By Andrew Mayden
A Brightness Long Ago is the latest fantasy novel by Guy Gavriel Kay. It is set in the same world that contain most of his other novels. However, it is not necessary to be familiar with that world, all the information you need for these characters and this world is included in the book.
The opening chapter reads almost like a stand alone short story and is probably intended as a hook. It introduces the narrator and tells of his boss allowing a woman to enter the bedchamber of their lord where she proceeds to murder him. He is the one to discover her and because the lord is a very bad man, helps her flee.
Then the second chapter consists of vignettes of secondary characters and the world they inhabit and it establishes some of the background and context. Then the third chapter is the meeting between two rival mercenary lords who are based on the historical figures Federico and Sigismondo. It is their feud that plays a significant role in the events of the book. This is where the story really came alive for me.
The main thread of the story from here involves an annual horse race and the gambling that ensues. This too is a backdrop for the mercenaries’ rivalry. Then there is an accident that changes the course of a man’s life. Then a change in the characters over the course of a year. And we finally learn the full story of the rivalry between the mercenary captains and the depth of their hatred. It all comes to a head at the site of their first battle that had occurred many years before. And a great change occurs in the world on that day that changes the course of history for everyone.
In this latest book, Kay’s love of history is on full display. This novel has many small observations that are typical of Kay’s work. The narrator frequently muses about history and his place in it and about how things could have been different with a different choice at just the right moment, or how fate seems to spin our lives with its own whim and we are like leaves caught in the wind. At its heart it’s a story about the personal lives of the people behind the leaders and the major decisions that shape the world.
One note about the nuts and bolts of the writing. Kay’s writing is much smoother and easy to read now than in some of his earlier works. I found that in Tigana there were long cumbersome sentences that were built up into large unwieldy paragraphs. However, now the sentences seem much leaner and the overall pace moves at a healthy clip. There is less fat. There is less verbosity, but all the same richness of content.
However, that multi layered meaning, that slowness from previous work has taken on a new form now. He makes frequent use of little asides. Short phrases are imbedded in the main sentence in order to make it seem more layered or nuanced or something. Here are two examples.
Nor did he have – I knew this – any loyalty to Uberto at all.
The body had evidently been shown, though some said (of course) that it might have been any child’s body.
These embedded phrases change a short declarative sentence into a more complex concept without adding much in the way of wordage. It has a great sound, but unfortunately, Kay deploys this trick too often. Multiple times in a chapter. Even multiple times on a single page. Half are unnecessary. They only serve to distract.
Consider my above examples. The first is about his supervisor from the opening chapter. The narrator is saying that the man does not have any personal loyalty to their lord. But he interrupts this sentence to say that he knows this. Of course he knows this! How could he be writing it otherwise? He is writing it in his memoirs after all.
Or the second example. The murdered lord’s son was also killed and his body put on display to show the city that the evil lords whole family was killed. But that there were some rumors that it could have been any child. There is no way to know that it is indeed the lord’s actual son. So my question is, why is it necessary to say that or course some people would spread these rumors? Does it really help the flavor of the story or even the sentence to add this?
I stand by my original statement. Half his uses of these little asides really do add something to the texture of the scene. And half are awkward and unnecessary.
Overall, I rate this book as very solid. I found his prose smooth and enjoyable to read. I enjoyed that it was a stand alone novel set in the larger world he had created with his other books. Also, I loved his portrayal of these characters. I like that these are not heroically good or villainous, rather they are believable and realistic even though the setting is another world far removed from our own. This speaks of our common humanity.
Andrew Mayden 