The Lions of al-Rassan

”One sun for the god. Two moons for his beloved sisters. Uncountable, stars to shine in the night. Oh, man and woman, born to a dark path, only look up and the lights shall guide you home.”

I can’t believe I took this long to read this book. I’m a loud and proud lover of GGK’s books, and up until this point my favorite of his was Under Heaven. How could any book be better than Under Heaven, I wondered. Surely, at most, it’d be just on par with it. I’d definitely get around to it sooner or later.

How very wrong I was. This book is now easily my favorite GGK book, by a very large margin.

To summarize a very complex book, circumstances bring together a small band of people from very different backgrounds, both political and religious. They bond through shared circumstances, and then find their bonds and loyalties tested as world events start pulling them back apart again. As with all of GGK’s books, it’s rooted in actual world history (I’m not familiar with the period myself, but it’s evidently based on Moorish Spain and the religious conflicts that happened then), but with GGK magical realism flair. Uneasy peace turns into conflict, religions clash, and loyalties are examined. It’s very complex, and I’m trying to keep things vague for my friends who want to read it.

GGK’s hand is evident here in the quality of the writing (fantastic) and how he somehow manages to make all these complex political and religious machinations make sense to the average reader. It’s not an overwhelming read, it’s very compelling and easy to digest. I instantly loved all the main characters, and was actually breathless near the end during the book’s climax. Contrary to what you might expect, the climax of this book isn’t played out on a major battlefield, but it’s exciting all the same.

I don’t really know what else to say here, except that if I could give it 6/5 stars, I would. I know that sounds fangirly, but I don’t care. I haven’t met a GGK book I didn’t like, and I very much liked this one.

On reread, this book still has the same weaknesses that I find in all of Kay's works. It's pretentious in its portentous-ness (look, if you've read Kay, you know what that means and I'm sure you agree--I actually love that about his writing but I can't deny that he takes it too far), it has some weird gender stuff going on (Kay writes "strong" female characters but never seems to really understand women, probably because he sees them as inherently different than men), there is no subtlety in its attempt to be elegiac, there's some weird and unfortunate but seemingly unintentional race stuff (both your Muslim and your Jewish character have blue eyes? Really, Guy?), it uses the delayed information big reveal trick OVER AND OVER, and the story sometimes struggles beneath the weight of his style.

Despite all that, this book still gets five stars.

Sometimes the end product just transcends the weaknesses it contains and renders them irrelevant.

(And yes, I messy cried again.)

Despite all that, this book still gets five stars.

Sometimes the end product just transcends the weaknesses it contains and renders them irrelevant.

(And yes, I messy cried again.)

There are things to be learned from questions, beyond the answers to the question.

I expected Lions of Al-Rassan to be a challenge but I was up for the task. I had read Tigana from Guy Gavriel Kay earlier, thoroughly enjoyed it and was hoping for another enjoyable book.

Unfortunately I found Lions to be dull. Perhaps it was the historical fiction nature of the story or the characters but I didn't enjoy reading the book or look to find extra time in the day to get through chapters. My biggest grievance was the difficulty in identifying and placing characters. Everyone was properly introduced but I would jumble the names and not realize the significance of two side characters talking or their interwoven plots until the chapter was over or gloss over it completely.

There were some highlights in the book but they were in between long stretches where I wasn't engaged, so in the end this book was just okay for me and I will pick my next Guy Gavriel Kay book carefully knowing that historical fiction may not be the genre for me.

This is a grand, sweeping epic set on a fantasy world with two moons, though clearly strongly inspired by medieval Spain and the religious conflicts of those times. The plot centers around the conflicts between the three main religions of Ashar (worshipers of the Stars), Jad (worshipers of the Sun) and Kindath (worshipers of the Two Moons). The Kindath are the more oppressed of the three (rather strongly aligned with Jews) while the other two seem to represent a conflict similar to Christianity vs Islam. As the Kindath physician Jehane meets Ammar ibn Khairan, Ashar warrior and poet, and Ser Rodrigo Belmonte, renowned Jad captain, they develop a deep friendship and fight together as a mercenary force while in exile. Once their exile ends, however, they are forced into opposing sides of a great religious war. The "lions of Al-Rassan" refers to the once-powerful Asharite emperors of the lands of Al-Rassan, but that empire is now splintered and fallen and the lands of Al-Rassan are now contested by the Jaddites. I believe however that the "Lions of Al-Rassan" in the title also comes to apply to the two opposing warriors, Ammar and Rodrigo, who come face to face in battle towards the end to decide the fate of Al-Rassan for the future. If you enjoy grand-scale, sweeping political and military stories you will likely enjoy this a lot.

The peninsula of Al-Rassan has been split into three kingdoms; formerly under Jaddite control and known as Esperaňa. The split between the three Jaddite factions in the north and some Asharite kingdoms in the south makes for a volatile relationship of political and religious indifferences. The book centres on three protagonists from different races; Jehane bet Ishak, a Kindath physician in Fezana; Rodrigo Belmonte, a Jaddite captain of a company of cavalry and Ammar ibn Khairan, an Asharite poet, mercenary, and advisor to King Almalik of Cartada.

The major theme I found in this book was one of religious indifference; the three main kingdoms in this book are actually based on the three major religions, the Kindath, based on the Jews; the Asharites, based on the Muslims; and the Jaddites, based on the Christians. The problem I had with this novel, it becomes incredibly confusing and hard to keep up; you practically have to keep a graph to remember which person is from where and what religion they are based on. I think one of the hardest things with High Fantasy is that all the weird names, races and everything else makes it too confusing.

This is a really complex story and even without the religious metaphors, you still have to have wrap your head around the medical practices of Jehane bet Ishak and all the other physicians in Al-Rassan. As well as military strategies mentioned by Rodrigo Belmonte, Ammar ibn Khairan and King Almalik of Cartada, plus many more overly thought out issues that Guy Gavriel Kay decides to inject into this novel. Luckily this world is the basis of some of his books so while he loves his metaphors, all the world building should translate into his other books.

The world is based around Moorish Spain which helps put the architecture and people’s behaviours into perspective. Even some of the characters are based loosely on Moorish historical figures such as El Cid and Ibn Ammar. Historical fantasy is apparently the genre type for The Lions of Al-Rassan but I cannot say that I have ever heard of this genre type but with a little bit of research I have since found out it is a pretty common sub-genre. Blending elements of the historical into a high fantasy setting and sometimes adding a mystical thread, this genre mixes elements of alternative history but sets it in a completely different world (with common elements); One Thousand and One Nights being the most known novel within the genre.

While this really is not my type of novel, I sometimes felt like the plot was not moving fast enough and other times felt completely lost, The Lions of Al-Rassan somehow managed to keep me. I give full credit to Guy Gavriel Kay’s writing style; the language and the similes helped paint a beautiful scene and overall story. Then the conflict between Jews and Muslims and Christian metaphor was really what interested me the most and kept me going. While fantasy has never been a strong suit for me, it really felt like a template just to explore the author’s thoughts on something so complex and misunderstood as religion. You can see the similarities between the factions and exploring this volatile world from a military strategy perspective really spotlights the political roadblocks that stand in the way for harmony.

This really ended up being something much more than I expected. Proving high literature can be found in any genre. If I had the time and knowledge, I think this would be a great book to pick apart and explore, though that would require deep looks into the theology of the three religions, history of Moorish Spain as well as military strategies. I am sure there must be an academic out there that took the time to look at this book but for me, I just enjoyed my brief visit to the world of Al-Rassan.

This review originally appeared on my blog; literary-exploration.com/2013/04/10/book-review-the-lions-of-al-rassan/