Birds again, and "Lyonesse"

[stoutfellow]

The birds which I surprised the other day were barn swallows; it wasn't until today that I got a good look at their tails (which are deeply forked, one of the telltales for barn swallows). They seem to have built a nest atop my porchlight. This could have interesting consequences over the next weeks.

Anyway, I finished rereading the Lyonesse trilogy today. The tale is set on the islands of Hybras, west of France and southwest of the British Isles. Hybras was once a single kingdom, but internal dissension and foreign invasion have broken it into a dozen or so realms. One major plotline involves the ambition of King Casmir of Lyonesse to reunite the islands under his rule; Casmir is, at the beginning, clearly the most capable of the various rulers, but he is brutal and unscrupulous, and several major characters - his daughter Suldrun, Prince (later King) Aillas of Troicinet, and his changeling step-granddaughter Madouc - are mistreated at his hands. It is Aillas who rises to become Casmir's great rival, and ultimately his nemesis. A second plotline involves the magical machinations of various sorcerers, notably Tamurello, Desmei, Murgen and Shimrod. Murgen is the mightiest of them; his edict against magical interference in politics chafes some of the others, and their plots against him drive a good deal of the action. Against this backdrop, we meet an assortment of grotesques and other peculiar characters, including the fairies of Thripsey Shee (from whom Madouc has her origin), the Ska (who have declared war against all the rest of mankind), and various greater and lesser villains, heroes, and innocents.
As is often the case with Vance, many of the characters answer to peculiar motivations; this is particularly true of the fairies and their ilk, who are flighty, unpredictable, and capricious in their cruelty and generosity. The human characters are more comprehensible, but even this is obscured by their stylized language. (Vance is much given to the use of obscure words; I have yet to determine precisely what "nuncupatory" means, for instance. It is not in my dictionary, which is a good dictionary, if not of OED caliber. I resorted to looking up "nuncupatio" in my Latin dictionary, but the meaning given there seems at odds with Vance's usage. I remain puzzled.) Nonetheless, the major viewpoint characters - Suldrun, Aillas, their son Dhrun, Madouc, and Shimrod - do attract one's sympathy, and the foiling of their opponents is amusing at times and, in any case, satisfying.
Vance attempts to embed his tale in European history and legend; the story is supposed to take place a generation or so before the time of King Arthur, and links are established in several places to the Arthurian mythos. This is not entirely successful; there are several anachronisms, annoying to the pedant but otherwise forgivable. There is also a nicely handled background plot, involving Murgen's true concerns, revealed in full only towards the end and fitting well into the desired time-frame.
Overall, Lyonesse is a satisfying read. The ending, in which Casmir's ambitions are foiled once and for all, seems a bit rushed, while the initial segment, dealing with the unfortunate Suldrun, is almost languid in its pacing, but Vance throughout presents such a wealth of odd characters and diverting incidents as to carry the reader along willy-nilly.

Comments

[trolleypup.livejournal.com]

Ravens were playing around Half Dome today...making creditable attempts at imitating the swifts...other than making less noise and not going as fast. Still, 3 feet over your head when you are going up the cables is distracting.