Storytelling
Categories: Science Fiction & Fantasy , Fiction
I just finished two books with something in common. They’re really good tales told by master storytellers, and they’re both in their own ways also about the importance of storytelling.
Both books are a little different from the last novel you may have read, but both will take you back to the enchantment of “once upon a time” and make you think about why those are such magical words.
The first is Here Lies Arthur, by Philip Reeve, based on a story we all know. The other is Nation, by Terry Pratchett, which bears some similarity to history as we know it but turns out rather differently in the inimitable Pratchett’s hands.
It makes for a long post to tell you about both of them, but I can’t resist, so read on.
In Here Lies Arthur, the story of King Arthur is told by the Lady of the Lake—or rather, by an orphan girl Merlin sends into a pond with a sword.
Gwyna’s home was raided by Arthur’s own war band, but she escaped. Myrrdin adopts her, though he has to dress her as a boy to keep people from putting two and two together about that trick with the sword.
As he teaches Gwyna, the story is more important than the truth. Though Arthur is just a boorish local raider, Myrddin thinks he can unite the tribes against Saxon invaders. So Myrddin is using his considerable talents as a bard to create the legend of a great king. When people start talking behind Arthur’s back about his wife, Myrddin uses Gwyna again in a more terrible trick to restore Arthur’s reputation.
Though many retellings of the Arthurian legends have humanized Arthur, this is the first version I’ve read where Arthur really comes off looking rather like the bad guy. It’s all about how people need grand legends, and how those stories grow in the hands of bards. Or novelists.
Now for Terry Pratchett’s Nation, another artfully crafted exercise in storytelling.
In something like the nineteenth century, in something like the South Seas, a tsunami wipes out the entire population of an island nation, except for Mau, a boy who was at sea beginning his manhood initiation.
The wave also lodges a ship in the branches of the rainforest. That ship is carrying an (English) girl named Daphne, who by a series of coincidences is heir to the throne in her own country, just as Mau is now chief by default.
Mau and Daphne must find a way to communicate and to help the few dozen people who eventually make their way toward the island.
Mau has to cope with all of this in a crisis of faith, as he can’t believe that the gods could have allowed such terrible destruction. Are the gods simply stories? The story he and Daphne discover about his nation’s history becomes crucial in restoring his sense of rightness in the world.
It’s a tragic tale, but it’s told with a sly and gentle humor. (The footnote about octopus arbori, the tree-climbing octopus, will clue you in that Pratchett isn’t your typical storyteller.) Elements of fantasy leaven the story and will have you turning pages quickly to see what becomes of Mau and Daphne. Suffice it to say that what happens is surprising—Pratchett rights a few wrongs of history in this subversively alternate tale.
Both of these books are in our collection as teen titles, but they’re for all ages.
