Young Writers Society

It has been to my consternation that for the last year or so the internet has soaked up the time I usually give to reading. While it has taught me a lot, I do not relish relinquishing my close and personal contact with literature.

Enchantment really revitalized this, to an extent. It's difficult not to adore Orson Scott Card, but this is one book which brought me back to the all-too-familiar sleepless nights spent reading. People ask me, don't you fall asleep or get bored reading?

No! If you love reading, and the author is a good one, a book can keep you as mentally awake as physical activity at that time of night. Admittedly, my latest volumes have been stuff on

Thomism, Christianity, philosophy, and other such things. I like it, but even I have to admit, fascinating though it may be, it's not exciting literature.

Enchantment brought me back to this point. I'm very thankful to Card for once again producing a novel which drew me in so effectively, and I realize I should really insert some Heinlein or Koontz in there with all my educational volumes.

The book is essentially a modern-day fairytale, but if you know Card, you know that that hardly begins to describe it. To start off, it's not an American fairy tale--it's actually based on Russian mythology, where such stories tend to be of a darker, tenser sort. A young Russian, Ivan, discovers in his youth the equivalent of sleeping beauty. But, forced to Judaism in order to flee the collapsing country to America, he leaves just as he finds it. Of course, as most would, he attempts to rationalize away the discovery over the intervening years, which he spends becoming his father's star pupil of ancient Slavonic languages, and working towards a doctorate in Russian mythology. In order to finish this, he must return to his home country and study original texts. Six months later, he is finished, but there is something that has haunted his dreams since he was a young child. He returns to the place where he once ran in fear from a chasm of shifting leaves, with a woman lying on a pedestal at the center.

From here on out, it would best be your own reading to make the best impact of the rest of the story. I will only tell you that it is an enticing novel, and one you won't want to put down.