unknown and unremembered, save in fiction. It’s a perfect introduction to Kay’s work, a decidedly stand-alone novel with delicate threads reaching out to many of his other works (including one reference which made me gasp out loud, and double-check what I had just read). If this is your first Kay novel, it will make you want to read the rest; I hope that you give it a chance. Book Review by Robert Wiersema by Guy Gavriel Kay Okay, hear me out. I know that some of you will immediately tune out if I recommend a fantasy novel. I know that some of you just don’t like that genre. I’m not here to argue about that (not right now – although I can and will argue the virtues of the fantasy genre with the least provocation); taste is individual and people like what they like. What I want to do, though, is to ensure that you’re not missing out on reading one of the finest writers working today. To make it clear: Toronto writer Guy Gavriel Kay is not a fantasy writer. Not really. He’s certainly written fantasy fiction: his debut trilogy, The Fionavar Tapestry, is a sterling example of portal fantasy (and a series I return to often). As a result, his books tend to be shelved in the Fantasy/Science Fiction section. Following those first three novels, however, Kay shifted his focus from the fantastic to the historical; more specifically, the alternate historical. His novels tend to be fictional treatments of real history, with most of them focusing on elements of European past. Thus, for example, Kay’s fictional Sarantium serves as an analogue for Constantinople, Seressa for Venice, etc. Yes, there are some fantastic elements present in Kay’s later work, but these are relatively minor and woven firmly into the realistic worlds which Kay depicts. (I once, at an event, described Kay’s work as “historical fiction with a quarter turn to the fantastic”; Kay’s been using the phrase to describe his work ever since.) All of the elements that I have been describing can be observed in Kay’s powerful new novel, Written on the Dark. Inspired by, and rooted in France during the Hundred Years’ War, the novel begins by introducing readers to Thierry Villar, a celebrated (and often reviled) tavern poet in Orane (think Paris in the early years of the 15th century). On a night when he is planning a robbery in hopes of paying off a dangerous debt, he is instead taken by the city’s Provost (and a group of armed horsemen) to where a trio of men has been slaughtered in the street. In one moment – with Villar’s recognition of the primary victim – the poet is drawn into a world of kings and queens, dukedoms and kingdoms at war. Written on the Dark is tightly plotted and richly populated with characters who seem to spring, fully formed, off the page. The writing is rich, but never excessive and Kay demonstrates once again his skill with the careful balancing of mystery and revelation, action and emotion. It also underscores one of his recurring concerns, that of the individual – usually an artist or craftsman – who becomes caught up in the shaping of history, though they often remain anonymous, WRITTEN ON THE DARK 44 | www.snowbirds.org
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MzMzNzMx