The Summer Tree (The Fionavar Tapestry, #1) in The Alternative Worlds

Nov 22, 2010 mark monday rated it really liked it

Shelves: fantasy-60s-70s-80s, z-guy-gavriel-kay

this is a wonderful novel. it is hard to love at first. sometimes you get to know people who seem automatically awkward, whose social style is stilted, composed of quotes from movies or off-putting attempts to be clever, insisting on repeating tired tales, who seem eager to please yet incapable of easy connection. but you get to know them over time and those trappings fall away, the awkwardness fades and they become real, three-dimensional, a friend even. and so it is with The Summer Tree.

at fir this is a wonderful novel. it is hard to love at first. sometimes you get to know people who seem automatically awkward, whose social style is stilted, composed of quotes from movies or off-putting attempts to be clever, insisting on repeating tired tales, who seem eager to please yet incapable of easy connection. but you get to know them over time and those trappings fall away, the awkwardness fades and they become real, three-dimensional, a friend even. and so it is with The Summer Tree.

at first, it is pure template. The Lord of the Rings is more than an inspiration; tolkein's characters and themes and countries are all directly paralleled within. as such, it is often a very familiar novel and, just as often, that does not work in its favor. what becomes an equal problem is the staginess of the opening chapters and the awkwardness of the dialogue and characterization. both are rather off-putting and the novel starts out with a stumble.

but after that stumble...oh, the riches! what seemed to be trite characters soon flower into figures far more rich, fascinating, enigmatic, even iconic. their adventures moved quickly into the unexpected yet retained a richly mythic quality. the quality of the writing beyond the dialogue is striking: kay does not engage in lush description but rather chooses his words carefully, and the simplicity yet sophistication of word choice often made me pause, and read them again: a haiku of a tale, compared to tolkein's extravagant epic poem. the mythos itself remained entrenched in the familiar, but that becomes a virtue - at times it felt as if i was reading an original telling of these tales and a recounting of these myths, as if this were actually the original template, as if the tried-and-true depiction of celtic-flavored mysticism, the elves & dwarfs & trolls, the ancient powers and unending evils were being presented in their purest and most direct format. and its combination of modern (5 modern students cross dimensions) and classic (mythological kingdoms that are the true reality) becomes a delight - wit and sad wisdom doled out equally. i certainly was not expecting to read about one character's embarrassing hard-on; nor did i expect the tragic driving death of a loved one and the suicidal yearnings of that crash's survivor to become a touchstone drawn movingly upon during somber self-sacrifice. the two worlds become surprisingly and effectively intertwined.

the penultimate chapter is one of harrowing devastation and mortification. i'm not sure i've read such a terrible and horrifying episode of torment and despair, and one that wastes no time in excessive cataloguing of the indecent tortures visited upon a tragic character. the horrors depicted in this sequence are, again, mythic in scope and meaning, yet disturbingly modern in their ability to repulse and sadden. but at the finish, The Summer Tree ends on a hopeful note. just as i am hopeful that the remaining books in the Fionavar Tapestry will continue to impress and inspire. i can't to wait to read them! ...more

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Mar 25, 2008 Brad rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: canadian-lit, drunken-reviews, fantasy, shabby, sword-and-sorcery-opera

I am so glad I came to Kay's The Fionavar Tapestry late because I doubt I ever would have read his great books if I had read these first.

I was acting in a play with my great friend Jefferson when he suggested I read A Song For Arbonne. I was blown away. He told me to read Tigana. I loved Brandon and was in love with Kay. He told me to read The Lions of Al-Rassan, which I've read numerous times since, and I had found my favourite Kay. He told me to avoid the trilogy, though, because he knew I wo ...more

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Jan 23, 2012 Nicky rated it really liked it

Shelves: based-on-myth-saga-etc, fantasy

Fresh from reading most of Tolkien's work, and writing a gigantic essay on it too, I have a different perspective on Kay's work. Especially when reminded that Kay worked on The Silmarillion with Christopher Tolkien. He has a lot in common with Tolkien, really: the synthesis of a new mythology (though not done as history, and therefore lacking all the little authenticating details that Tolkien put in) using elements of an old one (though Kay used Celtic and Norse mythology, and goodness knows wha ...more

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Jun 04, 2008 Nicky rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, based-on-myth-saga-etc, favourites, arthurian

I've posted a general review of the Fionavar Tapestry trilogy before, here, but I never felt that quite cut it. So this a review of the first book, The Summer Tree, and separate reviews of the rest of the trilogy will follow. It's worth looking at my overview of the trilogy, too, because I'm not going to repeat all of it, necessarily.

