SPOILERS AHEAD, SO MANY SPOILERSThe concluding volume of Fionavar Tapestry is a perfect fantasy novel. Happily stripped of the awkward, stilted ‘real world’ situations and dialogue that occasionally marred the preceding novels, The Darkest Road takes place entirely in Fionavar and is all the stronger because of it. The narrative is simple: the characters all engage in a series of final meetings, battles, and individual confrontations that were carefully set up in books 1 and 2. The world is saved, of course. And at such a high cost, of course. The writing is also straightforward. This is not a novel full of lush description; nevertheless, the carefully chosen words, the elegantly stripped-down prose, the overall precision and artistry of the writing should serve as a lesson to all would-be writers: sometimes lavish world-building is not necessary to create a world, or to create a work of art. Kay conveys everything he needs to convey in language that is as simple yet as poetic as a fable. The entire trilogy, rooted as it is in timeless myths, has all the resonance of genuine mythology, one that describes both the beginning and end of all such legends. Much like similar works of art (john crowley’s The Deep, for example), Kay boils down the tropes of fantasy literature until they are at their most iconic, and then breathes wonderful new life into them.Who takes the Darkest Road? So many of Fionavar Tapestry’s characters must walk paths that end in death and darkness.Finn takes a solitary path, riding with The Wild Hunt, slaughtering evil and good alike, becoming a thread of chaos in the tapestry. But in the end, he makes his choice, and chooses well, as all heroes must. All of the heroes in the series are faced with hard life choices, and all of them choose well in the end. It is a glorious thing, and it is a big part of what brings the trilogy to the level of myth. But the fate of brave, sweet Finn, turning from The Wild Hunt and then literally falling from the sky to his death – that is something even more. It felt like I was reading a fable’s first iteration, the story of a kind of Icarus, one who willingly chooses his tragic fate, in service of others.Diarmud takes a deadly path at the end, to his own end. There is not much I can say about this sequence, other than that I shed some tears at the end of it. A character so full of life, yet so blithely willing to sacrifice that life for others, in an instant. An amazing thing.Galadan’s whole existence is The Darkest Road. His transformation at the end, his ability to become something greater, something good, was carefully set up from the start of the tale. He is a man in love after all, and moved to his deeds because of that love’s rejection and the loneliness that followed. But despite the hints of what was to pass, when it did come to pass after all, it was still incredibly moving. Not all things from the dark are….all dark. Is there a more humanistic sentiment?And Darien takes the Darkest Road, of course. His path is the path of the title: a road without friends, without a moral compass, one that leads to the heart of evil and one that ends in a sad and tragically lonely death. But such a death! He saves the world with his courage and his grace. Kay does not allow Darien’s final end to be easy for the reader…there is no one there at the boy's side, to protect him, to embrace him as he dies, to thank him for his sacrifice, to hold him as any child should be held when they are afraid and all alone. It is one of the saddest, bravest, most beautiful deaths I’ve ever read in fantasy literature.Kay’s imagination is impressive, but even more impressive is his willingness to let tragedies be truly tragic, in the most real of ways. He does not try to balance the deaths out so that the reader is given a kind of easy comfort, a kind of well-they-may-have-lost-so & so but at least they have so & so. He does not make things easy. Some characters are not harmed and achieve a happy ending. Other characters are gone, forever. One set of parents sees both of their brave sons returned to them, and it is a joyous thing. Another set of parents have young sons who both die in the struggle, and in the end they are left alone with each other, and it is a terrible thing. A prince who is full of war, grim and unyielding, lives to rule; a prince that is full of light and a future full of love, is slain. A good seer’s soul remains forever exiled, outside of time. A student from our world remains dead, never to return to his own father. A child dies alone, with no one to tell him that he is loved. So many sad things. Such a beautiful tale, such a battle, and so hard-won, so resonant.
