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i just finished rereading
The Lions of Al-Rassan, so here's my GoodReads review:
On reread, this book still has the same weaknesses that I find in all of Kay's works. It's pretentious in its portentous-ness (look, if you've read Kay, you know what that means and I'm sure you agree--I actually love that about his writing but I can't deny that he takes it too far), it has some weird gender stuff going on (Kay writes "strong" female characters but never seems to really understand women, probably because he sees them as inherently different than men), there is no subtlety in its attempt to be elegiac, there's some weird and unfortunate but seemingly unintentional race stuff (both your Muslim and your Jewish character have blue eyes? Really, Guy?), it uses the delayed information big reveal trick OVER AND OVER, and the story sometimes struggles beneath the weight of his style.
Despite all that, this book still gets five stars.
Sometimes the end product just transcends the weaknesses it contains and renders them irrelevant.
(And yes, I messy cried again.)
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And I'll add this here, because it's my journal: I haven't read everything he's written, but even the stuff I love instead of being irritated to death by doesn't measure up to this book. Maybe I'll change my mind when I've read all of his books, but as of now: this is his masterpiece.
On reread, this book still has the same weaknesses that I find in all of Kay's works. It's pretentious in its portentous-ness (look, if you've read Kay, you know what that means and I'm sure you agree--I actually love that about his writing but I can't deny that he takes it too far), it has some weird gender stuff going on (Kay writes "strong" female characters but never seems to really understand women, probably because he sees them as inherently different than men), there is no subtlety in its attempt to be elegiac, there's some weird and unfortunate but seemingly unintentional race stuff (both your Muslim and your Jewish character have blue eyes? Really, Guy?), it uses the delayed information big reveal trick OVER AND OVER, and the story sometimes struggles beneath the weight of his style.
Despite all that, this book still gets five stars.
Sometimes the end product just transcends the weaknesses it contains and renders them irrelevant.
(And yes, I messy cried again.)
--
And I'll add this here, because it's my journal: I haven't read everything he's written, but even the stuff I love instead of being irritated to death by doesn't measure up to this book. Maybe I'll change my mind when I've read all of his books, but as of now: this is his masterpiece.
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I keep meaning to check out other stuff he's written, but still have to get around to it.
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I liked his Sarantium books, which are set in a Byzantine-like world, but they suffer more from the gender stuff. I like them, but they also irritate me. I've tried getting into Tigana and Under Heaven and have never been able to do it. But I do love Lions, a lot.
But Lord, if this man would just learn to write women I would be so happy. I can forgive all his other writing sins!
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It's weird, because it's so flawed and I can clearly see all of the flaws and I just...don't care? I was really thinking about how easily I could imagine someone being intensely irritated by the book so it's not one that I would recommend to everyone, but it clearly inspires something really strong in some of us.
You've read The Steel Seraglio, too, right?
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I've actually been thinking about hosting a TLAR book club, because I have friends who've been wanting to read it for years but feel intimidated by the size.
That would be so cool! And actually, it is long, but it's very readable, I think. So many long books feel long when you're reading them, but this one didn't.
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Regarding the elegiac tone, I don't think I would enjoy the book so much if it wasn't elegiac, because the ideal of Al-Rassan (and the real-world equivalent Al-Andalus) was a beautiful thing, and its loss, and the way it was lost, is something worth grieving. There's something about the deliberate destruction of a world which values art, and culture, and clever, beautiful engineering, and pluralism, by people who recoil in disgust from such things that just gets under my skin and resonates so deeply, because the contemporary real-world equivalents are so obvious, and so personally painful.
I haven't read everything he's written, but even the stuff I love instead of being irritated to death by doesn't measure up to this book.
I totally agree. The other books of his that I love deeply is the Sarantine Mosaic duology (and I like the first of his novels set in fake China), but while those books are great, The Lions of Al-Rassan is a masterpiece, and the setting and characters work to Kay's strengths, and work with his weaknesses and blind spots as a writer.
I've added you on Goodreads — I hope this is okay.
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I'm just ducking in to say that I second this wholeheartedly, although the prospect of any Hollywood adaptation would make me deeply nervous.
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I'm really bad at fancasting — I always pictured Jehane as looking like a blue-eyed Lyndsey Marshal, but she's also too old now! Emmanuelle Chriqui works too, but as you say she's aged out of the role.
Whoever the creative team were, they would need to understand that a) all of the main trio of characters are 'right', even though they fall on opposite sides of the eventual conflict, and b) all of the main trio of characters (and, I would argue, Miranda) are in love with each other. If they didn't understand those two key things, they would not be the right people to adapt the book.
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Agreed!
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Yes, exactly. And I read the Sarantine duology a couple of months ago, so I was fresh to notice it.
(Of course, now I'm reading A Brightness Long Agoy, which of course has exactly the same problems. I should probably take long, long breaks in between his books so it doesn't bother me as much! But I just really wanted some historical fantasy and no one else does it quite as well!)
Oh, I absolutely loved the elegiac nature of the book! To me, that's absolutely the heart of the book! I just think that he occasionally strays over the line into it being too heavy-handed, if that makes sense?
(Speaking of ABFA, there's a point in that book where a character starts quoting from one of Ammar's poems--just as an aside thing--and I had to put my kindle down because I was so overwhelmed by the thought of Ammar's poetry still being around centuries later in a completely different country! AMMAR)
and the setting and characters work to Kay's strengths, and work with his weaknesses and blind spots as a writer.
Absolutely!!!
My relationship with him as a writer is kind of singular, because the stuff he does well is so absolutely my shit but the stuff he messes up on (mostly the gender stuff, occasionally the race stuff) is so absolutely the thing I'm most sensitive about. Which is not something I've encountered with any other writer!
I really do think if he could sort out his gender stuff, he might be one of my all-time favorite writers. But it's been decades, so that probably won't happen.
Always love to have more Goodreads people!
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Oh, my heart! And isn't that whole thing just the perfect encapsulation of exactly what Kay does so well as a writer, and why it speaks to us so profoundly?
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YESSSS. And the best part is, the character is like, "I don't know the name of the person who wrote this, but at least the art he created endures, and isn't that all any of us can ever ask?"
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I think part of what keeps me from trying GGK's other novels is the same thing that keeps me from revisiting stuff, like Diana Gabaldon, that I loved two decades ago, but which I remember well enough to predict how my 20-years-later self will react to them.
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That is a very understandable reaction. I know exactly what you're talking about.