Not For The Boys
Jul. 29th, 2006 04:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mtvessel16 Jul 06
1610: A Sundial in a Grave - Mary Gentle - Gollancz, 2003
* * *
Mary Gentle is an interesting writer who only found great success with her massive and popular historical fantasy Ash. I enjoyed it but didn’t think it was quite as wonderful as some people did - Ash herself was an extremely fine and memorable character, but the supernatural plot was irritatingly vague and the clever post-modern intercutting of the story itself with the story of its translator turned out to be less significant than it seemed it was going to. 1610 is in much the same vein, but Gentle has made three changes to the Ash template: the action takes place two centuries later, the main character is male and the modern-day element is missing (there is a reference to a fictitious novel and film called The Sons of Sword and Hazard, but there seems no reason for this other than to establish - unnecessarily - the Three Musketeers lace-and-steel genre). Two of these are fine, but the third - the male protagonist - is not.
Not that he isn’t an interesting character. Valentin de Rochefort is the disinherited son of an aristocrat, an agent for the Duc de Sully and (he claims) a master swordsman. In chapter one he is blackmailed into arranging the assassination of the King of France, a plan which succeeds despite his best endeavours (well, it could happen to anyone). While making his escape, he encounters and is challenged by Dariole, a cocky young buck to whom, to his horror, he finds himself strongly attracted (this potentially intriguing relationship sadly turns out to be less interesting than it appears due to a blatantly obvious plot twist). Forced to take Dariole with him, de Rochefort heads towards England and the machinations of the bad guy, who is no less a person than the physician and astrologer Robert Fludd.
The best element of the book is Gentle’s original take on magic, which isn’t really magic at all. Fludd’s power derives from a method of calculation that allows him to predict future events with exquisite precision, even down to the strokes that a swordsman will use in a fight (as de Rochefort discovers to his cost). If you can swallow this premise with its blatant determination to ignore both chaos theory and quantum indeterminacy, you can enjoy Gentle’s logical answer to the intriguing problem of how you defeat an enemy who has already calculated every move that you will make, no matter how random it appears to be.
There is also much to enjoy in the skillful mixing of historical fact and fiction, with events from the period seamlessly interwoven with purely invented encounters. The fight scenes, as usual with Gentle, are well-described and realistic (it would have been nice to have a few more of them, particularly in the last third of the novel). She even manages to work a Japanese Samurai into the mix without it seeming too jarring.
Unfortunately, for me de Rochefort is an extremely irritating character. He is both breath-takingly stupid and so arrogant that he does not realise that he is not nearly as good as he thinks he is, either as a fighter, lover or plotter. Although he claims to be a master swordsman, he only wins one of the fights described in the book, and only then with help. His relationship with Dariole becomes a series of grovelling apologies for his emotional obtuseness (granted, he gets off on them) and because for most of the book he is essentially a pawn in Fludd’s machinations, none of his plans really come to anything. He is the most emasculated hero I have come across for some time. By comparison, the female characters are intelligent, competent, (mostly) level-headed and heroic.
Now I have no problem with feminist fantasy, and in fact I generally prefer books where women take the lead. But there is a difference between levelling the difference between the sexes by empowering women, as Gentle did very successfully with Ash, and by disempowering men by portraying the viewpoint character as a fool, as she does here. I’m not saying that she cannot write convincing male characters, but for male readers there is a hint of contempt in her portrayal, a lack of sympathy (in George Eliot’s sense) that is somewhat off-putting. So a good book, but perhaps not one for the boys.
One other thing - can anyone explain the bafflingly pretentious title? Presumably it’s supposed to be a metaphor (the only sundial in the book is in Robert Fludd’s garden), but I can’t see for what.
1610: A Sundial in a Grave - Mary Gentle - Gollancz, 2003
* * *
Mary Gentle is an interesting writer who only found great success with her massive and popular historical fantasy Ash. I enjoyed it but didn’t think it was quite as wonderful as some people did - Ash herself was an extremely fine and memorable character, but the supernatural plot was irritatingly vague and the clever post-modern intercutting of the story itself with the story of its translator turned out to be less significant than it seemed it was going to. 1610 is in much the same vein, but Gentle has made three changes to the Ash template: the action takes place two centuries later, the main character is male and the modern-day element is missing (there is a reference to a fictitious novel and film called The Sons of Sword and Hazard, but there seems no reason for this other than to establish - unnecessarily - the Three Musketeers lace-and-steel genre). Two of these are fine, but the third - the male protagonist - is not.
Not that he isn’t an interesting character. Valentin de Rochefort is the disinherited son of an aristocrat, an agent for the Duc de Sully and (he claims) a master swordsman. In chapter one he is blackmailed into arranging the assassination of the King of France, a plan which succeeds despite his best endeavours (well, it could happen to anyone). While making his escape, he encounters and is challenged by Dariole, a cocky young buck to whom, to his horror, he finds himself strongly attracted (this potentially intriguing relationship sadly turns out to be less interesting than it appears due to a blatantly obvious plot twist). Forced to take Dariole with him, de Rochefort heads towards England and the machinations of the bad guy, who is no less a person than the physician and astrologer Robert Fludd.
The best element of the book is Gentle’s original take on magic, which isn’t really magic at all. Fludd’s power derives from a method of calculation that allows him to predict future events with exquisite precision, even down to the strokes that a swordsman will use in a fight (as de Rochefort discovers to his cost). If you can swallow this premise with its blatant determination to ignore both chaos theory and quantum indeterminacy, you can enjoy Gentle’s logical answer to the intriguing problem of how you defeat an enemy who has already calculated every move that you will make, no matter how random it appears to be.
There is also much to enjoy in the skillful mixing of historical fact and fiction, with events from the period seamlessly interwoven with purely invented encounters. The fight scenes, as usual with Gentle, are well-described and realistic (it would have been nice to have a few more of them, particularly in the last third of the novel). She even manages to work a Japanese Samurai into the mix without it seeming too jarring.
Unfortunately, for me de Rochefort is an extremely irritating character. He is both breath-takingly stupid and so arrogant that he does not realise that he is not nearly as good as he thinks he is, either as a fighter, lover or plotter. Although he claims to be a master swordsman, he only wins one of the fights described in the book, and only then with help. His relationship with Dariole becomes a series of grovelling apologies for his emotional obtuseness (granted, he gets off on them) and because for most of the book he is essentially a pawn in Fludd’s machinations, none of his plans really come to anything. He is the most emasculated hero I have come across for some time. By comparison, the female characters are intelligent, competent, (mostly) level-headed and heroic.
Now I have no problem with feminist fantasy, and in fact I generally prefer books where women take the lead. But there is a difference between levelling the difference between the sexes by empowering women, as Gentle did very successfully with Ash, and by disempowering men by portraying the viewpoint character as a fool, as she does here. I’m not saying that she cannot write convincing male characters, but for male readers there is a hint of contempt in her portrayal, a lack of sympathy (in George Eliot’s sense) that is somewhat off-putting. So a good book, but perhaps not one for the boys.
One other thing - can anyone explain the bafflingly pretentious title? Presumably it’s supposed to be a metaphor (the only sundial in the book is in Robert Fludd’s garden), but I can’t see for what.