The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay
Book 1: The Summer Tree
Book 2: The Wandering Fire
Book 3: The Darkest Road
Before writing The Fionavar Tapestry, Kay served as Christopher Tolkien’s
assistant editor for the compilation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s notes and manuscripts into
the epic Silmarillion. It should be no surprise, then, that Kay’s debut
fantasy series is rich with world-building, myth, and the power of the word.
The story concerns five college students from Toronto who are transported to
another world (very CS Lewis) and find themselves embroiled in a war between
the forces of light and darkness (very Tolkien). Despite these surface
similarities to Tolkien and Lewis, Kay weaves a story of his own, and does it
quite well. Anyone who enjoys good fantasy — and dare I say it, good
subcreation — will find these books worthwhile, for there is much to admire.
The high style (done as effectively as I have ever read it) is a pleasure to
read, and the themes of faith, redemption, and noble sacrifice are uplifting
and inspiring.
Kay has a gift for language and rich imagery. There are long stretches one can
easily imagine hearing recited by a gifted bard in the hall of a great king.
The high style enhances the late-medieval / early-Renaissance setting of
the books. Kay does not, however, forsake the reality of his contemporary
heroes. A paragraph starting out, “And the moon set high in the night sky was
ablaze in red, and shed its fiery light across the land…” may end up, “‘Holy
cow! What a loser.” Those are made-up examples, but you get the idea. The
juxtaposition of high and mean English is a little jarring at first, but it
serves the text well. It never lets you forget these are Canadian college kids
thrown into a conflict as old as the world. It also helps with the character
development; as they mature and grow, so does their speech. So when someone
who, one hundred pages ago, was saying, “Shucks Wally, I dunno,” exclaims, “I
name thee and I bind thee, you have no power here,” the reader immediately
knows something special is happening.
The first book, The Summer Tree, takes a little while to get going. Time is
spent introducing the characters and their personalities. There is the journey
to Fionaver, and then more characters and personalities. But once the story
gets going, it doesn’t let up. The world of Fionavar keeps expanding with a
rich cast of fleshed-out, complex characters: a pantheon of humans and gods
each with their own motivations and desires.
With such a rich world and so many characters, there were a few places I would
have to scan back through previous chapters trying to remember who so-and-so
was, or what he did, or what his relationship is to the story. Like a reader
first encountering Tolkien’s Middle Earth might be, I found Fionavar’s rich
history, varied peoples, and unique fauna a little overwhelming. However,
unlike The Lord of the Rings, the books do not come with a series of head
matter and appendices, genealogies, and a shelf of supplementary material to
help the lost reader regain his footing.
Books two and three of Kay’s Fionavar Tapestry, like the first, are quite
engrossing, and unlike the first, go easy on the exposition and hit the ground
running. In The Wandering Fire Fionavar (already given epic scale in The
Summer Tree) expands still further, and is revealed to be the first of all
worlds. Finally in The Darkest Road we are shown the entire universe is also
linked by a common mythos, and by the end of the trilogy Arthur, Lancelot,
Guinevere, and Taliesen have shown up.
Given such a huge world to work with, such a panaply of characters, this was a
tale that could have gone much longer. Look no further than Robert Jordan’s
Wheel of Time series (at a Proustian 8700 pages and counting) to see how
enormous a story like this can be. Kay shows remarkable efficiency in his
writing, but is to the tale’s detriment that everything is wrapped up in under
1200 pages, leaving the ending quite rushed. In that sense, Kay proves a
better writer than storyteller, an unusual inversion.
After an obligatory series of conflicts, the final events of the book resolve
themselves far too easily. In Tolkien terms it would be as if Frodo, once past
Shelob, simply walked a nature trail to Mt. Doom, put the ring on his finger,
and jumped in the fire. An interesting end to the story, but one which would
have left me asking, “oh, is that all?” With everything else to like about the
series, though, that rushed ending only drops my opinion of the trilogy from
“great” to “really, really good.”
One note of caution regarding the series handling of sexuality and violence.
There is sex. There is violence. There is brutal violation Thomas Covenant
would be proud of. Kay deftly avoids the gratuitous sexuality and explicit
language that often mar contemporary fantasy novels, and the amount of sex was
not excessive. However, the nature of the sexual relations left something to
be desired. It is largely associated with personal spiritual experience,
rather than interpersonal relationship. That I found a little disheartening.