Review: "The Forgotten Beasts of Eld" by Patricia McKillip

The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia McKillip
50th Anniversary Edition published February 2024 via Tachyon Publications
★★★★

High on a mountain, far outside the confines of society lives a woman, a wizard—Sybel. Hers is a solitary existence, with only the great magical beasts passed down from her father to keep her company, and it's a life that suits her. But times change, and when she is given charge of an infant to raise, she can no longer predict and shape the path of her life the way she once could.

"Is this all you want? To live here on this mountain, speaking only to animals who live in the dreams of their past, and to Tam, who will have a future that you cannot have? You are bound here by your father's rules, you live his life. You will live, grow old, and die here, living for others who do not need you. Tam one day will not need you. What, in years to come, will you have in your life but a silence that is meaningless, ancient names that are never spoken beyond these walls?" (loc. 581)

I first read The Forgotten Beasts of Eld more than two decades ago—I think I must have been twelve or thirteen. It was and is not my usual reading fare, so it was likely something of my sister's that made its way into the family bookshelves (my family has never been short of books). And I promptly forgot most of it, retaining only the barest outline of a wintery protagonist and the bird named Liralen, which I (also promptly) borrowed for a username and have yet to return.

As long ago as I read this, it's been around longer:The Forgotten Beasts of Eld was first published in 1974, and so 2024 marks its 50th anniversary. And it has held up to the test of time: I understand Sybel and her—not coldness, perhaps, but distance from the world—much better as an adult than I ever could twenty-odd years ago. She's distant from the world and at home in her isolation, yet also drawn to things she cannot name or fully understand; drawn to both a world of men and a world of magical creatures. I don't want to get too much into the plot (or the Liralen—again, I'd forgotten the details, and I am puzzled anew, which pleases me), but this is a classic of the genre for a reason. I'm looking forward to reading it again in another decade or two.

Thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.