May 14, 2006
Harrowing the Dragon by Patricia A. McKillip
When I wake from one of McKillip's books it is always like rising in the afternoon, muggy with the weight of dreams that latched on to me while I slept. For a while I'm not quite sure who I am or what parts of my life are really real. I look around and think, "wait, how did I end up here?"
To say that I enjoyed McKillip's most recent book of short stories would be likening the winds of a gale to the merest breeze. Every new story that she releases grips me and it seems that she is growing more skilled the more years that she lives.
Harrowing the Dragon is the introduction to her work that I wish I had many years ago when I picked up that first book of hers. It captures tiny bites of the dark and vivid worlds that I have seen her create before, but there is greater variety here; a little bit of all the faces that she shows to us in other works.
I am not a great writer, but McKillip's work makes me want to draw poetry from my bones and set it to paper. It makes me want to dream; to see all those worlds she finds hidden and scattered across her own life.
When I finally wake again to this life and shake off my imaginings, I know that I will never really be able to analyze McKillip's stories. They will always catch me and whirl me away into visions and scents, bright sights and sounds.
That's alright. Sometimes even the most mundane of us needs to dream.
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