2010/15: The Lions of Al-Rassan -- Guy Gavriel Kay

[tamaranth]

The Lions of Al-Rassan -- Guy Gavriel Kay

"My faith? I would put it differently, my lord. I would say, my history ... Our sages, our singers, the khalifs of the eastern world. ... Every people has its zealots. They come, and change, and come again." (p. 457)

Though labelled as 'fantasy', this is not a typical fantasy novel. No magic, no mythical beasts, no overt action by gods: no great prophecies to be fulfilled, no quest, no plot tokens. The Lions of Al-Rassan is, instead, an alternate history: Kay's approach to writing about medieval Spain, with its complex interactions of Moor and Jew and Christian, by transplanting the situation to a world with two moons where the Asharites, the Kindath and the Jaddites pace out the measures of an uneasy dance.

If I knew the history of medieval Spain better I'd have found more layers in this novel -- which is not to say that it doesn't work without in-depth knowledge, because it's a powerful novel about faith and pragmatism, loyalty and honour. Kay focusses on three protagonists: Rodrigo Belmonte, Jaddite soldier; Amman ibn Khairan, Asharite poet and diplomat; Jehane bet Ishak, Kindath physician, who finds herself fascinated by both men and by the precarious friendship between them. There are a host of other memorable characters, including Belmonte's wife (the redoubtable Miranda) and Alvar de Pellino, a young soldier whose loyalties are sorely strained by the exigencies of war. Kay's desert zealots, the Muwardi, are a weak point, though: they're primitive, unlikeable, credibly motivated but without redeeming features.

Kay doesn't attempt to disguise the historical origins of his story. Why transplant it to an imagined world? Perhaps to avoid offence; perhaps for the freedom to invent viewpoint characters and rewrite incidents as they should have happened.

The Lions of Al-Rassan starts slowly and with a little too much info-dumping, but once the protagonists had been introduced I was eager to see how their lives would entwine. Kay's style is resonant, poetic without being overwritten, very visual. He has a taste for misdirection (or at least letting the reader go along with the characters' perceptions) which vexed me slightly at the end of the novel. Overall, though, extremely readable and well-written.

Comments

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Is this your first GGK? Because that, more or less, is what he does: transposing known history into invented lands, perhaps with a scatter of magic, and then telling entirely human stories within that context.

(For the sake of clarity: he is one of my touchstones. Except that at his best, he's untouchable. He is the Stephen Sondheim of historical fantasy...)

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

Not my first GGK -- the Fionavar books are a frequent reread, for that clarity and resonance and humanity -- but possibly my first of his alt-history novels. I do believe I have a few more on the unread pile, though ...

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

The Fionavar books are unusual by his standards, in not being an obvious transposition, and also in having a framing story involving this world. But I believe they are very early GCK.

I was reading A Song For Arbonne at once, and at one point I went "I know that place - I parked my car where that guy's standing". Yes, he will use places as well as situations and incidents from our world, which gives his work an interesting verisimilitude. Sometimes, there's a little magic, but it's infrequent. I quite like it as a type of fantasy, and would happily see more. (mizkit's Queens's Bastard starts off that way, but then wanders off in its own idiosyncratic direction as it promiscuously tries to be every genre in sight.)

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

I think the Fionavar books were his first published work -- and they definitely show Tolkien influence, unsurprising since he was involved in editing the Silmarillion.

Am all for non-magical fantasy, and there isn't enough around: it becomes a selling point with books such as Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

What I find interesting about Lions - and his other alt-historicals - is that by pulling them out of our history and putting them into an explicitly alternate world, he can drop the baggage that we as readers might otherwise bring to a story of Moorish Spain or Eastern Roman Empire. If we even recognise the situation, we may make assumptions, but we're much less likely to let our prejudices affect how we interact with his characters. That lets us see his characters with fresher, and quite possibly fairer, eyes.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

And yes, Chaz's Outremer books also play with history, as do that Fox guy's, but they have a higher magic/magical creature content than much of GGK.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

So far, the only time I've tried to sell a fantasy story with No Magical Content Whatsoever ("The Pillow Boy of General Shu" by Daniel Fox, in Lace and Blade 2), my editor made me put some in.

Still'n'all, this has not deterred me. Eventually I will start to publish my Alexandrian stories. Which are totally fantasy, and totally magic-free.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Oddly, the Fionavar books are the only ones I've not reread. I think they stand among that collection where I get halfway in and am enjoying myself thoroughly and then bloody Arthur comes punting down the river. What is this thing with Arthur, dammit? Kay's not even English...

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

Arthur seems to pop up more frequently, if anything, in fiction by North American writers than fiction by Brits ... (or is that just my skewed perception / not reading enough home-grown writing?)

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Chaz, you are insane: Kay cheats, he plots by numbers and he's lazy. You are so far above this!