The Darkest Road by Guy Gavriel Kay
420 pages
Published 1986
Read from February 15 to February 17
Rating: ★★★★ out of 5
Contains spoilers for the entire Fionavar Tapestry.
The first book in this trilogy, The Summer Tree,
ended with our heroes winging their way into the lair of the Dark One
on a moment's notice, without so much as an inkling of a plan as to how
they'd rescue their damsel in Fantasy Evil distress. The next book, The Wandering Fire,
skipped all the petty details about how these Toronto yuppies managed
to save their friend from the literal bedchambers in the literal evil
lair of a literal god of evil, jumping several months beyond a mission
accomplished. The Darkest Road opens with the opposite strategy,
finding some of our heroes several days before the end of the previous
book. "Oh man, I sure hope those guys on the boat succeed with their
impossible mission, because if not, we're screwed!" -- that isn't a
source of tension when you, the reader, already know the maritime
expedition succeeds beyond everyone's wildest expectations, and the
literal dark wizard will be defeated with ease. Just thought I'd note
that.
This entire series has been plagued by what I feel is
melodramatic prose. Everybody's heart is constantly breaking, everyone
is perpetually bent down under the sorrow of life, in Toronto as well as
Fionavar. No one knows how they can bear up under the weight of all
that tragic destiny, yet they do. Similarly, no one knows how to wield
their powers, until the exact moment they need to wield them, when
suddenly they act on instinct alone and save the day. This happens a lot
throughout the trilogy. On some levels, that's pretty annoying, and not
the best storytelling. We know all our main heroes will do whatever
they must do, because they're figures of legend now, no longer
relatable, human-scale protagonists. If Kim doesn't know where her magic
ring is leading her, it will all become clear within a few pages,
because it is what is meant to happen. If Kevin needs to be some kind of
sex sacrifice to the mother goddess, well, that's inevitable too. No
one acts with agency, because they're all getting tugged along by
preordained fates. Dress it up as a 1980s fairy tale all you want, with
Arthur and Guinevere and the Wild Hunt all going through their perpetual
motions, but it's never quite satisfying. Fate and inevitability are
distasteful concepts, in fiction as in philosophy.
Despite all
that, though, I think this series finally clicked for me in this volume.
The exact moment it did was when Kim broke the holy pacifism of the
giants. Oh, don't get me wrong, the way she broke their spiritual
essence -- by showing them her friend Jennifer/Guinevere in the Super
Evil clutches of the Dark One -- is eyeroll-worthy. Am I to accept that
nothing, in all the countless eons of the giants' existence, clued them
into how the Dark One operates, and how his attentions affect his mortal
victims? Nothing ever suggested to them that maybe an Evil Dark God of
Evil might hurt some people, just as a general thing? But in describing
the eons-spanning sorrow of the giants' loss of purity, where even their
ghosts must say farewell and go their separate ways, Kay's moist
sentimentality fit. This trilogy is all about how actions, even
inevitable actions, have consequences -- power has a price, always, and
even being on the side of Light™ doesn't mean you will not hurt people,
or not lose something important inside you, or be happy. There are some
notable (and welcome) exceptions as The Darkest Road unfolds, but
broadly speaking, this series isn't fiction about choices and agency.
It's fiction about loneliness, about losing everything, even who you
thought you were deep down inside, to the disinterested workings of
life's loom.
The one character explicitly, emphatically free to
make a choice, Darien, chose one of the more predictable paths in all of
fantasy, choosing his father the Evil Lord of Dark Evil and then
undoing him with the power of love. I had Darien's choice pegged not
even a hundred pages into the book. But eh, I didn't care for that
entire plotline anyway.
The Fionavar Tapestry may be riven with
structural problems, with mawkishness and predestination and fantasy
cliche, but it finally makes sense to me. Plus, it has one of the most
prog rock scenes I've ever read: A giant clay-and-rock demon rising to
slay a child demi-god, and friggin' Lancelot stepping out of the forest
to battle the earth demon for the devil-child's life. Why do I not own a
Roger Dean print of this scene?
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