Guy Gavriel Kay Archives - Andrew Knighton Writes

The Art of Resistance – Tigana and Palmyra

Men said after that there had never been such a stillness, such rapt attention among the tables in Solinghi’s. Even the servants waiting on patrons and the cooks in the kitchens behind the bar stopped what they had been doing and stood listening. No one moved, no one made a sound. There were pipes playing, and a solitary voice singing the oldest song of mourning in the Palm.

– Guy Gavriel Kay – Tigana

Over the past year, we’ve watched heartbroken as religious totalitarians have destroyed beautiful historic sites. Recent news of destruction in Palmyra has summoned a mixture of grief, defiance and hope. Reports sway from condemning the savage vandalism, to claiming that buildings survived their attacks. How can we make sense of such destruction, and save something from the shattered remains?

Travelling to Tigana

Around the time reports were coming from Palmyra, I was finishing Guy Gavriel Kay’s Tigana. Like most of Kay’s work, it’s a spellbinding novel, well worth your time. And like all great literature, it helped me reflect on the world I live in.

In Tigana, art and political resistance are closely tied. On the one hand, the invading Brandin of Ygrath has obliterated the art and architecture of the province of Tigana, using magic to obliterate even its name. Against him rise the scattered people of Tigana, their leaders using music not just as a cover for their travels, but as a way to stir emotions and to keep the memory of their homeland alive.

Empathy For the Oppressor

One of the beauties of Tigana is that it does not present the world as a simple place of good and evil. Brandin of Ygrath is doing terrible things, but he does not consider himself evil. He is seeking revenge for the death of his son. It makes his behaviour understandable, though no less terrible.

In the same way, the IS troops destroying ancient monuments are not being thugs for the sake of thuggery. They are trying to forge a state in a region devastated by war and by economic imbalances. To do this, they have chosen a fundamentalist religious doctrine whose logical conclusion is that, to save people, you must obliterate the signs of dark and tempting paths.

I have no more sympathy for the behaviour of IS than I do for Brandin of Ygrath, no more respect for their beliefs than I do for Darth Vader’s desire to crush all before him. But as in Tigana, so in real life – we cannot grasp what is happening without opening our minds to the motives of the other side, and seeing the warped lens through which such behaviour appears reasonable.

Names

Names matter.

This is a central theme of Tigana. Brandin has cast a spell so that the name Tigana cannot be remembered by most people. Those who resist him keep that name alive. Without a name to build their identity around, their culture may be lost forever.

In the case of IS, names matter too. In calling themselves the Islamic State they are asserting a moral and religious position, a claim not only over the land they have taken but over the right to represent Islam. Some people, notably British Prime Minister David Cameron, have tried to resist this by not using their full name. Others resist by asserting their own definitions of Islam, definitions which are consistently more liberal than that of IS.

IS’s cultural war is as much about defining those words as about smashing temples. The war of words matters, because it can define concepts and memories.

Art Brings Hope

Picture of Palmyra by reibai via Flickr Creative Commons

While Tigana provides a complex lens through which to examine this real life conflict, it also offers a simple message of hope. In the story, the province of Tigana will last as long as its memory does. While the name is kept alive, there is still hope.

In our world, IS are trying to obliterate what came before them. But as long as we keep those places alive in memory, as long as we treasure their names, gaze upon their photos, record what they were, these places will endure, and the cultural bullies will never win.

Remember Nimrud. Discuss Palmyra. Go look at a picture of the mosque of Jonah in Mosul. Keep that culture alive.

And, of course, go and read Tigana.

The Fascinating Diaspora of Kay’s Tigana

How am I meant to work when I could be reading this?

I’m fascinated by the idea of diaspora, when human communities become shattered and scattered, while still clinging to their sense of unity. From the African diaspora caused by the slave trade, to the Jewish diaspora, to shorter term events like the French and Polish armed forces that continued to fight during World War Two. These are times when people’s lives are ripped out from underneath them, and when instead of destroying their ways of life they create complex cultures spread across continents. My notebooks are full of ideas about this, but aside from a British diaspora in the background of ‘The Promise and the Reckoning‘, it’s not something I’ve ever written about. And it’s not something I’ve seen addressed in genre fiction.

Until now.

Tigana

At the time of writing this, I’m 124 pages through Guy Gavriel Kay’s Tigana, and it’s taken nearly that long for the book to reveal that it’s about a diaspora, and about a rebellion spearheaded by those scattered people. The pacing is typically Kay, and something few writers can pull off. He makes these gradual starts thoughtful, characterful and atmospheric rather than slow and frustrating.

But I’m not just excited to see one of my favourite authors address a topic that fascinates me. I’m excited because he’s writing it so damn well.

The Complexity of Identity

That slow build up, and the way the diaspora is revealed, create a complex and nuanced portrayal of how a scattered community works. Kay shows how culture, politics and power are intertwined. How a sense of personal identity becomes the focus through which humans experience these connections. How vital that identity is to us, and how poorly we often understand it.

