Death comes to her in the form of a handsome man. Young Keturah loses her way in the forest and nearly dies of thirst, hunger, and exhaustion. This entry was posted on, in Fantasy Fiction, Young Adult Fiction. If you like faity tale and romantic fantasy and uncoventional quest stories, the journey is well worth your time.
I wish I could have walked with her a little way. Now, as a mother and grandmother, I realize what a long journey dying must be for a child to make alone. “Finally, I express my love to my younger sister, Lorraine, who died many years ago of cystic fibrosis at the age of eleven. Ms Leavitt begins her tale with a snippet of Emily Dickinson (Because I could not stop for Death,/He kindly stopped for me /The carriage held but just ourselves/And Immortality) and ends with this revelation in the Acknowledgments: It is like every morning when you wake up.” “It is like every night when I fall asleep.” “It is as familiar to you as bread and butter.” “You experience something similar every day,” he said softly. He dismounted from his horse, looking at me strangely the whole while. “Tell me what it is like to die,” I answered. It’s not exactly a “Christian” story, but it doesn’t contradict the Christian view of life and death. Lewis would have approved as much as he disapproved of allegory. Keturah and Lord Death isn’t an allegory it’s a regular old story of the kind that C.S. It may be an old folk tale reworked into a modern novel. Or about the power of love to transcend Death. It may be speculative fiction about the inevitability of Death. I thought about saying that it was a sort of prosaic hymn to Death itself, but it’s not that exactly. However, Keturah and Lord Death is neither fish nor fowl, neither romance nor comedy, neither fairy tale nor high tragedy. And then there’s the flavor in the story, if not the humor, of The Princess Bride. I told the Eldest the bare outline of the plot, and she immediately said, “Chaucer’s already used that plot device.” Indeed, Chaucer’s Pardoner’s Tale does have three drunken men go into the forest to meet and conquer Death. This peculiar tale reminded me of Scheherezade in 1001 Nights and of last year’s other Death Personified story, The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak.
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