Naaramare: I think you've hit upon the thing that really bugs me about McKiernan. Admittedly I've only read one book by him, but your reaction to Mithgar strikes the same chord:
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...he apes, but does not internalize, the lingual style...
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Precisely. And well stated. That dragon of his in "Winter's Night" just bugged me. I roared with indignation. "You had such great mythic stature and you threw it all away, you IDIOT!" Maybe he's just not that good. Well, I think I'll avoid Mithgar.
Ah yes, Diarmuid and "the gesture". Quite moving. By the way, GGK really ticked me off when [SPOILER ALERT!] the great white dragon got let off the hook of fulfilling its destiny and a little flying unicorn has to "stand" in its stead in order to achieve the eucatastrophe. Admittedly, with the great white dragon, there never could have been the eucatastrophe Kay achieved; on the other hand the one he drew up I found totally unbelievable. So even if I could have reached that state of wonder, it was shortcircuited by this failure (the author's I insist) to persuade me to maintain my suspension of disbelief. But I think his eucatastrophe could have been even better, because he could have allowed the great white dragon to be destroyed by (i forget his name) the evil dude in the far northern fortress, and then the little flying unicorn would have had my sympathy as the last small hope. It's been a few years so I don't remember all the names, but that one failure (i won't say ruined) mitigated the book's wonder for me.
Belin: It's been so long since I read
The Last Unicorn. Luckily, I own it and can refresh my memory. I remember a pervasive sadness based in the realization that all the wonder was dying away. As a male reader, the last unicorn turning into a beautiful woman (with a certain amount of magic about her) lent to the wonder, too.
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...wonder depends not so much on which details are used as on the story's relationship to its details...
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This is a great summation of the thing I'm getting at. Thank you for saying it so well.
Here's something to stir the discussion juices: I think
Redwall is subpar. My wife devoured the entire corpus but I struggled through just the first book and decided, 'no more'. I think of Tolkien's distinction between
fairytale and
beastfable and wonder if the author was trying to do too much. Then again, maybe he could have succeeded but failed on account of the story's relationship to its details. For one thing, I always found the thing too pat. Like a Disney movie. Formulaic. "Okay, here's another evil villain whose evil plans the good guys will frustrate, and this villain too will die at the hands of his supposed allies or some outside force because the good guys never murder, don't even kill in battle. They're too good. Ho hum.