This is the sort of sophistication we need to understand the societies we live in, diasporic or not, and that shapes imaginary worlds of incredible richness.

It’s made me reflect on the extent to which we all increasingly live in geographically fractured cultures, whether they started out that way or were scattered by the winds of history. Whether your primary identification is as a Jew, a geek, a lesbian or a Frenchman, the boundaries of the group you identify with are not neatly bound. Because that now applies to pretty much everyone, we need to rethink how we treat identity and how it affects us. With 650 more pages of Tigana to go, I’m sure it’s going to help me reflect on that, while also entertaining and enthralling me.

Each time I pick up one of Kay’s books he amazes me by showing me something new. This is no exception. I’m not going to say that you should read it. Nobody should read any particular book. But if I was going to say that you should read a novel, right now I’d say it about Tigana.

The Darkest Road by Guy Gavriel Kay – Inevitability and Endings

Guy Gavriel Kay is surely one of the greatest storytellers working in fantasy. The vividness of his prose and the power of his imagination is staggering. As I mentioned in earlier posts, the Fionavar Tapestry, one of his earlier works, was good but slightly less impressive in its first volume, becoming awesome in book two. But one of the marks of a great writer is how they end things, which brings us to The Darkest Road, the third and final Fionavar book.

Myth and Destiny

The mythical scope and texture of this series brought in ideas of fate from the very start, and much of The Darkest Road is occupied with paying off the destinies of its characters, exploring just how inevitable their fates are. In many ways it’s an exploration of freedom, and how free anyone can be in a world of active gods and complex relationships between different eras in time.

This adds a sense of weight to events, as the characters struggle with inevitability. Kay strikes a fascinating balance between fulfilling and denying destiny, giving his characters logical fates. There is a sense of inevitability even when they break with destiny, as Prince Diarmuid does in one of the most dramatic moments of the book. Such is the necessity to foreshadow and build momentum behind events, that this character’s act of defiant free will feels as much a foregone conclusion as anything that has actually been pre-ordained. His destiny lies in his personality, not the weaving of the world, something that reinforced my love of Diarmuid as one of the best characters in the series.

In a very real sense, this book was the most fitting way possible to end this series.

No, Not Freedom

But by fitting the tone of the series, and coming back to the issues raised in the first book, this left me feeling less satisfied than I hoped. This is a matter of personal taste. The grandiosely mythic seldom suits me, and I balk against the use of destiny to drive a story forward. I prefer to see characters making their own choices, not having them thrust upon them, and such was the sense of inevitability here, with even the moments of freedom permitted because of mythic forces, that I seldom felt like the characters were choosing, so much as they were following the path laid out for them.

There’s also a sense of distance that comes with this mythic sort of writing. I didn’t feel drawn into the inner lives of the characters to the extent I have with Kay’s other books, and that, together with the inevitability, made me care less.

Don’t Get Me Wrong…

Despite all those reservations, I enjoyed this book. It’s a reflection of just what a great writer Kay is that, even when he’s writing something that’s not to my tastes, he executes it so magnificently that I’m drawn along through every single page. I loved seeing the bond of friendship forged between Dave, Torc and Levon. It pained me when I thought terrible things were about to happen to Jennifer. I was left pondering questions of inevitability.

Is this Kay’s best book? No. It’s not even the best book in this series, which was the magnificent The Wandering Fire. But is it worth reading? Oh yes.

* * *

On an unrelated note, my science fiction collection Lies We Will Tell Ourselves is free on Kindle for one last day today – why not go grab a copy?

Fantasy of Overwhelming Power – The Wandering Fire by Guy Gavriel Kay

Powerful.

If I was going to choose one word to describe The Wandering Fire, the second book in Guy Gavriel Kay’s Fionavar Tapestry, ‘powerful’ is the word I would choose, not just for its style but for its story. It’s a power that lifts a good series into one that’s truly great.

Part Two: Better and Darker

The Wandering Fire picks up some months after The Summer Tree left off. The characters introduced in that book are once more transported from modern Canada to the magical world of Fionavar, where in true legendary style they are called upon to fight the forces of darkness.

At first glance, this book seems much like the first, taking a very Tolkien morality and mythological story-telling, and cranking it up with Kay’s excellent writing. But it feels like, having set up the series, Kay is now free to use his full literary prowess in expanding upon it. The big moments feel even more epic, the intimate ones more personal, the menace even more substantial.

The Revelation of the Overwhelming

Overwhelming power is a major theme of this story, and one that gives it much of its drama.

On the one hand there is the overwhelming threat of Rakoth Maugrim, and of the apparent inevitability of his triumph. By alluding in advance to events to come, as well as shifting the story around chronologically, Kay creates a sense of creeping inevitable disaster, much like the atmosphere of a horror film. Defeat feels almost unavoidable, both in the broad scheme and in individual battles.

But characters are also overwhelmed in a more positive way, through religious experiences. Incidents such as an encounter between Dave and the goddess Ceinwen have a real sense of awe and grandeur to them. The gods are present and yet not reduced to mere people. It’s a difficult balance to strike, and moving to read. This is religious experience at its most emotional.

