Summary: Canadian teenager Ned Marriner accompanies his father, a world renowned photographer, to Provence, France, where he is shooting for his new book. But Ned finds more than beautiful landscapes and picturesque ruins recounting history in their scarred stones. He finds a story thousands of years old. A story of lovers, murders, and sacrifice. Of souls caught in a wheel, living out their tragedy in each new age. But this time around, Ned and his friends are pulled into their tale, and Ned, all of 15, must outsmart two ancient foes who have had centuries of practice at waging war and killing those who get in their way.
Commentary: Ysabel is my first Guy Gavriel Kay book. He’s one of those authors that I’ve always heard about. Maybe it’s the memorable name, I don’t know. But he was always just kind of out there as one of those authors that I knew I was supposed to read and simply hadn’t.
In case I was wondering, I guess, if he was worth the hype, Kay opens Ysabel with a 3-page prologue that was, simply, stunning. It was delicate prose lovemaking to the region of Provence. Can he write? Oh, yes. He can write. And even though the rest of the book is not done in the same style as this prologue, it was the best possible introduction I could have asked for from an author I did not know.
Unlike many of the books I read, Ysabel is self-consciously a story being told. At times, more so in the beginning than toward the end, there is the voice of a narrator infused into the text. This narrator knows how Ned will feel about the current situation tomorrow, when he’s thinking back. Some readers may find that this style knocks them out of the story. I think that what it does, though, is help to emphasize a major theme throughout the book: that everything is a story.
The three characters from the magical realm that Ned encounters repeat the same tragedy over and over. The woman, a native Celt, loved one of her own people but chose to marry a stranger who sailed to Provence from Greece. The two men warred for her affection. And they have been warring, ever since. Sometimes they do so with armies behind them. Sometimes hundreds of thousands die.
But as is said time and time again, it is not just their story. The story of these three characters, whose names always change, is the story of a country with two possible futures, the old ways it has always known or the new ways brought by foreign influence, new thinking, a new paradigm for understanding the world. Their names change because they could be anyone, because throughout history, people are faced with this choice again and again, from kings to peasants.
On a much smaller scale, Ned learns that personal stories matter, too. The history between his mother and the aunt he never knew. The history of the people who risk their lives for him, even though he’s only ever seen them as “Dad’s coworkers.” In their personal lives, people are often faced with the same choice as the souls living out the history of Provence: act as you have always acted or try something new.
By encapsulating Ned’s story, of finding out who his family is, who these strange souls are, and who he can be, inside a story being told as a story, readers are encouraged to see that coming of age is also a tale we all know, a tale we all share, and one that goes back beyond memory. This story, too, is not just one person’s story. It is the details that matter, the subtle shifts that make each repetition interesting, even though the path is the same.
Amazingly, despite all of what I’ve just said, Ysabel also strikes me as an original book. The way real life blends into this other world of the Celts was fresh, and the sense in which there was no “bad guy,” no real enemy also made for an interesting dynamic between the main players. Ysabel is not typical fantasy; it may fit into the magical realism category best, if one needs categories. Mostly, I think, it is a book that I admire, enjoyed, and therefore recommend.
Lora Friedenthal
Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay
Published by: Roc Trade (February 5, 2008)
Paperback : 432 pages
ISBN-10: 0451461908
ISBN-13: 978-0451461902
Genre: Fantasy
Wow Lora, if you liked this one I can’t wait to see what you think of his REALLY good books. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed Ysabelle it embodied Kay’s love of history but it is still my least favorite of his work that I’ve read. Tiganna would probably be a good next read for you if you liked this; best stand alone fantasy I have ever read. My favorite is Sailing to Sarantium-Lord of Emporers dualogy. This one starts slower but wow does it ever build.
Did it come across as a rave review? Most of what I wrote was actually analysis… me trying to understand what it all meant and how it was all connected.
I thought this was good and that people should read it. But I’m not rushing to shove it into people’s hands.
Interesting that you suggest Tigana… one of my friends has it and has been unable to get very far. “Best stand alone fantasy” is pretty hefty praise, so maybe I’ll ask to borrow his copy.
A rave review? You were concise and honest about liking the story… if that’s a rave, I wonder what a real rave of yours would read like! 🙂
I’ve been a fan of his writing style since I first read the Fionavar Tapestry… to me that was a lot more accessible than Lord of the Rings. I love the mythology behind LoTR, it’s just that for me, the prose gets really bogged down in a lot of places, and for me personally, that distracts from the core of the myth being woven.
The Lions of al-Rassan is on my list of stories to reread, and I remember liking it the first time around, way back when.
Summer, I’ll have to write one that’s over the top just for you. 🙂
I heard Guy G. Kay speak about Ysabel at World Fantasy Con last weekend in Calgary, AB. He spoke, in particular, about how Ysabel is a departure from his other books, which might interest you since it was the first of his that you have read. I’ve read most of his books and while I see his point about Ysabel being different — it is set in the modern world with historical echoes allowing a retrospective point of view, and is sculpted structurally to set up resonances — I see the continuity as well. He tells rich stories, steeped in the time and place where they are set, and inhabited by distinct, emotive characters.