What do You think about Druids (2006)?
Well, my first book of 50 for the year. The first two months were eaten by other affairs so now I get to average 5 a month for 10 months.Anyway, Druids was my first Morgan Llywelyn book ever, and he love of the Gauls comes through in the fiction. However, it is not as bad as I expected, and she does not blanch as presenting darker aspects of her vision of the Gallic peoples, underlying a general human shallowness and consumerism that I am certain is informed by her experiences of humanity.Most interesting about this book was the presentation of Caesar. Certainly Julias is usually given a somewhat positive spin by authors working in the english language, and Llywelyn has no qualms praising his genius through her characters. However, for the characters he represents the end of their world and life as they know it. It was interest to me to see so much American foreign policy played out in this book from the view of the non-cooperative. I have long maintained that America is not an imperialism like Rome and, while in certain degrees that is true, this book bit close to the bone on that point.As an illustration (between the lines) of how America poses a threat to the Islamic world, Druids sounds shockingly clear. We are left to wonder how much of our failures in the Middle East have their roots in our unwillingness to go as far as Caesar in pacifying once we have stepped out on that path. Oh well.
—Gabriel M. Bell
If I stopped after the first half of the book, I would definitely give this one five stars. The beginning of the book took me away to another world, putting me in the mind of a Druid boy as he learned Druid ways. When I read, I prefer a sort of intelligent escapism in that I like to be drawn up into the story, shown a different way of thinking--in this case, the way a Druid sees the world. I enjoyed Ainvar's view of death and magic. The second half of the book, however, focused mostly on fighting Caesar. While parts of this section contrasted the Roman way of life with that of the Gauls, this part felt rushed and less literary than the first half. It reminded me of action scenes in movies that do little to move the plot. If I were to re-read this book, I would probably stop at about the time they started fighting Caesar.
—Val
Walking through a used bookstore, I noticed the name Morgan Llywelyn on a $1 book; I knew the name, and saw on goodreads that it had gotten roughly 4 stars, so I thought I'd pick it up and add it to my Roman-themed reading list. A semi-historical fiction novel about the Gauls in the time of Julius Caesar, Druids tells the story of Vercingetorix's friends Ainvar, the Chief Druid at the time.Ainvar is a total asshole. And I don't just mean that in a contemporary morality kind of way; he is repeatedly shown to be an asshole in the context of his morality system (spoiler: take for instance his cuckolding of his best friend, just because he was horny. Oh, I mean he needed 'sex magic'.). Not that there are ever any consequences for these actions; other characters are just there to be used by him. He also is kind of an idiot. He's supposed to be super-smart, but he keeps confidently making predictions that turn out WRONG, giving suggestions that a dumb, etc etcOK, so the main character isn't great. What about the story? Well it is kind of - kind of - the story of Vercingetorix's Gaulish confederacy, but it's more about Ainvar the Druid, and how Awesome he supposedly is, and how many women he has. As great as it is to see the parts about The Druid, Llywelyn goes a bit over the top in making these people sound like the spiritually perfect savages.Even worse, the final section of the fight against Caesar is just terrible. It reads like a list of battles which isn't very fun to read. And some of the greatest battles, where some pretty amazing things happen (Caesar's siege of Alesia) which are ripe for explication and description, are left underexplained.It's disappointing because at first the book seemed like it had a lot of potential, but it all got wasted.
—Adam Calhoun
