04 December 2003 EAST by Edith Pattou, Harcourt, September 2003, ISBN 0-15-204563-5

"Peter Lake rode Athansor at a lope over snow-covered streets with the north wind against him. It was very cold, and the wind put icicles on his mustache. Though the doctor hadn't known that the woman Peter Lake loved was in the midst of dying, his advice could not have been more appropriate or more painful to hear, especially because it echoed what Beverly had said not long before in the second (though by far not the last) delirium in which he was to see her. 'I'm just like you,' she had told him. 'I come from another age. But there are many things that we must take care of now.' " --Mark Helprin, WINTER'S TALE

A powerful-yet-vunerable white bear tugging at my heartstrings, an icy cold landscape so palpable as to make my lungs, toes, and eyeballs ache, and waves of romanticism woven through and through Edith Pattou's EAST has me thinking back to Peter Lake, his majestic white horse, his love for Beverly, and the frozen Lake of the Coheeries.

Of course many readers of EAST will, instead, be thinking of Beauty and the Beast, Psyche and Cupid, or the original East of the Sun, West of the Moon. Or, so I am told by Shari. I don't know about all those old stories. I was a child who leapt from Henry Huggins, Chester the Cricket, and Freddy the Pig to Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman with but a brief stop on MY SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN (where I picked up a happy meal of Sam Clemens). Fortunately, one of the benefits of being married to the English major/English teacher is that I get essential explanations of the traditional tale ties to today's terrific teen lit. (Yes, she's also taught me alliteration.)

(Rose)

"Riding a bear was nothing like riding a horse. First of all, the bear was far larger, and I could not ride with both legs straddling his back, the way one does with a horse. At first I didn't move at all but stayed frozen in the position I had been in when I had landed on the broad back--sort of a crouch, my legs tucked under me. When he first began to move, I instinctively grabbed hold of the fur at the back of his neck to keep from sliding off.

"But after a few hours I grew stiff. I had the feeling we would be traveling for a long time, so I got bolder and began to shift my body, trying to find a comfortable position. I finally settled with one leg dangling down and the other bent under me. I didn't need to use my legs to hold on. Despite his enormous speed, the white bear's gait was surprisingly smooth and his back so broad that as long as I kept a firm hold on his thick fur, I was in no danger of falling off."

The tale of EAST is told in alternating passages by Rose, her brother Neddy, Father, White Bear, and Troll Queen. To the dismay of her superstitious, overbearing, essentially crazy mother, Rose's birth direction is north. Rose is a wild child, a natural weaver and wanderer in a family that is otherwise loving but oh-so-different than she.

(Neddy)

"Her eyes were not blue like ours but that striking purple that looked black in some lights. She was small and stocky, with gleaming hair the color of chestnuts. My hair was brown as well, but the rest of the family had fair hair, and we were all long-limbed and tall--all except for Rose. Yet despite her short legs, she managed to move faster than any of us."

Unbeknownst to anyone but Neddy, the even faster-moving White Bear had long ago saved the life of the young toddling Rose when she fell in a pool at the bottom of a gorge during one of her earliest explorations. Now, years later, when circumstances for Rose's family are at their direst, White Bear suddenly appears at their door and offers them an exchange that results in Rose's bear-back journey away from her family to the castle in the mountain where, nightly, in the dark, she has a silent, unknown visitor to her bedside.

(Rose)

"One or two times I was overtaken by the strong desire to reach over across the bed and touch whatever it was, to see if my fingers would encounter skin or fur or...But that, too, felt strictly forbidden, even more than talking, and somehow I knew I must not risk it.

"Yet I never stopped trying to guess who my visitor was. I came to believe that it was the white bear. His smaller size was due to the fact that he had shed his fur for the night, which would also explain the lack of bulk. From riding on his back I knew just how deep and heavy the bear's coat was. And this theory fit with something I had noticed--that the figure next to me often shivered, pulling the covers up close and tight as if to warm himself. I couldn't imagine just what the bear would look like without fur, but the idea didn't repulse me. Instead it made me feel sympathy for him."

Rose's tragic, unintentional betrayal of her night visitor, and her resulting epic journey to right that wrong, reveal a determined and heroic female character and a colorful supporting cast--not the least of which is the setting of blustery seas and endless, sometimes towering, ice that stretches out before her. I really enjoyed the irascible, drunken sea captain named Thor. And then there is the powerful Troll Queen, whose portrayal makes her seem both recognizable and truly other than human. Like Rose's mother, the insidious and misguided Troll Queen is a complex character who seeks to have her way no matter what the cost.

And where, in WINTER'S TALE, we have the magical disappearance and reemergence of Peter Lake and his white horse over time, the magic in EAST focuses around the origin and resulting trials of White Bear.

(White Bear)

Throwing a red, red ball.

A voice like gravel.

Lost.

Then...

Huge, lumbering body.

Four legs, not two. Wide silent feet

Smells, overwhelming.

And hunger, all the time.

And hot. Prickling, stuffed-in heat.

Need to move, always move.

Find the cold lands.

Snow and ice

White, endless.

Alone.

Lost.

A red ball. Lost.

Lost.

In my (more temperate) part of the world, the fourth grader, the ninth grader, the best friend, the English teacher, and a couple of the middle school Dungeon and Dragon dudes had all been urging me to read this one. Having done so, I join them in recommending that no matter in which direction you have been born, be sure to make your way to EAST.

Richie Partington

http://richiespicks.com

BudNotBuddy@aol.com