So not only am I writing a blog but this is first e-book I've ever read. Guess I am finally entering the modern middle ages. Next thing you know, I might start checking FB more than once or twice a month. I still prefer to hold and read paper books. However, I've come to the unfortunate conclusion that I can't afford to buy all of the books I'd like to read, nor do I have the space to store them. However, the Orange County Public Library has a lot of books that interest me, and many of them are only available in e-book format. I guess they don't have infinite storage capacity either. This is one of those books that was only available as an e-book.
The Lions of Al-Rassan
Guy Gavriel Kay
(HarperCollins 1995, epub 2012)
Guy Gavriel Kay is one of my favorite authors. I think I may have even reviewed one of his more recent works back when I was doing the review in the Revelry. Kay is a Canadian author of fantasy. One of his earliest works of "high fantasy" is the trilogy The Fionavar Tapestry which may be familiar to some readers. I read this series and found it entertaining but the books of his I most enjoy are the ones where he uses history to inspire his characters and stories. However, rather than writing and out and out historical fiction, he has created an alternate world that is unapologetically inspired by medieval Europe and the Mediterranean world. In Kay, Al-Rassan is a parallel to Andalusia, Esperana is Spain, Ferrieres is France, Batiara is Italy, Sarantium parallel to the Byzantine Empire. He has also created parallels to the three major religions of the middle ages. Thus, the Jaddites who worship the "Sun" are the stand-ins for Christians, the Asharites are the people of the desert parallel to the Muslims, and the the Kindath are the 'Wanderers" and this world's Jews. While there are some few fantasy elements in these historically inspired novels, such as brief encounters with the Fey or old gods, or in this novel a character with an unreliable power of prophecy, the historical is much more important to Kay. By setting his novels in a fantasy setting he has more freedom to address medieval individuals and cultures without having to adhere to specific events. Kay also states in an essay he wrote on this subject (Home and Away 1999, http://brightweavings.ca/ggk/globe/) that he feels he can better relate these themes from the past to his modern readers by means of fantasy.
The Lions of Al-Rassan is inspired by Moorish Spain. In this story, Asharite Caliphate that once dominated the peninsula has broken up into mini-kingdoms and city states while the once native Jaddites, driven into the north and northwest, and themselves split into competing kingdoms, have in the intervening centuries begun to reconquer lost territory and assert rising dominance over the Asharite statelets. Meanwhile the Kindath minority lives on the fringes, given grudging acceptance among the Asharites as long as they pay their taxes and otherwise keep to theirselves. This is the period that modern scholars call the Convivencia, a time when at least among the elite there was some tolerance and respect among the peoples and cultures even amidst their political and religious conflicts. However, the convivencia is not so much enlightened idealism but a function of the fact that in this fractured land no one people or kingdom is powerful enough to assert absolute dominance so that a kind of cultural equilibrium.
Their are four main characters that dominate the story. The first is Rodrigo, the Jaddite captain from one of the Esperanan kingdoms, whom the author bases on the historic El Cid. Due to the politics of Esperana, he has been exiled and he and his company are now serving as mercenaries in the Asharite city-state of Ragosa. Ragosa represents the ideal of the convivencia (perhaps as Cordoba did in the days of the Calipahate...), rich, jaded, a cultured trading city where an Asharite king rules with the assistance of a Kindath chancellor defended by both Asharite and Jaddite mercenaries. Enter Ammar ibn Khairan, assassin and statesman, also exiled after a coup has overthrown the Asharite king he served. These two men, the best and most talented of their peoples, should be natural enemies but are throne together in a doomed friendship that you know at the outset cannot last. The third major character is Jehane bet Ishak, a Kindath physician in service to both Ragosa and the mercenary company, who admires and is admired by these two champions. Finally the fourth major character is Alvar de Pellino. Son of a minor knight living in the rural borderlands, he has grown up on stories of knightly glory, of vanquishing the Asharites and restoring the glory of Jad to Esperana. He is new to Rodrigo's company where he develops a crush on the Kindath doctor and while living amongst the mercenaries in a cosmopolitan city learns that the world is not as black and white as he thought it was.
Outside forces are active that will disrupt this equilibrium. The Jaddite Esperanan kingdoms are growing in power and the petty Asharite states are forced to pay them tribute. In order to hold onto their power, the largest of the Asharite states invite in fundamentalist Asharite tribesmen from across the straits from Al-Rassan. These tribesmen, living in the deserts and mountains, consider their own fellow Asharites pampered and decadent and their is no room in their faith for unbelievers. Meanwhile, in the other Jaddite kingdoms to the north of Esperana, a crusade is being organized to recapture the Jaddite holy land in the east from the Asharites. Priests from Ferrieres come to encourage the Esperanan kings to cease their own conflicts and fight their common Asharite enemy in their own midst. The kings of Esperana, being more pragmatic than their fellow religious from the north, are suspicious of these priests as they realize it is one thing to conquer in the name of religion and another thing to rebuild and rule after the conquest is complete. As the story progresses, their are pogroms against the Kindath, massacres by both Asharites and Jaddites, and the eventual passing of convivencia. Meanwhile our heroes attempt to maintain friendships amidst divided loyalties of kingdom and faith.
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