Guy Gavriel Kay s fantasy trilogy about a land called Fionavar is a little over 20 years old. I ve never heard of this Canadian author before, but an online friend was so adamant that I should read it that he ordered the books from Amazon and had them delivered to me as a gift.[return][return]The trilogy is made up of Book One: The Summer Tree, Book Two: The Wandering Fire and Book Three: The Darkest Road. Since it s essentially one huge story, I ll be talking about all three books in one review.[return][return]In The Summer Tree, five Canadian university students Kevin Laine, Kimberly Ford, Jennifer Lowell, Dave Martyniuk and Paul Schafer - were spirited to Fionavar by a mage named Loren Silvercloak of Brennin. They were invited at attend the anniversary of the king s ascension to the throne, but not long after their arrival, it became clear that there was more to it than what they were originally told.[return][return]We learn that Fionavar is the first of all worlds. All that happen there will reflect in other worlds, including our own. [return][return]A thousand years ago, Fionavar survived a war against the evil god Rakoth Maugrim the Unraveller. Rakoth breaks free from his prison and is bent on finishing what he started - destroying the land. [return][return]Loren and Brennin Seer Ysanne would readily confess that Loren came into our world for Kim Ford, whom Ysanne dreamt will succeed her as Seer. What they didn t foresee is that the other four also had specific roles to play in the Tapestry.[return][return]The Wandering Fire, which is the middle book that will make little sense without the other two, is where Kay moves all his characters into attack position for the next book. It sees the Arthurian mythos joining the tale, along with deities and symbols from various Northern and Celtic myths. [return][return]The Darkest Road is where it all comes together and makes sense. This is where we get to appreciate how intricately woven the tale is as a whole. Light triumphs over Dark, of course, but the journey there is ultimately fulfilling to follow. [return][return]I m not a big fan of High Fantasy. Most fantasy literature is either Tolkienesque in depth and length, or just sorry imitations of it. I must confess that by the time I got to The Two Towers, I ve forgotten what Fellowship if the Rings is about and summarily gave up trying to read it.[return][return]Another friend commented that The Fionavar Tapestry is too much like Lord of the Rings and it s true. You have the big bad guy, a group of people unwittingly caught in a fight against the villain, a good wizard who help the good guys, another wizard who ends up batting for the other team, the return of exiled royalty, a nation of horse riders, dwarves, a race that will no doubt bring Tolkien s elves to mind, and a lonely journey made by a short guy to the very heart of evil.[return][return]Kay, who helped Christopher Tolkien edit The Silmarillion, deliberately set his novels in Tolkien s tradition of High Fantasy to show that there is still room to come up with something that follows a formula, yet throw many surprises of its own at the same time.[return][return]The prose is beautiful without being overbearing, and despite the many characters running all over the place, Kay still manages to make you care deeply for them. Often times, you don t realize it until the characters go off and sacrifice themselves for the greater good.[return][return]There aren t that many books out there that make me cry so much reading. The last one that comes close is Anita Diamant s The Red Tent, but that is just one book and this is three.[return][return]Every time I re-read The Fionavar Tapestry, I am reminded that there is hope for High Fantasy yet.[return][return]For more on Guy Gavriel Kay, visit his website at www.brightweavings.com.[return][retur...
What do You think about The Darkest Road (1992)?
I'll grant this, he wraps it up fairly well.For the most part, Kay is finally finished introducing random new world-building elements by the time the third book rolls around. So we're done with the endless info-dumping. And he does actually use most of the elements introduced. Now, the stuff that bothered me still bothers me. The Queen of Ruk is never dealt with. Avaia the putrescent swan still doesn't make sense to me (how intelligent is she? Where the heck did she come from?) I still think shoehorning King Arthur in is a cheat. We never get an explanation for why Owein's riders need a child. And the manipulativeness is still uneven. Some parts soar, and some are genuinely touching. But if I got told that the Arthur/Guinevere/Lancelot triangle was the saddest story ever one more time, I was about ready to throw the book across the room. He tells and tells and tells and never shows. Seriously, guys, if you all love each other so much, just have a threesome and be done with it, ok? Maybe that wouldn't work while Arthur was king because Reasons, but the distinct lack of kingdom kind of negates the tragedy. Also, why can Lancelot bring someone back from the dead once, and not the other bunch of times a hero falls nobly and Lance is standing right there? Consistency, people.But there were a lot of guns on walls, and Chekov would be relatively satisfied. And I was pleased and slightly surprised as to the final fates of the folks from our world. So while I still think this deeply ambitious series is fundamentally flawed, I'm willing to bump the grade of the finale up to acceptable. Edited to add: Also, the prince rides to the rescue on mysterious boats crewed by dead legends? Kay, I know you worked on Tolkein, but that didn't mean you had to just steal stuff flat out.
—Rebecca
The first book in this series was simply brilliant. The series went downhill from there. In the first book, the sorrow of tragic events was creatively expressed almost poetically, and through the characters actions. In this book the author took the tack that if you repeat the fact that a character is feeling sad frequently enough, it will have emotional impact. That doesn't really work. Basically, what had been deep, tragically flawed, and emotion inducing characters were turned into whiny, shallow, archetypes. The other problem here is that the author refers to a lot of things from obscure Arthurian, Greek, and Norse legend that even a big mythology/sci-fi fan such as myself couldn't figure out the allusion. It doesn't help that he changes all the names (with the exception of Arthur, Lancelot, and Guinevere). Because the author assumes that the reader knows all the myths, he doesn't bother to explain things. So there's a lot of names of places that mean nothing to me, the significance of which might explain the character's actions, but because I've never heard of the place I can't figure out why people are doing what they're doing. The book does give a satisfying (if eminently predictable) ending to the series, which is why two stars instead of one.So, all in all, read the first in the series, its great. Then stop. Don't get drawn in by the promise of the series, the other books don't live up to that promise.
—Doc Opp
The Fionavar Tapestry has always been one of.my favorite trilogies and my recent reread of this series simply reaffirmed that fact.I read the final 200 pages of the last installment of the trilogy, The Darkest Road, through my tears. So much pain, so much joy. This book, and the series, embody the meaning of "bittersweet"--heartwarming and heart-rending at the same time.The Darkest Road, and the trilogy as a whole, is really about the many faces and facets of love, the various shadings and forms of love--parental, filial, romantic, idealistic, fraternal, unbidden, unknown, sacrificial, generous, remorseful, forgiving, unyielding, ever-changing, ever-constant. The story is multi-layered, familiar as a friend relating the events of a recent trip, distant as an ancient myth or legend.
—Kathi
