I just finished Guy Gavriel Kay’s The Summer Tree, the first book in the Fionavar Tapestry and… I didn’t love it.
I’m actually conflicted on what I do feel about it, but it ain’t love.
I absolutely adored the hell out of the Sarantine Mosaic. I thought it was powerful and inventive and lyrical and moving.
The Summer Tree seemed weird. A hodgepodge of writing styles all slapped together uncomfortably. The plot seemed a bit muddled, the shifts in time and POV never felt easy. Kay’s habit of saying things like “If they had done X, things would have worked out…” was just annoying me instead of giving me the rather delicious awareness that it did in the Sarantine books.
But I’m assuming this was an early work, and I’m willing to keep going if it’s worth it. Is it worth it? HALP!
The Summer Tree is his earliest published novel. I’ve not read it but I’ve got the impression it is generally considered his weakest work.
I’ve read Tigana and The Lions of Al-Rassan. They weren’t bad but not really to my taste. Too much use of religion puts me off somewhat. At least in Al-Rassan where the main motivator of the plot is based on 2 religions who hate basically anyone who doesn’t share their beliefs and a 3rd milquetoast religion whose followers get perpetually trod upon. At least that’s my vague recollection from who knows how many years ago. I can barely remember Tigana at all other than finding the characters somewhat annoying. But generally enjoying the book anyway.
No. I also very much liked the Sarantium books, and I think the Fionavar books are just awful, awful, awful. Plus which Arthurian characters start showing up (I can’t remember if this is the first book or second) for no good reason I can remember and acting all emo, which really annoyed me.
Try Tigana or Song for Arbonne, both of which I liked (although I liked the Sarantium books better… but I’ve a thing for Byzantium). I’ve also heard good things about Lions of El-Rassan, though I haven’t read it.
Spectralist, don’t read the Sarantium books – they’re heavily based on historical Byzantium, and you know what was the big topic of discussion in historical Byzantium? Yeah, religion.
I enjoyed the trilogy immensely. It is my favorite of his. But I read it years and years ago and alas, my memory is not sufficient for me to give you much guidance.
The Sarantium books are among my favorites of his (I think I’ve read all his books); the Fionavar books are without doubt my least favorites. I found them derivative, a mashup of Tolkien and the D&D cartoon, and not in a good way.
If you’re looking for another of his books as good as Sarantium, IMO Under Heaven qualifies: it seemed to me like a return to form for him.
Spectralist, that milquetoast religion is Judaism, I think :). (His books set in alternate Europe/Middle East have barely disguised analogs for Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and old pagan cults).
I felt the same way. I love everything else of Kay’s that I’ve read - and I’ve read just about everything he’s written - but the Fionavar Tapestry is one of the very few books I’ve ever started and failed to finish. I just couldn’t get through it. For me, it was the feeling that every few pages he was imitating something else I’d read, whether is was the Lord of the Rings, Narnia, or what have you.
Anyway, all of his alternate Earth stuff is great. The Sarantium books are my favorite, but I also really liked Lions and Tigana. He did one based on Alfred the Great (? - it’s been a while) in England that was fun as well.
I’ve read all of his books within a year of them coming out. I remember enjoying the Fionavar Tapestry as being one of the better fantasy books that owed a huge and obvious debt to Tolkien. I loved the quantum leap that happened between Fionavar and Tigana.
His writing has become a little formulaic over the years - there are so many similarities between themes and plots in Tigana, Lions of Al-Rassan, A Song for Arbonne, The Sarantine Mosaic and The Last Light of the Sun, it was reminding me of the Brother Cadfael series of mysteries.
Ysabel was a welcome departure - this was the first thing he’d written since Fionavar that was about the real world with a world of magic which intrudes upon ours.
I have ‘Under Heaven’ sitting on my night table, but I haven’t got around to it yet…
I guess it depends entirely on how much you feel that continuing with Fionavar would be pushing your way through a book you just don’t like. I really enjoy his other writings - I don’t even remember if I’ve re-read Fionavar, though I’ve re-read all the others.
