Every now and then (or maybe just this once) I want to share and recommend a book or a series that has impacted my thinking about the lowest place.
This week I read The Chronicles of Prydain, by Lloyd Alexander. It’s a children’s series, I would say about 5th grade reading level. Each book is short, and the writing is stylized. Not necessarily the kind of read that most adults enjoy. But these books gave me one of my first experiences with the journey to the lowest place.
I first read the series in middle school or maybe early high school. And I felt as though here in my hands was wisdom. Fantasy books are all about the humble woodcutter hiding secret power, and unlocking that power to save the world, thus rising to fame and glory. This series is no less dramatic in its scope. But the tension that Lloyd Alexander plays out brilliantly is: there are some kinds of power (or maybe all of them) that need to be sacrificed rather than claimed.
The story wrestles with the themes of pride and humility, of glory and lowliness. Is a hero someone like Prince Gwydion, who is wise and strong and competent in all things? Is a hero someone like Coll, the grower of turnips and pruner of apple trees? What tasks are truly worth doing? What work brings the most glory and honor? Is it slaying monsters or hoeing a field?
More centrally, as the characters move from book to book, from one crucial choice to another, they continually choose to give up the thing most precious to them.
When I read a book, the thing I take away from it, the impact that it makes on me, usually comes, not from the plot, not from the world, not even necessarily from the characters, but from the overall aesthetic–which, to me, is a combination of all three. What kinds of people are these? What kinds of choices do they make? And, when they make their choices, what kind of mercy (or lack thereof) does the author have on them?
Some books have an essentially selfish aesthetic. The characters want the things they want, and luckily enough, circumstances work out to bring them a happy ending.
Still other books try to be more realistic: The characters aren’t necessarily good or bad, and what happens to them is as random and chaotic, or potentially tragic, as what happens in “real life.”
The aesthetic of The Chronicles of Prydain is the aesthetic of the lowest place: “He who tries to save his life will lose it; but he who loses his life for my sake will save it.”
The Lowest Place 
On book 1….or book of three, hehe. Thanks for recommending.