I’ve fallen in love. With a book. But as with every relationship, this isn’t a perfect love. There are some things I wish my significant other would do differently. I wish there were a little more dimension, that it were more dynamic, with more surprises and some intricacies to keep me guessing. Still, I love this book.
It’s an archaic text written in 1923 but in a middle-English, Elizabethan vocabulary and style. I resist the urge to compare it to Shakespeare, from whom it is definitely derivative, because as fiction it is filled with very detailed and lyrical descriptions and stunning imagery. It is literally the most beautiful thing I’ve ever read.
But it’s flawed, and I don’t just mean a little. It opens with an outside observer acting as the reader’s entree into a new world, with strange and unfamiliar people and places, but that observer is simply abandoned early on, with no explanation of how or why he was brought here except as a device to invite the reader in.
The plot—a war between two feudal kingdoms, and the surrounding kingdoms affected thereby—is linear, and frankly not particularly original. There are heroic deeds, but all in service to the war itself, with short shrift given to what is actually at stake except one kingdom’s desire to remain autonomous and the other’s desire to rule them.
All of the characters given breath and personality are wealthy kings, princes, princesses, lords, dukes, etc. – there are no commoners or ordinary people with whom to identify and sympathize, not even a lowly knight or squire. So there isn’t much to bring the story down to a relatable level.
This book has become one of my favorite books of all time. But today, in our market, there’s scant place for books like this in our times. Fiction these days, as much as she is my lady and mistress, must compete with so many other forms of entertainment in a culture that has become defined by its short attention span, its need for immediate gratification, its disdain for anything that doesn’t immediately serve the prurient or prod the adrenal.
But fear not, there is still some great fiction out there, that has found a balance between that which feeds the soul as well as the amygdala. I think, to be a lasting influence in this, our chosen profession, we must find a way to strike this balance.
I’d like to read your comments below on books and writers you’d recommend to us as examples we can follow, who you think have struck this balance. Or maybe you have… tell us about it.