For me, language and land are synonymous; and perhaps, when everything is said and done, others will be able to see that that is what all the books, through the focus on land and language, are concerned for: the healing of schism and then the release back into our anodyne and debased Metropolitan parochial argot of a marginalized linguistic power.
Red Shift had a very intense effect on me when I read it as a child. I could tell there was some sort of power in there. The Stone Book Quartet and Strandloper too, when I read them as an adult. They give me a physical buzz.
How the hell do I get to the end of this book?" (Answer: by not fighting it. A lesson never learnt.)
ahhh