Life is Good
Feb. 12th, 2006 07:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
herewiss13The Moon is full in the sky, the river is running high, I just flew down the bike-path, listening to the unabashed exuberance of '42nd Street', the finale of my high school days. And all after completing the most gloriously cathartic trilogy I've read in a long, long time; the Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay.
I can honestly say I've not felt this happy in a very, very long time.
I was going to wait until the February book review to talk about Fionavar, but I don't think I can wait. It's a profound piece of literature. It's Tolkien as done by Diane Duane and Susan Cooper (with just a dash the old "Dungeons and Dragons" cartoon show). It's about taking mythic cycles and patterns (the real myths, the _old_ patterns), and using them and breaking them. It's about turning vengeance to mercy, and fate into choice. It's about sacrifice, joy, forgiveness, love, penance and redemption.
Above all, it's about transcendence.
I like transcendence. It's a literary kink of mine. So's apotheosis, once I learned what it meant. Book 1 is good for that one.
I read "The Summer Tree" once when I was much younger (middle school? freshman?). I remember very little about it. It happens very rarely, but I think I was too young at the time to truly appreciate it. I appreciate it now.
Kay uses the device of bring five "normal" people from the "real" world to his fantasy world. But he doesn't do so in order to juxtapose fantasy and reality. There is no hint of these individuals being special because of their modernity as could have been done in a different book. He uses them, instead, to make Fionavar more real than a fantasy realm usually is. Even Middle Earth is kept separate from the reader by time and culture. But having five characters the reader "knows" are real, allows all the other characters they come in contact with to become more real as well...not just distant kings and princes doing kingly or princely things. I wish I could describe it more clearly. There are no pop culture references, no technological anachronisms; if anything the message is one of universal humanity...but it's a message that relies on the books _bridging_ two universes, and not just inhabiting the more fantastic one. It's a very special thing.
I had a chance to purchase the trilogy this afternoon when I was about 3/4 of the way done with the final volume. I almost gave in, but I've already done my impulse trilogy acquisition for the month (The Baroque Cycle). If I had already read to the end of the final page, nothing could have kept me from owning those books. As it was, I _nearly_ turned around and went back for them once I was done. Fiscal prudence prevailed (barely). As it happens, I'll be going to Powell's next weekend, so I doubt I'll be kept from Fionavar ownership much longer anyway.
I can honestly say I've not felt this happy in a very, very long time.
I was going to wait until the February book review to talk about Fionavar, but I don't think I can wait. It's a profound piece of literature. It's Tolkien as done by Diane Duane and Susan Cooper (with just a dash the old "Dungeons and Dragons" cartoon show). It's about taking mythic cycles and patterns (the real myths, the _old_ patterns), and using them and breaking them. It's about turning vengeance to mercy, and fate into choice. It's about sacrifice, joy, forgiveness, love, penance and redemption.
Above all, it's about transcendence.
I like transcendence. It's a literary kink of mine. So's apotheosis, once I learned what it meant. Book 1 is good for that one.
I read "The Summer Tree" once when I was much younger (middle school? freshman?). I remember very little about it. It happens very rarely, but I think I was too young at the time to truly appreciate it. I appreciate it now.
Kay uses the device of bring five "normal" people from the "real" world to his fantasy world. But he doesn't do so in order to juxtapose fantasy and reality. There is no hint of these individuals being special because of their modernity as could have been done in a different book. He uses them, instead, to make Fionavar more real than a fantasy realm usually is. Even Middle Earth is kept separate from the reader by time and culture. But having five characters the reader "knows" are real, allows all the other characters they come in contact with to become more real as well...not just distant kings and princes doing kingly or princely things. I wish I could describe it more clearly. There are no pop culture references, no technological anachronisms; if anything the message is one of universal humanity...but it's a message that relies on the books _bridging_ two universes, and not just inhabiting the more fantastic one. It's a very special thing.
I had a chance to purchase the trilogy this afternoon when I was about 3/4 of the way done with the final volume. I almost gave in, but I've already done my impulse trilogy acquisition for the month (The Baroque Cycle). If I had already read to the end of the final page, nothing could have kept me from owning those books. As it was, I _nearly_ turned around and went back for them once I was done. Fiscal prudence prevailed (barely). As it happens, I'll be going to Powell's next weekend, so I doubt I'll be kept from Fionavar ownership much longer anyway.
