Kate ([info]kate_nepveu) wrote,
@ 2006-07-12 21:46:00
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Entry tags:books, sff

Two quick Sarantine Mosaic thoughts (SPOILERS)

Thinking about the Sarantine Mosaic yesterday and today reminded me of a couple of things. More SPOILERS behind the cut.

  1. Can we tell, from The Lions of Al-Rassan or otherwise, how far the divergence of history after the end of Lord of Emperors goes?
  2. Does anyone else dislike Leontes? I mean, other than because he ordered Crispin's mosaic scraped down?

    (For me, it's because he's a shiny self-righteous hypocrite; at least, I presume that his religion doesn't condone having sex with people other than your spouse, regardless of whether you are in a loveless trophy marriage and have an agreement. If not, he's still shiny and self-righteous. He makes my teeth itch.)

Alas, no LotR post tonight; I wrecked my wrist typing on a particularly non-ergonomic keyboard today. Tomorrow, I hope.


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[info]yhlee
2006-07-13 02:12 am UTC (link)
I'm no expert on the Reconquista, but I remember reading The Lions of al-Rassan and feeling that there was almost no point because everyone knows how the Reconquista ends and these people are just doomed. However, I'm certain I'm missing nuances in the relevant history.

I didn't care particularly for Leontes, so you're not alone. Then again, I wasn't reading that series for the characters.

Hope your wrist gets better!

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[info]kate_nepveu
2006-07-13 02:44 am UTC (link)
Heh. You must've been surprised at what Kay did to Justinian, then?

Thanks.

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[info]yhlee
2006-07-13 02:58 am UTC (link)
Yeah, I remember having a bit of a "Wait, you did WHAT?" moment. :-D

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[info]kate_nepveu
2006-07-13 11:03 am UTC (link)
Which I suppose was kind of a "You bastard! I can't believe you did that! I love you!" moment, by the end. =>

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[info]tool_of_satan
2006-07-13 02:48 am UTC (link)
I don't know too much about the Reconquista, but I know Kay compressed it a lot - in real life it took several centuries. Specifically (looking at Wikipedia), the parallel to the division of Esperana appears to have taken place in 1035, and the conquest more or less ended in 1236.

I think knowing that readers would know the overall outcome is (one reason) why Kay set up the conflict between Rodrigo and Ammar, since the outcome of that cannot be predicted from history (unless I am missing something).

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[info]yhlee
2006-07-13 02:57 am UTC (link)
The thought of Kay writing dynastic fantasy makes me shudder, since his trend (at least when I jumped ship) was to write longer and longer books.

It's odd--I do occasionally read historical fiction, where the draw generally isn't going to be newness-of-plot (I may not know the details, but I can usually look 'em up); I don't know why in Lions I was bothered by the "oh, they're all doomed anyway" thing. (That's how it felt to me; I realize it didn't hit others that way.)

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[info]tool_of_satan
2006-07-13 02:36 am UTC (link)
1. I don't think it diverges too much from a mainland European (or whatever) standpoint, at least not that we can tell (unless I am forgetting something, after Mosaic and before Lions about all we know is that the Asharites arose, conquered most of the Empire, and spread along the north coast of the Africa-analogue and established Al-Rassan. We just don't know any details of what else went on, except in the far north (I'm not sure exactly how much the events in Last Light diverge from history, but in any case they're not much affected by Sarantium).

The main diversions before we get to Lions are likely in the history of the Asharites. While Kay doesn't say much about them, from what little he does say I get the impression that the details of what went on in the homelands and surrounding areas is probably not to much like the actual history of Islam (no mention of a parallel to the Shi'a/Sunni split, for example - there are obviously major regional attitudinal differences, but that's not the same thing).

2. I certainly didn't care for Leontes. Even aside from the whole adultery thing (I assume you meant "doesn't condone," BTW), he is as you say self-righteous. He's also very narrow, which most of the other characters are not - he doesn't appear to be interested in anything beyond the army and his particular brand of Jaddism.

I thought Crispin's mosaic at the end said it well - Leontes, and by extension his court, are golden and perfect but also bland, boring, and superficial. Valerius, Alixana, and their court are flawed but interesting. (This is a bit hard on Gisel, I suppose, but it's not as if she has much chance to show a personality.)

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[info]kate_nepveu
2006-07-13 02:43 am UTC (link)
1. That's interesting, thanks. I don't remember _Al-Rassan_ very well; it's my least favorite (though I haven't read _Last Light_).

2. Yes, I dropped a negative in revisions. Sorry.

I personally like Gisel, but I have a soft spot for her because she sent Crispin the materials for the end mosaic.

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[info]tool_of_satan
2006-07-13 02:58 am UTC (link)
Last Light is my least favorite of Kay's books (well, of his pseudo-historicals, I don't care for Fionavar), but I think it is worth reading. I also think it has identifiable flaws, but I can't say more without being spoilerish.

