A remarkable book

The Lions of al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I can't even think how to review this book. First of all, I guess, it's a good lesson on why not to give up on a book before you finish it. I was more than halfway through, and getting a little frustrated and somewhat bored with Kay's POV changes and introduction of new and mostly peripheral characters so far into the book. This is the third Kay book I've read, and I find myself a little put off by his distant approach to events that are positively horrifying. He introduces one of the main characters with a scene of him as an assassin, cool as you please. Made it a little hard to warm up to him later, for me, at least. A later scene of butchery I almost missed as my eyes were skimming a scene that he was describing in this way. Had to go back and reread it. On the other hand, some of the things he writes about are mundane and seemingly very incidental to the plot. I'm wondering from time to time, "Why am I reading this?"



Anyway, I put the book down and watched some TV shows I'd missed and was hesitant about going back to it. Friends, however, had given it such high recommendations that I decided to continue. That's when it started to get interesting.



At some point I could not stop reading until I was crying so hard that my dogs got upset and I had to remind myself that it was only a BOOK I was reading, not a rerun of a personal tragedy. Kay's descriptions of the characters and their feelings so closely mirrored my own that it was hard to separate.



Finally, at the end, the book left me horribly sad and I find I have to give it five stars, not because I enjoyed it but because it's obviously a case of art mirroring life to the nth degree and a work of genius.



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