The White Mountains

[sawyl]

For reasons of nostalgia, I've revisited John Christopher's The White Mountains. The first of his three Tripods novels which I came to via the BBC adaptation — my memories of the series are vague, although I do remember being deeply creeped out, but not so much so that I didn't wolf down the books from the library.

The story opens with country boy Will Parker losing his only friend, his cousin Jack, to adulthood when Jack is Capped by the Tripods. When a vagrant called Ozymandias offers will a map showing the way to the White Mountains and freedom, Will decides to run away rather than risk being Capped and losing his free will. To his surprise he is joined by his cousin Henry, whom he initially dislikes, and later by a clever Frenchman nickname Beanpole. Travelling cross country they make their way through the ruins of Paris, take refuge in a feudal chateau where Will is tempted to stay, before making a mad final dash for the mountains, outwitting a group of hunting Tripods along the way.

The book is short and very straightforward; a real Boy's Own adventure. Christopher does a nice job of the world building, having the main characters encounter things with which the reader is familiar — the Shmand-Fair, Notre-Dame de Paris, a crate containing rifles — but which Will can only describe in the vaguest and most baffled of terms. The character aren't particularly profound while Eloise, the only girl, doesn't really serve a purpose other than to remind Will of the cost of giving up his dream of freedom and becoming an aristocrat.

Despite being a sentimental re-read, the book ultimately falls a little flat; partly because the characters lack depth and partly because they feel like they're so safely cocooned by the narrative that they can't help but succeed. The Tripod hunt, when it comes towards the, adds some much needed tension but it doesn't entirely make up for the rest of the narrative. But on the plus side, the book is short and I remember the second book being rather better...