To my surprise, I enjoyed The Black Cauldron more than The Book of Three. Some of my issues with the first installment weren't really a problem in the second. Eilonwy seems to be mellowing, but I suppose that only makes sense since it's been about a year between books one and two. Taran is as noble as ever. There's event a sense of Taran coming into his own, overcoming the stigma that comes along with being of a lower rank. There is more to heroism than being a warrior. Although I do still think Lloyd Alexander followed some of the same basic plot ideas as Tolkien. A fellowship of individuals who set out on a quest to retrieve an item of great power and evil and destroy it? I'm sure Tolkien isn't the first to come up with the idea, but still, I wish Lloyd Alexander had deviated just a little bit more. Even the "villainous" character of Ellidyr, who I do greatly pity just like Taran does, behaves quite a lot like Boromir.
Anyway, there is less objectionable content than in the The Black Cauldron Disney film, even with the three enchantresses who are a version of The Fates from Greek mythology. In the film, there are some serious issues, but in the book, there's no changing into frogs and no frogs falling into an enchantress's cleavage. So I was glad. It's a sad story, and a few of the companions do die, although not the main group of 4 characters from The Book of Three, so Taran, Eilonwy, Gurgi, and Fflewddur live to the end. A new favorite character of mine, sadly, didn't make it through to the end of the story, which is a shame. He was lovely, patient, and gracious.
I'm still not sure what I think of the series, or if I want to continue reading, but since books two and three wrapped up quite a bit of the story, I think I might be good to just end my LLoyd Alexander experience with The Black Cauldron, the third book I've read for my Classic Children's Literature Party, going on through the whole month of April. Feel free to join if you're of a mind, and if you're not sure what to read here's a list of reading ideas!
Tolkien used the basic myth structure for quest stories that dates back at least to the Greeks -- lots of fantasy, sci-fi, and adventure stories do that, and since I enjoy quest stories and myth-based tropes and characters, I tend not to mind that there are a lot of similarities. I mean, LOTR, Star Wars, Willow, the Eragon books, the Narnia books, lots of superhero stories, Inkheart, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones -- they're all using classic myth structures and archetypes. So I'm not surprised that these are too.
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