Welcome back to the CSFF Blog Tour for Patrick Carr’s A Draw of Kings!
As I said earlier this week, I’ve already reviewed this particular book…as well as the previous two books in the series, A Cast of Stones and The Hero's Lot. Since I don’t need
to bore those who have already read my reviews (summary: I really like the
series), I want to ruminate instead on one of my favorite elements in The Staff and the Sword series and one
that I think makes this story unique.
That would be the story’s medieval-world feel in general,
and Carr’s re-imagining of the medieval church in particular.
Religion can be challenging to insert into a story, not just
because it’s controversial. Plenty of people complain about heavy-handed
Christianese, and just as many people complain about the lack of a religious
message. Part of the challenging is just deciding how (or if) a writer wants to
handle religion. Fiction allows writers to use a wide range of nuances as they
develop their story and their world, and fantasy is no different from the rest
of fiction. If anything, fantasy gives writers even more possibility to pick
from, because writers get to create or reinvent their world in ways historical
fiction or contemporary romances can only imagine.
If you think about it, the two big myth-makers bookend the
entire spectrum from an overtly Christian mythos to a more subtle, almost
invisible supernatural presence.
I’m talking about C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien of course.
I know from experience that people who read only The Hobbit or The Lord of the
Rings tend to think God got left out of the stories. Tolkien has a very
clear history to his Middle Earth in the stories of the elves, the dwarves, and
the wars against Sauron, but there is no obvious God-figure, no one ever
mentions a divine being, and Gandalf doesn’t point Frodo to ancient book of
knowledge to help him define right and wrong.
Now, if you mention this to any Tolkien fan, they will
instantly say, “But there’s The Silmarillion.” And there is, certainly. As
Gandalf tells Frodo, “There
are many powers in the world, for good or for evil.” It’s just that Tolkien apparently
doesn’t see a need to make any overt references to the highest of these powers,
the creation story or the rest of the mythos he develops in The Silmarilion. That’s
one end of the spectrum.
At the other end is Lewis’s Narnia, where Aslan rules as
High King over all High Kings, the son of the Emperor-beyond-the-Sea. As Lewis pointed
out, Aslan is not an allegorical stand-in for Christ, a metaphor on the level
of Mr. Do-Good in Pilgrim’s Progress. Aslan is
Christ as he might appear in a world inhabited by talking animals. Aslan
himself tells Edmund and Lucy that they must learn to know him in their own
world as well.
So, what does this have to do with The Sword and the Staff?
Traditionally, the medieval world has been a popular setting
for fantasy quests, among both good authors and not-so-good authors. It’s a
world that seems to invite dragons and ogres. Sometimes the world exists as a
medieval-style land on an unknown world or a hidden continent, but other times
it is superimposed over the real medieval Europe. When the latter happens, the
world may take on real aspects of medieval Europe,such as the cultural mix or even certain historic events. This is fantasy, after all, and authors can write their own version
of history.
Similarly, in The
Sword and the Staff series, Carr takes on the medieval church, while giving
it his own twist. In Carr’s world, the church exists as one of the central
pillars of society, second only to the king—if even that. The church’s structure
closely mirrors the Catholic church’s hierarchy with its village priests, benefices,
and archbenefices.
At the same time, this is a church that lost access to the Book
hundreds of years before and has based its theology on tradition since that
time. This being a fantasy series, Carr throws some other elements into the mix
as well. The church serves a trinity—Deas, Eleison, and Aurae—while fighting
against the village herbalists who claim to speak with spirits, including the unknowable Aurae. Meanwhile,
the church backs up its traditions with its readers—men who can hold a question
in their head and carve all of the possible answers into special blocks or
stones for casting lots. Each reader can see only the answers he has carved, but
an omne can read any other reader’s lots as well as his own.
All this becomes critically important when it comes to
finding an heir for the dying king and for learning how to preserve Illustra's barrier
against the demonic powers trying to overpower the kingdom. Without the Book to
guide it, the church can only use its readers to hunt out the answers it needs.
That ability, though, is threatened when a churchman learns that some people
might indeed be able to hear Aurae speak.
In other words, Carr has history and fantasy working
together. Plus, it makes a
really cool mix, and it’s just another reason why I love both medieval worlds
and fantasy in general.
(If you want to see what other bloggers are saying about this book or the series, you can find a list of the posts here.)
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