I am a big fan of Guy Gavriel Kay, ever since I read his first trilogy “The Fionavar Tapestry”. Although his following books were less and less fantasy and more and more historical-based, his prose is always beautiful and emotion-driven, and there is always that little mystical side in his stories, not always explained but part of the environment and makes it richer. Although most of his books occur in imaginary worlds, Kay is usually setting up their story based on the historical background of several countries, e.g. medieval Italy “Tigana”, medieval France in “A song for Arborne”, medieval Spain in “The Lions of Al-Rassan”, ancient Constantinople emperor Justinian in the Sarantine Mosaic, and the Vikings invasion of England in the “Last light of the sun”. In this new book, Kay continues the pattern and explores the ancient dynasties in China.
For those familiar with The Sarantine Mosaic, you will soon realize Under Heaven follows similar patterns. The story figures Tai, the second son of a famous general father. After the death of his father, Tai decides to spend his two years of mourning to a far-off battlefield where some fourty thousands of Kitanand Taguran soldiers died in battle. The ghosts of these soldiers, both Kitans and Tagurans, are still haunting this ancient battlefield, moaning and crying at night, and so Tai spends his two years burying these soldiers properly so that they can be at rest. This earns him the gratitude of both the Kitan Emperor and the former Taguran enemies. Unexpectedly, the Taguran queen offers him 250 Sardian horses. To understand the value of this gift, here is a quote directly from the book:
So precious are these horses that you gave a man one … to reward him greatly. You gave him four or five of those glories to exalt him above his fellows, propel him toward rank – and earn him the jealousy, possibly mortal, of those who rode the smaller horses of the steppes.” Obviously, this “gift” of 250 horses makes Tai a marked man, and thrusts him back in the reality of life to become an important player in a political game where he has little or no experience. He has no choice but to travel to the Kitan’s capital to meet with the aging emperor and his beautiful and powerful concubine, to decide what to do with this gift, or curse. Kay’s readers will recognize a pattern of the Sarantine mosaics here with Crispin going to Sarantinum, to meet the emperor and his beautiful wife, bringing political changes in his wake into the empire.
Then in parallel we have the story of Tai’s sister, Li-Mei, which has been sent as an imperial bride to the nomads by their politically connected ambitious older brother. She will be rescued by a renegade shaman, a side story that will bring up the magical side of the book. Indeed, as opposed to Tai and the political intrigues in the city, in this part of the book we get to learn more of the country outside of the Great Wall of Kitan, with their superstitions and myths.
And finally, on top of all this, this is the story of events that led to a revolution that brought the 9th dynasty to its knees, because of a feud between the first minister and the most favored general. And who benefits from Tai’s horses may possibly get the edge that will be the deciding factor in this conflict.
When Kay published Ysabel a few years ago, I was a little disappointed by this book; I thought there was something missing, without being able to put my finger on it. No such problem here with Under Heaven. Very reminiscent of the Sarantine Mosaic in its scope and story, and characters. I would say that it was maybe a little too similar, when I first saw the beautiful and powerful concubine I rolled my eyes to the ceiling. On the other hand, I liked the Sarantine Mosaic so much I did not mind too much the similarities in this new book. “Under Heaven” is a beautiful read, not really fast paced, not too slow either, and characters such as Tai and Li-Mei evolve alongside the story, which is always a good thing. I thought the end of the story was a little bit rushed, but I think that is because the point of this book was not the resolution of the conflict, which could have gone one way or another according to Kay’s philosophical comments in the end of the book, but rather how events could change someone’s life and have impacts on a larger scale.
No comments:
Post a Comment