For humans, endurance is a strange and potent virtue. Through tragedy and turmoil, pain and grief, it drives us onward, motivating us to plow through the difficult and traumatic obstacles arrayed before us with little regard for the odds of success. Often, this doggedness serves us in good stead, allowing us to escape the immobilizing grip of deadly despair and to achieve our dreams, but this determination comes at a cost. After all, it is a force, not a guide. We cannot reason with it. We cannot tell it to be silent when we have been defeated, when all hope is lost. And so we scrabble in the dirt of our unmaking, trying to live just a little bit longer. This idea, in all its hope and all its loss, is well-captured in Jude Fisher's interesting if troubled trilogy.
In the land of elda, where the forces of individualism and conformity stand in such stark contrast, life is rarely easy. Divided into two realms, Eyra in the north and Istria in the south, one's gods, fortunes and laws are determined by the place of their birth. Reared in the northern island, under Eyran skies, and one is raise in a world of clans made up of fiercely independent souls who skill at working wood and stone is matched only by their capacity to sail the open seas. To be born in the southern Istria, meanwhile, is to be inculcated in a world of casts and religiosity, a place where personal advancement is as scarce as god's mercy. There is little law that isn't handed down from the selfish nobility who in no way check the power of those who would burn their own people for the most mild of blasphemies.
These opposing realms have little in common except for the Allfair, an annual, two-week extravaganza of trade, schemes, exploitation and opportunism of which both the high and the low partake. This particular year, however, proves to be even more explosive than most. For Katla Aranson, the talented, pugnacious, flame-haired daughter of one of Eyra's most illustrious clan chiefs has attended and she thinks of nothing of wandering wherever she pleases, even onto rocks sacred to the Istrians and their goddess. Arrested and sentenced to burn for her crimes, this single act of recklessness ignites a series of life-altering events that will shape the futures of two realms. For the gods and their minders have also come to the Allfair and their schemes will leave no one untouched.
An eminently readable series, The Fool's Gold Trilogy is entertaining fare that manages to be dark, wry and consequential without ever awakening the emotions, much less the sympathies, of the reader. Ms. Fisher's background in Scandinavian languages has had a profound influence here, causing the tale to read very much like the Norse sagas, full of flawed and imprisoned gods and the the rash and headstrong mortals who worship them. With such a cast of characters, it would be impossible for the trilogy to be anything other than a dark and winding adventure, full of crushing lows and brief, explosive successes. And yet, despite these wild swing in fortunes, despite a host of actors who range from the monstrous to the earnest, the series fails to animate into anything the reader can love.
While Ms. Fisher has assembled a host of interesting and complex characters, the world that they inhabit is far too black and white for their gray. There are soem commonalities between the realms, particularly pertaining to the rights of women to act as they see fit, but otherwise the fun-loving northmen, with their songs and their ships and their freedom, is so cliched, particularly when set against the typically hedonistic southerners whose desert ways are a perfect match for their religious fanaticism. These are not just old themes, they are tired ones. And Ms. Fisher has failed to breathe ay life into them.
For all her difficulty with world and plot, Ms. Fisher has created a winner in Katla Aranson who rises like a proud eagle above Elda's fray. Her strength and tenacity, her riotousness and adventurousness, are enchanting. For they imbue Katla with a wild, irrepressible power that moves beyond the crudeness of gender stereotypes and to new and fertile ground rarely tilled by any author. However, even this, Ms. Fisher's greatest success, ends up hobbling her work. For Katla shines so bright that she serves to highlight the continental gap in quality that exists between her and every other actor on her stage. Every time the narrative leaves her, the reader is desperate to return and once again be touched by her mesmerizing spirit. Had just one or two more of her companions risen to this level, The Fool's Gold Trilogy would have overcome its flaws. As it is, Katla is left to hold up a nearly 2,000-page odyssey on her own. And not even her sculpted and straining shoulders can manage that feat.
Thrilling and disappointing... An interesting adventure that pulls few punches, but cannot bring its readers to care about the punches it does throw. (2/5 Stars)
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