Firstly, the trilogy does seem very derivative, mostly of Tolkien, although me and my mother once went through spotting myriads of possible influences. There are gr I've posted a general review of the Fionavar Tapestry trilogy before, here, but I never felt that quite cut it. So this a review of the first book, The Summer Tree, and separate reviews of the rest of the trilogy will follow. It's worth looking at my overview of the trilogy, too, because I'm not going to repeat all of it, necessarily.

Firstly, the trilogy does seem very derivative, mostly of Tolkien, although me and my mother once went through spotting myriads of possible influences. There are great points of similarity between this trilogy and Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, but there are differences. The mythology is much more plainly taken from ours -- as is appropriate, given the idea that Fionavar is the true plane and our world one of many reflections -- and woven very deeply into the whole story. So much relies upon the gods, rituals belonging to the gods, etc, even though mortals are the ones taking actions. Gods are rather less present in Tolkien, particularly in Lord of the Rings. It's also quite a lot shorter.

Not that it doesn't pack a punch. In three hundred pages, I'm as invested in these characters as I ever am in Frodo. More about that in a minute.

It's not exactly perfect, even though I think it's powerful. The first few chapters don't really catch my attention, and seem kind of like a Mary Sue fanfic. The prose is a little odd, sometimes, sometimes rather closer to poetry, which I didn't like at first. If you go with it, it's fine, or so I found.

The characters were my main draw, really. Paul and Kevin in particular: Kevin's love for Paul, his yearning and desperation; Paul's helplessness, hardness, coldness, grieving, selfishness, selflessness. I feel their relationship very strongly. Diarmuid arouses mixed feelings in me: I know I didn't like him the first time I read it, but this time through, I read it with sympathy for him. This trilogy definitely doesn't suffer from rereads, for me, probably benefits from it because I'm already invested, despite the (to my mind) weak beginning.

The setting is another draw. The blending of mythology is lovely and appropriate.

It's also amazing how much gets set up for later. Tabor, Jennifer, Matt, Leila, Jaelle... Reading it now, and knowing how things go, I'm amazed at how well everything is set up in this book.

I can understand the beginning being a turn-off, but give it chance. It has a charm and a draw of its own. I feel like this review only began to touch on how much I love these books and why. Just for one more illustration... The Summer Tree is one of the few books that makes me choke up every time. The rest of the trilogy is also on that list. I find the writing extremely powerful, despite the first-novel pitfalls.

Reread again in February 2010. Must note again how much this book affects me -- and more every time, I think, the more I care about the characters. One thing I did notice this time, and I think a greater flaw than the ones that are easier to pick out, is the oddness of the scene with Paul and Rachel in the car. Everywhere else, Rachel's spoken of with a lot of love, and yet in this scene I totally don't understand her and her motivations for speaking to Paul the way she does. I understand the situation, and Paul's bitter reactions, but Rachel's dialogue feels more like a scene from a soap opera to me. I think it could've been more effective if the love was still there, from her, more strongly, and if she hadn't said things that made her sound awful.

Still, that scene is, at most, three pages long -- hardly a major flaw. ...more

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Oct 06, 2017 Richard rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, ebook, sffbc

I've tried and failed a couple of times with other GGK books that ended up having to go back to the library almost untouched, but this was on special offer, on my book club challenge list and only 300 pages or so with good reviews from people I trust. Should be a quick hopefully not painful read and hey-presto another one ticked off the list, where's the harm in that, I thought.

Well was I in for a surprise! Once I'd got used to the language of epic fantasy once more and relaxed into the wonderf ...more

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