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One of my favorite authors is Guy Gavriel Kay, who writes low-magic fantasy set in countries and time periods analogous to our own history. His prose is incredible, so here's only a few of the best parts from some of his books. I recommend his Sarantine Mosaic duology, which is set in a meticulously researched fantasy Byzantium and pulls a lot from W.B. Yeats' Sailing to Byzantium. They deal with politics, art, religious upheaval, death, and the ending of old worlds. There is a rustling sound. A lean cleric of the Path, an alchemist, appears beside the throne bearing a jade and jewelled cup upon a round golden tray. The emperor, his eyes never leaving the dancer, whose eyes never leave his, drinks the elixir prescribed him for this hour. She will take hers later. He might never need his tomb. He might live with her forever, eating golden peaches in pavilions of sandalwood, surrounded by tended lacquer trees and bamboo groves, gardens of chrysanthemums beside ponds with lilies and lotus flowers floating in them, drifting amid lanterns and fireflies like memories of mortality. - 'Under Heaven' Duty, assuming all tasks, can betray arrogance. The idea we can know what must be done, and do it properly. We cannot know the future, my friend. It claims so much to imagine we can. And the world is not broken any more than it always, always is. - 'Under Heaven' The world is not something to be understood. It is vanity, illusion to even try. - 'Under Heaven' “We will pick our way through the shards of broken objects that folly leaves behind. And some of what breaks will be very beautiful.” - 'Under Heaven' Branching paths. The turning of days and seasons and years. Life offered you love sometimes, sorrow often. If you were very fortunate, true friendship. Sometimes war came. You did what you could to shape your own peace, before you crossed over to the night and left the world behind, as all men did, to be forgotten or remembered, as time or love allowed. - 'Under Heaven' Eventually, morning came. Morning always comes. There are always losses in the night, a price paid for light. - 'Lord of Emperors: Book Two of the Sarantine Mosaic' Behind them in the night streets of the City, flames appeared and disappeared as they always did, seen or unseen, unlit by any taper or spark, unfathomable as the moonlit sea or the desires of men and women between their birth and dying. - 'Lord of Emperors: Book Two of the Sarantine Mosaic' - Another historical fiction novel I loved was Madeline Miller's The Song of Achilles, which is a retelling of the Iliad from Patroclus' point of view. It was heartwrenching and wonderfully written. Had she really thought I would not know him? I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world. I knew he spoke not of his death, but of the nightmare Odysseus had spun, the loss of his brilliance, the withering of his grace. I had seen the joy he took in his own skill, the roaring vitality that was always just beneath the surface. Who was he if not miraculous and radiant? Who was he if not destined for fame? “I would not care,” I said. The words scrabbled from my mouth. “Whatever you became. It would not matter to me. We would be together.” “I know,” he said quietly, but did not look at me. He knew, but it was not enough. The sorrow was so large it threatened to tear through my skin. When he died, all things swift and beautiful and bright would be buried with him. I opened my mouth, but it was too late. “I will go,” he said. “I will go to Troy.” The rosy gleam of his lip, the fevered green of his eyes. There was not a line anywhere on his face, nothing creased or graying; all crisp. He was spring, golden and bright. Envious Death would drink his blood, and grow young again. He was watching me, his eyes as deep as earth. “Will you come with me?” he asked. The never-ending ache of love and sorrow. Perhaps in some other life I could have refused, could have torn my hair and screamed, and made him face his choice alone. But not in this one. He would sail to Troy and I would follow, even into death. “Yes,” I whispered. “Yes.” Peleus stood at the shore’s edge, one hand raised in farewell. True to his word, Achilles had not told him of the prophecy, merely hugged him tightly, as if to soak the old man into his skin. I had embraced him too, those thin, wiry limbs. I thought, This is what Achilles will feel like when he is old. And then I remembered: he will never be old. Overhead, the stars were veiled. I could feel the air’s heaviness. There would be a storm tonight. The rain would be soaking, filling up the earth till she burst her seams. It would gush down from the mountaintops, gathering strength to sweep away what stood in its path: animals and houses and men. He is such a flood, I thought. The memories come, and come. She listens, staring into the grain of the stone. We are all there, goddess and mortal and the boy who was both. The sun is setting over the sea, spilling its colors on the water’s surface. She is beside me, silent in the blurry, creeping dusk. Her face is as unmarked as the first day I saw her. Her arms are crossed over her chest, as if to hold some thought to herself. I have told her all. I have spared nothing, of any of us. We watch the light sink into the grave of the western sky. “I could not make him a god,” she says. Her jagged voice, rich with grief. But you made him.
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Aug 24, 2015 04:15
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 18:59 |
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