It’s not surprising that Fionavar seemed so derivative of Tolkien: Kay had recently spent years immersed in Middle Earth, helping edit the Silmarillion. Nevertheless, I rather enjoyed the books, although they’re my least favorite of his.
I think Al-Rassan is probably my favorite of his books, followed by the Sarantine Mosaic. I find the whole conceit of historical fantasy to be quite compelling, personally. I enjoy reading his various books and making the connections to real historical themes and eras.
FWIW, Under Heaven is definitely worth reading. It’s a page-turner.
I have decided to add the next book to my “sabbatical” list on Goodreads. Those are books in series where I’ve decided to take an indefinite break. Honestly, books don’t come off my sabbatical list very often, but it will be there if I ever need a reminder.
Thanks for the input, everyone. If y’all had said, “You’ve gotta keep reading! It gets so good aaaaany second now!” I would have kept going. Because I’m like literate putty in your hands!
Just don’t give up on Kay completely. Read his other stuff. He’s genuinely one of my favorite authors, though he is one I don’t think about very often.
Yeah–I think I’d tell people that if they loved the first book, definitely continue, because there’s no real stylistic change in the trilogy IMO. I kept reading until I was done with them because I kept waiting for the awesome, and it never showed up.
I do enjoy his later books, but as my husband put it, “If he wants to write about medieval Europe, why doesn’t he write about medieval Europe? Why disguise it juuuuuust a little like he does?” I can’t stop thinking, while I’m reading, “Well, Kay Thing X was the analogue of Real History Thing Y. Here’s Kay Thing Z. What’s that supposed to be?”
I see the Finovar Tapestry as an homage, not as a derivative work. Finovar is supposed to be the first world, the Platonic center that all other worlds are a reflection of, which is why pieces of so many mythologies are there, transformed (or in Kay’s vision of their “true state”). By including so many elements from Tolkein, he’s elevating the man’s work, and with it the whole genre of High Fantasy, to the status of other great mythological traditions.
It removes the ‘familiarity factor’, which sometimes obscures the sense of awe at how strange actual historical events are; and
It allows him to add whatever he wants to the plot, without offending sensibilities when he monkies with the lives of well-known historical characters.
I agree with that, mostly – I don’t think Reason #1, defamiliarization, actually works very well in practice, because I’m spending so much energy thinking “Gosh! How familiar this scenario seems!” Though I did mentally calm down a little about it after reading some of his afterwords and realizing that he *knows *he’s writing historical fiction, not fantasy, in a sense (not all senses), and doesn’t mind who knows it. The vague, unexamined sense that the author was trying to fool me somehow was bugging me, I think.
He probably overestimates the average historical knowledge of his audience somewhat. For example, I know vaguely about the life of El Cid, but not enough to actually be bent out of shape by The Lions of Al-Rassan if it was done as a straight historical fiction, or have my sense of wonder impeded by familiarity.
I get that, in theory, and I can see what he was trying to do. My problem was that every page or two, I’d go, “Oh! I know what that’s referring to!” and get snapped out of the story. By the time I’d read enough to sink back into his world, it would happen again. I found it intensely disorienting.
I didn’t have the same problem with his other stuff, because the world’s analogies are always established very quickly, as part of the general exposition, and then I can happily sink into it without being jolted back to the real world.
I didn’t experience what you’re talking about, but the shifts from flowery, poetic language to flat, modern language bothered me. The little inversions like “Beautiful she was, and oh…” felt almost like parodies of grown up writing at times. I mean, he’s not the most naturalistic writer and I’m okay with that and quite like what he does in other books, but it just felt weird and clunky in this one–probably because he simply wasn’t as skilled yet.
All I can tell you is, Kay’s weakest work or not, there are pieces in all of the books, although the last two book in particular, that <i>still</i> make me weepy. I reread it from time to time. *Ysabel *has semi-cameos from two of the main characters in the Fionvar Tapestry.