A Fan's Playground

I first heard about this book from sholio years ago, and I'm glad it rang a bell when I stumbled across it in a used bookstore! I picked it up, and it is GREAT.

This is a historical fiction book set in Roman Britain, which is a time/place I've only ever seen get attention from Rosemary Sutcliff, so it was honestly a little bit disconcerting - I kept expecting it to be more Sutcliffy than it was! But Bradshaw has different interests and different prose styles than Sutcliff. (Some better, some worse, some just different without judgement!)

The ongoing Sutcliff reminders did make me worried going in about emotional devastation, but that's not what Bradshaw wants to write about, and you know what, I'm here for that, much though I love having Sutcliff rip my heart out. Also Bradshaw is interested in her female characters actually having their own names and identities and goals and drives apart from the men in their lives, which I am ALSO here for. (even the fridged wife,Tirgatao, gets brought up often enough and with enough specificity that she felt like a real person!) I missed Sutcliff's nature porn though!

Anyway, Island of Ghosts is about a bunch of Sarmatian warriors who were defeated by the Romans and get sent to Britain to supplement the Roman troups in keeping back the British barbarians at Hadrian's Wall. The main character, Ariantes, is a prince and a leader among the Sarmatians, but despite the warrior culture of his people he has become sick of war. As well, he is caught in a difficult situation between remaining as Sarmatian as he can, and needing to learn how to interact with and ingratiate himself with the Romans in order to better agitate for good treatment of his men - which then leads him to be seen as a Romanizer by some other Sarmatians.

It's a book where the central conflict, then, is about identity and what it means, and how much you can or should change your identity when circumstances change. This is present among the Sarmatians, but it's also a recurring theme with various secondary characters who are of a British background and are to a greater or lesser degree assimilated into Romanness as well. And is there such a thing as a pan-British identity, rather than specific tribes being important? And is one's identity as a not-a-Roman sufficient to make people allies?

All of this is fascinating and wonderful, and I love the complexity with which Bradshaw addresses these questions.

There is an actual plot as well, not just questions of identity, but it's not the kind of book that's interested in maintaining the reader's sense of tension by withholding information from the reader. It's obvious from fairly early on who the main antagonist is, and it's more about how the issues will get addressed. I am a little annoyed though about ( spoilers about some details about the main antagonist )

I do love though how so many characters beyond the protagonist are allowed to have things that really really matter to them, even though they aren't of any importance or interest to the POV character. And they have delightful complexity too that makes them feel real! And not everybody who's an ally of Ariantes likes him at first (or even necessarily ever). Facilis and Longus are both so great!

The other thing to talk about is the romance arc. It's rather too love at first sight for my tastes really, but honestly this works far better for me than love at first sight usually does, given the particulars of the situation and the people involved! I can see why this is how these particular characters might actually feel! Also, after this, they end up having to have multiple ongoing conversations with each other about the issues and concerns that arise in their relationship, especially due to the cross-cultural nature of it, and how much work it still does take to understand each other despite the bond they have. So overall I'm here for it!

I also love the note the book ends on, ( cut for spoilers for the end, mostly tonal )

Overall an excellent read! And now I have a list of other Gillian Bradshaw books to seek out as I have the opportunity.

Back in the days after I'd started keeping a list of all the books I read each year but BEFORE I started posting reviews of them, I kept desultory personal notes (ranging from a single word to quite a few paragraphs) on some of the books. And I always vaguely forget I have, and forget where exactly to find them, and I'd like to just have them on my dw so they're FINDABLE again for me. And also some of you might find these interesting/amusing? (N.B. some of these contain what I would now classify as INCORRECT OPINIONS.)

SO HERE'S THREE YEARS' WORTH OF BOOKS IN ONE POST, OKAY GO.

( expand this cut to see nested cuts listing all the books )

This book does exactly what it says on the tin.

The book as a physical object entirely displays the manifest excellences of Bringhurst's grasp of good typographic style. The book is a beautiful object.

The contents of the book are also pretty good! Bringhurst is a surprisingly compelling author (or maybe I'm just surprised at the depth of my nerdiness, that I would read a typographic manual straight through......).

The book is charmingly over-convinced of the subject's utmost importance, though - I mean, yes, I agree, this stuff IS important, but perhaps not quite as deeply vital as the author thinks. But it's entirely reasonable that a book that's all about nothing but this would be convinced that this is important! And it DOES make a difference in terms of the pleasure of reading a book.

I will say I didn't read ALL all of it - there was one bit that was all about the precise mathematics of the decisions of page size and ratios, and the text block size and position in relation to the page shape/size, and the author kindly gave permission to just skim over that bit if the reader isn't into the math stuff. So I took the author up on that permission.

Also, in the bit where he's got a paragraph description of each of a whole bunch of different fonts, I didn't read all of those very closely, because they got a bit tedious.

But otherwise: great book! Even for someone like me who has no actual reason to have to know any of these things. And I bet for someone who actually DOES (like a graphic designer or whatever) this book would be of high value.

Next up: I read three Brother Cadfael books in a row! Such a good series.


The Pilgrim of Hate, by Ellis Peters

I'd been sure I hadn't actually read this book - the tenth book in the Brother Cadfael series - because it's one of the few I don't own. (I've been slowly collecting the books over the years via thrift shops and used book sales and the like.) But I realized partway through that I actually have read it before, years ago! Not that that helped me, because I didn't remember a thing about the plot. :P

At any rate, a lovely book like all the Brother Cadfael books are, ( Read more... )


The Summer of the Danes, by Ellis Peters

Ah yes, more Brother Cadfael, always good times. I really liked this one! One of those murder mysteries where the murder mystery is actually relegated to b-plot because it's way less important than the other stuff going on - which in this case is welsh politicking and viking invasion and a young woman who wants control over her own life. Yeah!

Cadfael himself is a delight as always, but I was particularly into the Obligatory Young People Romance in this book, because Heledd is great. ( Read more... )


The Holy Thief, by Ellis Peters

I dunno. I mean, it was good? Brother Cadfael books are always good. But I wouldn't rate this one of my favourites of the series.