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Kushiel's Dart
Dec. 26th, 2003 05:02 pmSome books suck you right in while others require a running start. Sometimes they require two running starts, but that doesn't mean that they aren't worth it.
A book that sucks you in relies on playing to your kinks, your preferences. It's something you're predisposed to like, whether by tone, style or subject matter. A book that requires effort to catch your interest, but then becomes such high quality that you are entrapped just as tightly is all the more impressive for that initial resistance. For me, C.J. Cherryh's Foreigner trilogies are one such piece of work, (actually, all of Cherry's work is an effort to start. Some just happens to be an effort to continue as well. Sorry![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ase.)
Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey is another such work, one where the pay-off is even more rewarding. I attempted it about a month ago and was continually distracted by other, seemingly more engaging, books. This time, with greater resolve, I pushed past the 50 page mark quickly...
...and barely put it down afterwards.
Kushiel's Dart takes place in a re-imagined Europe similar to that of Mary Gentle's Lost Burgundy trilogy, in that the lands and peoples are at once both strange and familiar. The Tiberian Empire is long gone leaving behind a mess of city-states in the south, The Skaldic tribes inhabit the great Eastern reaches, Alba and Eire belong to the Picti in the north and Terre D'Ange sits in the heartland, home to a people born of angels.
This is the great departure point, an alternate theology springing from the offspring of Yeshua ben Josef and the Magdalene, a scion named Elua who was so beautiful and full of life that he lured Angels from Heaven to Mother Earth to live as his companions on earth, following the one commandment "Love as thou wilt."
Phedre is born into this world a thousand years or more after those events. Daughter of a poor courtesan she is sold into a form of slavery and discovered to bear the mark of the angel Kushiel in her eye, signifying that she will feel pain and pleasure as one. A rare phenomenon, her condition is given the interesting name of anguisette.
Trained as both courtesan and spy, Phedre inhabits a realm full of cultured political intrigue and barbaric violence, using her wits, wiles and the curse of Kushiel both to survive and to serve the will of her Patron.
I love political intrigue. It's one form of plot that I can never seem to master myself. It comes from not having the social skills to hold so many people and relationships in my brain at one time. Melanie Rawn's first novel Dragon Prince embodies the sort of political infighting I'm referring to; intricate dealings and trade-offs, oblique messages and knives-in-the-dark. Carey does it on an even larger and grander scale.
The intrigue I have mentioned. There is also magic, muted and subtle; epic adventures, savage battles and more than a little sex.
While it sounds an awful lot like Phedre's affliction exists merely to set up scenes of lurid sado-masochistic eroticism, this is, in fact, not the case. Phedre's inclination forms an integral part of the plot and its impact on her character and others is thoughtfully explored. What "encounters" she has are described briefly and with an elegant brevity of detail. That they manage to serve both the plot and the senses is an added blessing.
Kushiel's Dart is a rich book with a rich background. The story sways back and forth from the epic to the personal, from action to diplomacy, and back again very smoothly and the characters are extremely engaging.
I'm not sure how to describe it exactly, but, while reading, one gets the sense that the author is perfectly in control of the plot. Often times, you hear of characters leading their author's astray, of plotlines that knit, gnarl and diverge of their own accord, and this can sometimes be to the good, but it does not exist here. Carey's characters wheel in an intricate gavotte of nuance, diplomacy and fate. You cannot always see what is coming (very rarely, actually), but that comforting sense of a piece of clockwork unfolding is there nonetheless.
I'm very glad I persevered in reading this and was immensely gratified to learn of two sequels (though the first book wraps itself up in a nice conclusion).
I trust that this time I won't find myself setting those volumes aside on the first reading.
A book that sucks you in relies on playing to your kinks, your preferences. It's something you're predisposed to like, whether by tone, style or subject matter. A book that requires effort to catch your interest, but then becomes such high quality that you are entrapped just as tightly is all the more impressive for that initial resistance. For me, C.J. Cherryh's Foreigner trilogies are one such piece of work, (actually, all of Cherry's work is an effort to start. Some just happens to be an effort to continue as well. Sorry
ase.)Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey is another such work, one where the pay-off is even more rewarding. I attempted it about a month ago and was continually distracted by other, seemingly more engaging, books. This time, with greater resolve, I pushed past the 50 page mark quickly...
...and barely put it down afterwards.
Kushiel's Dart takes place in a re-imagined Europe similar to that of Mary Gentle's Lost Burgundy trilogy, in that the lands and peoples are at once both strange and familiar. The Tiberian Empire is long gone leaving behind a mess of city-states in the south, The Skaldic tribes inhabit the great Eastern reaches, Alba and Eire belong to the Picti in the north and Terre D'Ange sits in the heartland, home to a people born of angels.
This is the great departure point, an alternate theology springing from the offspring of Yeshua ben Josef and the Magdalene, a scion named Elua who was so beautiful and full of life that he lured Angels from Heaven to Mother Earth to live as his companions on earth, following the one commandment "Love as thou wilt."
Phedre is born into this world a thousand years or more after those events. Daughter of a poor courtesan she is sold into a form of slavery and discovered to bear the mark of the angel Kushiel in her eye, signifying that she will feel pain and pleasure as one. A rare phenomenon, her condition is given the interesting name of anguisette.
Trained as both courtesan and spy, Phedre inhabits a realm full of cultured political intrigue and barbaric violence, using her wits, wiles and the curse of Kushiel both to survive and to serve the will of her Patron.
I love political intrigue. It's one form of plot that I can never seem to master myself. It comes from not having the social skills to hold so many people and relationships in my brain at one time. Melanie Rawn's first novel Dragon Prince embodies the sort of political infighting I'm referring to; intricate dealings and trade-offs, oblique messages and knives-in-the-dark. Carey does it on an even larger and grander scale.
The intrigue I have mentioned. There is also magic, muted and subtle; epic adventures, savage battles and more than a little sex.
While it sounds an awful lot like Phedre's affliction exists merely to set up scenes of lurid sado-masochistic eroticism, this is, in fact, not the case. Phedre's inclination forms an integral part of the plot and its impact on her character and others is thoughtfully explored. What "encounters" she has are described briefly and with an elegant brevity of detail. That they manage to serve both the plot and the senses is an added blessing.
Kushiel's Dart is a rich book with a rich background. The story sways back and forth from the epic to the personal, from action to diplomacy, and back again very smoothly and the characters are extremely engaging.
I'm not sure how to describe it exactly, but, while reading, one gets the sense that the author is perfectly in control of the plot. Often times, you hear of characters leading their author's astray, of plotlines that knit, gnarl and diverge of their own accord, and this can sometimes be to the good, but it does not exist here. Carey's characters wheel in an intricate gavotte of nuance, diplomacy and fate. You cannot always see what is coming (very rarely, actually), but that comforting sense of a piece of clockwork unfolding is there nonetheless.
I'm very glad I persevered in reading this and was immensely gratified to learn of two sequels (though the first book wraps itself up in a nice conclusion).
I trust that this time I won't find myself setting those volumes aside on the first reading.
