Eden

The final book of the Fionavar Tapestry is, unsurprisingly, the longest. After the long build up of the first two books, the war finally really gets underway. It's still very Lord of the Rings, with all the races joining up and wars and a lone person making his way into the heart of darkness, etc. In another way, it's completely not like Lord of the Rings at all. For one thing, not everyone lives. Boromir aside, most of the main characters in Lord of the Rings survive. Not so with Fionavar. Guy Gavriel Kay, as I have observed before, does not go gently. I kind of want to shake him and curse him, at the same time as admiring what he does with it, and how much he's made me care about the characters.

There are also some beautiful, fitting conclusions that make me very happy.

There are also some rather strange conclusions that baffle me. I think I've observed before that GGK is not so great with intentional romance. I don't feel Paul and Jaelle at all, for example -- I can see what he tries to do with them, and I understand why he thinks they'd be suited to each other in one way, but when it comes down to it, I really don't feel anything about them getting together. Same thing with the hint of romance between Kim and Dave (that follows through into Ysabel). Just... why? Where's it coming from? And yet something that could have been good, like Kim and Aileron -- don't tell me I was the only one? -- doesn't happen at all. These, however, are minor flaws.

Throughout the trilogy, GGK's writing is beautiful. Some of the scenes in this book are so very vivid that they stick in even my very-much-not-visual kind of brain. The image of Leyse floating down to the sea, for example. The death scenes are all lovely in a painful way, especially (for me) the one after the large urgach has been killed. They're like punches in the gut.

I still don't feel like my reviews have managed to capture how much I love this trilogy. Forget the flaws: I love it. I love the characters and the world, and the writing. If you can't get past the flaws, fair enough, but there is a real gem here, I think.

I've posted a general review of the Fionavar Tapestry trilogy before, here, but I never felt that quite cut it. So this a review of the first book, The Summer Tree, and separate reviews of the rest of the trilogy will follow. It's worth looking at my overview of the trilogy, too, because I'm not going to repeat all of it, necessarily.

Firstly, the trilogy does seem very derivative, mostly of Tolkien, although me and my mother once went through spotting myriads of possible influences. There are great points of similarity between this trilogy and Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, but there are differences. The mythology is much more plainly taken from ours -- as is appropriate, given the idea that Fionavar is the true plane and our world one of many reflections -- and woven very deeply into the whole story. So much relies upon the gods, rituals belonging to the gods, etc, even though mortals are the ones taking actions. Gods are rather less present in Tolkien, particularly in Lord of the Rings. It's also quite a lot shorter.

Not that it doesn't pack a punch. In three hundred pages, I'm as invested in these characters as I ever am in Frodo. More about that in a minute.

It's not exactly perfect, even though I think it's powerful. The first few chapters don't really catch my attention, and seem kind of like a Mary Sue fanfic. The prose is a little odd, sometimes, sometimes rather closer to poetry, which I didn't like at first. If you go with it, it's fine, or so I found.

The characters were my main draw, really. Paul and Kevin in particular: Kevin's love for Paul, his yearning and desperation; Paul's helplessness, hardness, coldness, grieving, selfishness, selflessness. I feel their relationship very strongly. Diarmuid arouses mixed feelings in me: I know I didn't like him the first time I read it, but this time through, I read it with sympathy for him. This trilogy definitely doesn't suffer from rereads, for me, probably benefits from it because I'm already invested, despite the (to my mind) weak beginning.

The setting is another draw. The blending of mythology is lovely and appropriate.

It's also amazing how much gets set up for later. Tabor, Jennifer, Matt, Leila, Jaelle... Reading it now, and knowing how things go, I'm amazed at how well everything is set up in this book.

I can understand the beginning being a turn-off, but give it chance. It has a charm and a draw of its own. I feel like this review only began to touch on how much I love these books and why. Just for one more illustration... The Summer Tree is one of the few books that makes me choke up every time. The rest of the trilogy is also on that list. I find the writing extremely powerful, despite the first-novel pitfalls.

For bottle_of_shine's cat herding challenge, which, misleadingly, involves no cats. It actually involves books. And you can read more about it here. The basic idea starts with listing ten books you love. I've decided to list trilogies and the like as a single book, otherwise my list would get swallowed up by about two authors! But I'd say that reading and reviewing any book from the trilogy/series would count as one.

( Ten books I love )

Time for some more recs, since I have plenty saved in my del.icio.us account. xD As ever, if we talk on IM often, share the same general flist content, or you watch my del.icio.us, you've seen all these before. Check the tags to see what fandoms/pairings I've recced this time. :D

( Fic )

( Art )