their late father and changed mother. And when Tholian, a newly-appointed Earl, begins trying to catch the youngsters, Moril must learn to use his ability to get lost in a dream, to escape into a world inside his mind, to help him use the cwidder he inherited to fight against the forces of evil an help reunite the North and the South of Dalemark. This book was a wonderful installment in the Dalemark Quartet. It was absolutely magnificent. It left me wanting to read more about Moril and his friends and family. I recommend this book for anyone who enjoyed the Narnia Chronicles, other books by Diana Wynne Jones, and good fantasy books. You will not regret reading this book, and you will simply have to go buy the next three books in this spectacular quartet.

This book is unbelievable! The librarian at my school reecommended it, and when I read the back of the book it sounded kind of weird. What is a cwidder, I wanted to know. Well, it turns out that a cwidder is an amazing instrument that you can use to make your thoughts control people. First, Moril has to figure out exactly how to use this cwidder, then he has to get to North Dalemark, where he belongs, not the South. Well, you can tell that my opimion of the book has changed since then! If you like fantasy, magic, and a wonderful story YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK!!