The Summer Tree
February 1st 2008 06:49
Book 3 of my almighty slog of 2008 is 'The Summer Tree', the first in a trilogy of fantasy novels by Guy Gavriel Kay, published in the 1980s, and collectively referred to as 'The Fionavar Tapestry'. Gavriel Kay (or just Kay - why do some people insist on having three names? It makes it hard to refer to them correctly in reviews like this and it makes it equally annoying if you have to arrange their books alongside other books in alphabetical order. Be damned!) is probably best known for this trilogy, but his enduring legacy will be his editorial work on J. R. R. Tolkein's 'The Silmarillion', which he helped Christopher Tolkein put together. Gavriel Kay originally trained as a lawyer before turning to writing, and is based in Canada. He can be largely viewed as carrying on Tolkein's legacy, and is amongst the first to tap into the second wave of interest that Lord of the Rings generated (mostly amongst university students in the 1970s - check your dad's bookcase for proof).
I waded into 'The Summer Tree' with a view in mind of adding it to the canon of must-read fantasy classics that are slowly being collated in my head. And whilst it's influence probably shouldn't be wholly discounted, I have to admit that I was somewhat disappointed in what this book initially seemed to offer, and with hindsight this impression is probably the result of many, many other paint-by-numbers fantasy epics having followed in the years since. So I'm trying to be as objective as possible, and I'm trying to ignore the aspects of this work that have since become cliches as they most likely weren't cliches when Gavriel Kay first wrote them.
The novel concerns the coming of five Canadian university students into the fantasy-realm of Fionavar. They are collected by a mage and brought from our world to this older, more magical one for the purposes of celebrating the king's 50th anniversary as ruler of High Brennin (one of the five major kingdoms contained in the continent of Fionavar). What the five students don't realise is that they have unwittingly been brought into a political powder keg waiting to explode - various factions vye for control of the throne and, somewhat more ominously, a chained God of destruction and darkness waits to make his comeback in the far north. It doesn't take long for the group to split up, and soon most of the five are finding their places in this world of gods and legends.
All the usual staples are present... mysterious and gruff dwarves, elf-like beings ofwisdom and light known as the lios alfar, a shady middle-eastern style empire to the south, a pantheon of enigmatic gods, an being of surpreme evil who once fought a mighty war against the allied peoples of Fionavar, and High Brennin itself - a medieval kingdom full of behind-the-scenes machinations and a cadre of jealous priestesses who worship a god known as the Mother. It's safe to say that a certain degree of the novel is derivative of Tolkein, and it's also in danger of turning into a bit of a yawnfest up until the third segment of the book, which introduces the Dalrei - a plain-dwelling people with more than a few resemblances to native americans. This part of the novel hooked me right in and was a pleasant break from all the usual fantasy info-dumping that had so far filled the book's 400-odd pages.
Also, as much as this book sometimes consciously resembles the work of Tolkein, Gavriel Kay does seem to be on a mission to correct his hero's mistakes. He aims to layer his story by making his characters deeper and more realistic, and thus gives the novel a more human element than Tolkein could ever achieve. Sometimes it's quite jarring to read the more adult aspects of the storyline that accompany these five modern earth-based protagonists as they move about and interact with this fantasy world, but it also serves to remind the reader (in this case, me!) that the stakes have been raised. Gavriel Kay aims big and probably introduces far too many characters and factions for his own good, along with a boggling amount of mythical backstory and magical artefacts, and whilst the presence of five identifiable characters should've made it easier to introduce concepts and background it doesn't to really swing that way, and I only really grasped who and what everything was by the very end of the book. The one exception to this is the Dalrei segment of the book, which is allowed to move along at it's own pace and without confusing asides to other characters and unexplained situations, which is probably why it stood out for me so much and helped cement my resolve to continue with the trilogy as a whole.
Oh, and it should also be said that the ending of 'The Summer Tree' is very good. Remember how I mentioned 'the stakes' just before? The ending puts them up very high and has a great sense of momentum and synchronicity, and all in all it leaves the book on a very high note. I can't really give much more of a review than that as it's really just the first volume of a larger story, so I'll continue my thoughts (and, eventually, my overall opinion) after I've read the next book.
So long suckers!
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