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Title: A Song for Arbonne
Author: Guy Gavriel Kay
Genre: Low-magic fantasy in medieval France analog
Thingummies: 4
Synopsis: Sunny, troubadour-obsessed Arbonne shares an uneasy border with their militaristic northern neighbor. But it's the personal--love, ambition, and betrayal--that will determine the fates of the two countries.
Thoughts: Gorgeous description and gracefully revealed plot points keeps this novel of low magic but high stakes streaking along to a well-resolved conclusion. A host of well-drawn and memorable characters are constantly tangling with each other in new and complicated ways, both funny and heart-breaking. Many of them are impressively complex, from the two lords feuding over the love of a lady twenty years dead to reigning queen of the Court of Love, bound in a political marriage to a man whose role in her life she resents but who she personally respects. Kay manages to create characters that a modern reader will empathize with, without grafting on modern ideals that historical people would personally find baffling.
One nice touch is that the frequent poetry (this is, after all, the land of troubadours) rings true. The poetry is fairly decent, something that has tripped up many authors who needed songs for their characters to sing. It also feels right for the time period.
But while the majority of the characters are well-rounded and the majority of the plot points well-paced, there are a couple glaring exceptions that keep me from giving the book five stars. The first problem is that of Lisseut, a female jogleur who serves as a major viewpoint character. The problem is, she doesn't do anything. I like her, but it's pretty clear that the only reason she exists is because Kay doesn't want to have a couple key scenes from the viewpoint of Blaise, his main protagonist. Blaise is there--we could easily see the scene through his eyes--but Kay wants to avoid revealing a few surprises too early and so we watch the scene through someone else. But while she is present for a number of critical scenes, she never impacts anything at all. She learns a critical secret, which she then never tells a soul, allowing Blaise to delay telling the secret himself for all of half an hour. She's there at a major diplomatic turning point, but she never does anything. She's privy to the musings of several key characters, but she contributes no advice nor changes any minds. If I'm going to spend so much time in someone's head, I'd like them to have part of the action. On the opposite end of the spectrum, a minor character turns out to be Major Indeed in the last chapter or two. But to preserve a secret, the character is kept hidden, only alluded to, for the majority of the book. Given how pivotal this person is, it would have been nice to learn more earlier.
Worse are the two villains. Blaise's father does at least turn out to be a little more complex than we'd realized, with more than just fanaticism at the end. But only at the very end. The evil king, on the other hand, is completely over the top to a ridiculous degree. Not only does he "kick the dog", his very first scene consists of him literally setting starving cats on the crippled dog and enjoying the bloodshed while forcing someone to give him a blowjob and making the entire court watch. Given how complicated the motivations are for many of the other characters, having such a ludicrously over-the-top minor villain seems a bit like cheating. Surely we could have come up with someone whose defeat readers would root for without using such a cardboard cutout of a mustache-twirler.
Still, despite these flaws, the book is nonetheless beautifully written and totally engrossing. Well worth the time.
Author: Guy Gavriel Kay
Genre: Low-magic fantasy in medieval France analog
Thingummies: 4
Synopsis: Sunny, troubadour-obsessed Arbonne shares an uneasy border with their militaristic northern neighbor. But it's the personal--love, ambition, and betrayal--that will determine the fates of the two countries.
Thoughts: Gorgeous description and gracefully revealed plot points keeps this novel of low magic but high stakes streaking along to a well-resolved conclusion. A host of well-drawn and memorable characters are constantly tangling with each other in new and complicated ways, both funny and heart-breaking. Many of them are impressively complex, from the two lords feuding over the love of a lady twenty years dead to reigning queen of the Court of Love, bound in a political marriage to a man whose role in her life she resents but who she personally respects. Kay manages to create characters that a modern reader will empathize with, without grafting on modern ideals that historical people would personally find baffling.
One nice touch is that the frequent poetry (this is, after all, the land of troubadours) rings true. The poetry is fairly decent, something that has tripped up many authors who needed songs for their characters to sing. It also feels right for the time period.
But while the majority of the characters are well-rounded and the majority of the plot points well-paced, there are a couple glaring exceptions that keep me from giving the book five stars. The first problem is that of Lisseut, a female jogleur who serves as a major viewpoint character. The problem is, she doesn't do anything. I like her, but it's pretty clear that the only reason she exists is because Kay doesn't want to have a couple key scenes from the viewpoint of Blaise, his main protagonist. Blaise is there--we could easily see the scene through his eyes--but Kay wants to avoid revealing a few surprises too early and so we watch the scene through someone else. But while she is present for a number of critical scenes, she never impacts anything at all. She learns a critical secret, which she then never tells a soul, allowing Blaise to delay telling the secret himself for all of half an hour. She's there at a major diplomatic turning point, but she never does anything. She's privy to the musings of several key characters, but she contributes no advice nor changes any minds. If I'm going to spend so much time in someone's head, I'd like them to have part of the action. On the opposite end of the spectrum, a minor character turns out to be Major Indeed in the last chapter or two. But to preserve a secret, the character is kept hidden, only alluded to, for the majority of the book. Given how pivotal this person is, it would have been nice to learn more earlier.
Worse are the two villains. Blaise's father does at least turn out to be a little more complex than we'd realized, with more than just fanaticism at the end. But only at the very end. The evil king, on the other hand, is completely over the top to a ridiculous degree. Not only does he "kick the dog", his very first scene consists of him literally setting starving cats on the crippled dog and enjoying the bloodshed while forcing someone to give him a blowjob and making the entire court watch. Given how complicated the motivations are for many of the other characters, having such a ludicrously over-the-top minor villain seems a bit like cheating. Surely we could have come up with someone whose defeat readers would root for without using such a cardboard cutout of a mustache-twirler.
Still, despite these flaws, the book is nonetheless beautifully written and totally engrossing. Well worth the time.