(Kay's next book will not be a pseudo-historical, interestingly enough.)

I like Gisel well enough, but to me she does fade into the background compared to Alixana, Shirin, etc. It's not her fault.

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[info]radiotelescope
2006-07-13 03:21 am UTC (link)
What's Kay's next book going to be like?

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[info]tool_of_satan
2006-07-13 03:27 am UTC (link)
According to Bright Weavings, it will be called Ysabel and will be set in modern Provence, but "dangerous, mythic figures from the Celtic and Roman conflicts of the past erupt into the present, claiming and changing lives."

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[info]kate_nepveu
2006-07-13 11:02 am UTC (link)
Yes, I saw that in _Locus_ and am very interested to see what he does with a contemporary.

I'm leaning against reading _Last Light_, honestly; I just can't work up any enthusiasm for it considering the general consensus of "enh."

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[info]tool_of_satan
2006-07-13 04:10 pm UTC (link)
Entirely reasonable, although you might like it better than, say, me - Lions is my second-favorite Kay (after Mosaic), so clearly our tastes diverge a bit here.

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[info]prince_corwin
2006-07-13 04:08 am UTC (link)
Let me know what you think of Last Light if you read it. I didn't care much for it at all.

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[info]kate_nepveu
2006-07-13 11:04 am UTC (link)
I'm probably not going to, but if I do I'll booklog it.

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[info]adrian_turtle
2006-07-13 03:31 am UTC (link)
Lions=tragedy. knowing the world is doomed does not make the story pointless. we know macbeth is doomed. point=how.

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[info]kate_nepveu
2006-07-13 11:05 am UTC (link)
I think this was probably in response to someone's comment, but, well, I think it's not an unreasonable reaction to a fantasy so very closely identified with a particular piece of history, at least with the reader expectation, as I said, that it would stay connected to history. It depends on what you're reading for.

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[info]athenais
2006-07-13 05:25 am UTC (link)
See, I really liked The Lions of Al-Rassan and I hated the first Sarantine book so much I had a hard time finishing it. I sure didn't buy the next one. GGK laid on the most ham-handed foreshadowing I've seen in awhile, and I didn't like any of the characters enough to put up with it.

But I never thought about any of his books having a shared history, so now I have to reread a couple of them and think about that. Thanks!

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[info]kate_nepveu
2006-07-13 11:07 am UTC (link)
Apparently a character introduced in _Lord of Emperors_ is explicitly supposed to be an ancestor of some character in _Al-Rassan_; I don't remember the second book well enough to say who. I also don't know enough about the history of the analogue to _Arbonne_ to know if it fits.

(I mean, there's the two moons and there's a reference in _Lord of Emperors_ to wedding the sea with a ring, but I don't really regard that as enough to tie all the non-Fionavar books together. Maybe they are, but it's not obvious to me, at least not at this stage of my memory.)

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[info]tool_of_satan
2006-07-13 04:07 pm UTC (link)
Lions and Mosaic and Last Light all definitely take place in the same world. I think it's pretty clear the others don't (even though I haven't seen Kay's statement to that effect). While they have some elements in common, the countries are entirely different, so for them to be in the same world they'd have to be on different continents with no contact - which is possible, but then we'd have to explain having three Italy-analogues (the Palm, Batiara, and, um, thingy - the collection of city-states east of Arbonne), two France-analogues (Gorhaut/Arbonne and Ferrieres), etc.

Also, I think the moons might be different colors - they are white and blue in the Sarantine world, but I vaguely recall they are white and green in at least one of the other books.

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[info]texas_tiger
2006-07-13 11:41 am UTC (link)
I think Kay has expressly said somewhere that Arbonne doesn't take place in the same world as Sarantium. Ditto for Tigana. I'd have to find the reference.

ROT13 for spoilers:

Nf sbe gur naprfgbe, vg'f gur thl sebz Ongrevn (fc?) jub raqf hc zbivat gb Rfcrenan, naq fcrpvsvpnyyl, uvf fba, jub unf gung jrveq cflpuvp novyvgl.

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[info]kate_nepveu
2006-07-13 02:13 pm UTC (link)
If you happen to turn it up, I'd be interested. I'd look myself but I don't really have time today.

Yes, that ROT13 is what I was referring to.

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[info]papersky
2006-07-13 12:05 pm UTC (link)
Hate Leontes. Hate Belisarius too, smug git.

The thing is that in both reality and the books there was history going on day to day and decade to decade with things happening, empires rising and falling, but essentially a smooth curve of events, like stone being layed down in sedimentary layers, some thicker than others, some different colours, but all stone in flat layers one after another, and then Islam/Ashur erupted like a volcano going through all that stone and leaving it all heaved up and sideways and with a huge lump of igneous rock in the middle and lava flowing everywhere.

