“Magic in Clarke’s novel is synonymous or inseparable from the living force of the natural world. It doesn’t seek to refuse reality or deny history. Instead magic functions as a radical rejection of stasis and separateness, a dissolving of borders not just on the level of nations but on the level of individual consciousness. When Drawlight is swallowed up by the enchanted wood, Clarke writes: “The trees, the stones and the earth had taken him inside themselves, but in their shape it was possible still to discern something of the man he had once been.” This is the darker side of Clarke’s vision of interlinkedness, an eco-consciousness that is all-consuming, vengeful even, rather than benevolent. But even this ambiguous force carries with it a kind of hope: Drawlight’s devouring represents a world where humans function as part of nature rather than stand outside of it. He is able to live “inside” the world while still retaining “something of the man he had once been.” In her depiction of magic, Clarke reintegrates the human into the natural.”
A Candle Burning: Nation and The Agency of Nature in Fantasy, Caroline Shea
