Hailed, on the front cover, as ‘An adult fantasy in
the great Tolkien tradition’, this novel disappointed on a number of levels. So
much so, that I couldn’t be bothered to get past page 67 of 249 pages. It was
clearly much applauded at the time of publication in the 1970s; described
variously as ‘beautiful’, ‘fascinating’ and ‘a harsh elemental poetry’, by
reviewers in the major newspapers. Either they read a different book, or I
failed to find the elements they drew from the pages.
The language is ‘beautiful’ and there are
undoubtedly ‘fascinating’ elements in the tale and some of the events are harsh
and poetically presented. But the parts do not seem to add up to a ‘whole’. In
fact, I found the narrative tedious, the attempt to weave a mystery out of the
incomprehensible lacking in enough intrigue to make me want to read on.
Fantasy, of this type, is traditionally a depiction of life in an invented or
imagined landscape and is generally built on ancient and well understood
themes. Tolkien, with whom this author was compared, dealt quite obviously with
the battle between good and evil and set his tale in a land similar to our own
Earth, peopled by humans, hobbits, elves and dwarves along with all those
mystical and fabulous creatures he borrowed from the myths of Northern Europe.
But I was at a loss to understand where this tale was leading and what themes
drove it. Had there been some indication that I was, at least, being taken
somewhere of interest, I would probably have stayed with it. But I felt I was
in an endless exposition describing the arcane customs and rites of some civilisation
I found difficult to comprehend and that I was being led into a maze with
little hope of discovering the whys and wherefores before being abandoned
without any solution.
The nature of the story, such as it is, told in the
form of a narrative, initially with dialogue only sparsely used to relieve the
monotony of the first person narrator’s description of his life of harsh
instruction, quickly began to bore me. I didn’t need endless hints about the
corruption, bullying and deception of the ruling individuals; so much was
clear. I would have liked a little more indication of the motivations that
drove the protagonists, beyond the evident ambition of the priesthood. I would
have liked a spark of rebellion or, at least, questioning, from the two young
boys who were being raised for positions of rule; something to make them
interesting. The ‘gift’ of foretelling and farseeing seemed small reward for
the level of deprivation visited on the victims.
In short, I was waiting for something to ‘happen’. I
think the main problem with the narrative was that I was ‘told’ so much and ‘shown’
so little, that I felt ever the observer, the voyeur, and never a participant,
never even an involved bystander. Only the singer, Felim, brought any contrast
to the otherwise unmitigated misery of the tale. A touch of lightness, some
hope, an indication of something better to come, might have kept me turning the
pages. But, in the end, I felt unwilling to spend any more of my precious time
on this depressing story that seemed to be going nowhere.
No doubt fans of the author, of which there may well
be many, will castigate me for a fool and a dullard for failing to recognise
the magic they have found. But I can judge only on my own terms and, as a
reading experience, I found this disappointing, dull and lifeless. Sorry, but
there you are.
No comments:
Post a Comment