So you can look at Justinian's peace treaty with the Persians and think all sorts of things connecting on with then and the previous thousand years but it's impossible to see it without thinking how bloody futile it was because both the empires that signed it were about to be utterly transformed by the unexpected.

So essentially, all that passion, all those crucial poised events and none of it matters because it's all about to get swept away like toys someone has finished playing with. Did someone say The Lions of Al-Rassan has doom at the end? Goodness me.

(Incidentally, this is why I cheer every time I read the letter at the end of Lest Darkness Fall.)

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[info]kate_nepveu
2006-07-13 02:15 pm UTC (link)
_Lord of Emperors_ is full of the statutes in the spina being melted down 700 years later when the great changes came, all that--but it's still 700 years, and it matters to Crispin and his mentor and Gisel and so forth.

And the equivalent of Crispin's mosaics still exists today, I believe?

So yeah, that's why I'm okay with the changes in _Lord of Emperors_ being meaningful.

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[info]tool_of_satan
2006-07-13 04:01 pm UTC (link)
The great changes start much sooner than that - Ashar goes to the desert and returns and starts everything during Pronobius' lifetime. Assuming that the history tracks that of our world (and I don't think there's anything to indicate it doesn't), the Sarantine and Bassanian empires would have been almost entirely under Asharite rule quite soon (within a few decades, anyway). The statues don't get melted down until Sarantium itself is conquered by Asharites, which happens much later, as it did in our world (Constantinople fell in the 15th century, but had long been a shell of its former self).

But that doesn't mean nothing matters. There wasn't a war to retake Batiara, and that presumably matters to the Batiarans, who aren't much affected by the Asharites.

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[info]kate_nepveu
2006-07-13 04:07 pm UTC (link)
Ah, there goes my ignorance of history again. Sorry, and thanks.

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[info]tool_of_satan
2006-07-13 04:15 pm UTC (link)
And yes, the mosaics are still there in the Hagia Sophia - when the Ottomans took Constantinople they plastered over them, but the plaster has since been removed.

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[info]kate_nepveu
2006-07-13 04:16 pm UTC (link)
I was thinking of the two in Ravenna of the court; I didn't realize the ones in the Hagia Sophia survived and will have to look for pictures, thanks.

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[info]tool_of_satan
2006-07-13 04:30 pm UTC (link)
Are those the ones in the Basilica San Vitale?

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[info]kate_nepveu
2006-07-13 04:31 pm UTC (link)
Yes.

http://www2.students.sbc.edu/pegues00/seniorseminar/vitalemosaics.html

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[info]tool_of_satan
2006-07-13 04:33 pm UTC (link)
Sorry, my mistake, the surviving mosaics in the Hagia Sophia turn out to be from the 9th century and later - the dome partially collapsed from an earthquake not long after it was built.

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[info]mdevnich
2006-07-14 10:29 pm UTC (link)
Many in Ravenna still survive, not just in San Vitale, and there are several schools that teach the Byzantine techniques to a new generation of students. I took a week-long course there at one of the mosaic schools a few years ago. Showing off my classwork (a copy of a Byzantine mosaic): http://www.flickr.com/photos/mdevnich/189671759/ :)

I loved Ravenna-- definitely my favorite Italian city.

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[info]mdevnich
2006-07-15 12:24 am UTC (link)
And thinking about this in relation to the actual topic of the post, I was sad that I didn't enjoy this series more. I'd been somewhat "meh" about Kay after his Reconquista book, so that I wasn't going to read any more, and then, well, Byzantium! and mosaics! How could I not read this! --and this was where his writing, for me, totally jumped the spork.[1] Now I dare not read anything else by him, for fear that it will retroactively ruin _Tigana_, which I love.

[1] Because his writing tics completely overcame the story. I will provide an example:

[...end of Chapter x]: $Character thinks about upcoming significant event while, say, brushing hair. Omnicient (sp?) narrator pops in to mention how, many years from now, $Character will think back on this upcoming event and how lifechanging, amazing, other superlatives it was. Chapter ends on this cliffhanger of upcoming event about to happen.

[Chapter x+1]: A different plot thread.

[Perhaps a Chapter x+2]: with a 3rd plot thread.

[Chapter x+3]: We return to Chapter x $Character, who is now thinking BACK on the former Upcoming Event, perhaps while having a light snack, because this major event, which appeared to promise much exciting action, has happened ENTIRELY OFF STAGE.

Repeat for pretty much all plot threads.

Also, the sentence fragments. To add a feeling of significance. Apparently.

...um, I'll stop now, for the sake of people who love Kay.

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[info]kate_nepveu
2006-07-16 04:22 pm UTC (link)
Very cool! Thanks.

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