The Intimate

This isn’t to say that Kay’s book is all about epic grandeur. It’s also rooted in more ordinary but no less wonderful relationships, which he uses to explore all kinds of emotional bonds. There are siblings; romances; parent-child pairings; leaders and followers; blood brothers bound together by combat; a man and his dog; gods and worshippers; mages and the extraordinary people from whom they draw their power. This last pairing, a creation of Kay’s world, helps to draw attention to the others and bring out this theme of the story.

I enjoyed The Summer Tree, but was not enjoying The Fionavar Tapestry as much as Kay’s later work. The Wandering Fire has turned this series into something extraordinary, and I look forward to the final book.

Learning From The Summer Tree – Art in Genre Fiction

In talking about Guy Gavriel Kay’s The Summer Tree I mentioned the use of arts within the book. It’s an area I find fascinating. The role of art in society and its power to stir emotions are often overlooked in fantasy fiction. What makes it so useful?

For me, there are two obvious points.

Firstly, showing a society’s culture adds depth. It shows that there is more to people’s lives than the struggles they currently face, the wars and intrigues that are the backbone of so many plots.

Secondly, it helps us connect to the characters. We all know what it feels like to be stirred by art that touches something within us. For me, that can be listening to Jeff Buckley’s Lover You Should Have Come Over, watching Lost in Translation or reading Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. You’ll have your own examples, because while the feeling is universal, it’s triggers are seldom the same.

So who else makes good use of culture in their writing?

Tolkien uses songs and poems to explore the past.
Iain M Banks has games in The Player of Games.
John Scalzi’s Redshirts, while taking a different angle, at least shows TV as a prominent part of life.

Who else is there? Which writers do this, and especially do it well?

And what are the cultural experiences that really stir you?

Share your thoughts in the comments. I’ve mentioned a couple of my favourite things, and I’d love to hear about yours.

The Summer Tree and Guy Gavriel Kay’s Development as a Writer

I find it interesting to see how writers develop. I see it in my own writing every time I go back to edit an old story. And I saw it in spades reading Guy Gavriel Kay’s The Summer Tree.

I came to Kay through his more recent work, which is some of the richest and most brilliant in modern fantasy. The Summer Tree is a good read, but lacks the overwhelming beauty of Lions of Al-Rassan or The Sarantine Mosaic. But it helps in understanding where those books come from.

The Roots of the Tree

Most obvious is the Tolkien connection. Kay helped Christopher Tolkien edit his father Silmarillion, and boy does it show in The Summer Tree. There’s a world of culturally varied nations that will pull together in the face of external menace. There’s an epic mythology frequently alluded to. There’s a battle brewing between everyday good and epic evil. There are even ordinary people suddenly thrown into great destinies.

Christian Ethics, Pagan Trappings

Its underlying morality also shows Tolkien’s influence. I don’t know what Kay’s religious beliefs are, but Tolkien was a Christian, and his stories showed Christian morality beneath pagan trappings. The same can be seen here.

Throughout The Summer Tree, we see self-sacrifice. In some cases characters literally sacrifice their lives for others, but just as often they sacrifice their happiness or desires. Although the most prominent example of this, using the Summer Tree of the title, draws from northern European pagan mythology, the repeated theme is a very Christian one. Good comes not from people expressing their own interests and finding a way to further those together, but from subsuming themselves in service and sacrifice.

An Interest in Art

While the book shows Kay’s past, the shadow of Tolkien from which he would eventually emerge, it also shows his future, and in particular the importance of the arts in his books.

Art and its relationship to power is a repeated theme in Kay’s novels, including poetry in The Lions of Al-Rassan and mosaic in The Sarantine Mosaic. Like the Sarantine books The Fionavar Tapestry series wears that connection in its title.

But there are other links too. Music plays an important part in stirring emotions and signifying Paul’s past. Carefully crafted letters stir the heartstrings. Kevin solidifies friendships by playing guitar. Ivor’s tribe express themselves through dance.

Watching the Kay Tree Grow

The Summer Tree may not be as great a piece of writing as Kay’s more recent works. But seeing his development toward the writer he is today adds an extra pleasure to this already very good book.

The Summer Tree by Guy Gavriel Kay – Lets Get Mythical

Guy Gavriel Kay is, for me, one of the truly great and unusual voices in fantasy. His work has an incredible richness of character and description that keeps me exhilarated through slow paced stories. His use of fantasy to provide slight twists on historical settings, shining light on the roots of our world, is endlessly fascinating.

So it was with a certain trepidation that I started reading The Summer Tree, the first book in Kay’s The Fionavar Tapestry. On the one hand, at only 400 pages this would be a relatively quick Kay read, allowing me to enjoy his writing without investing as much time. On the other hand, from what I’d heard this early work did not live up to the standards of his current writing. I settled in with uncertain expectations.

Rich in Myth

The Summer Tree tells the story of five Canadians snatched away from our world and transported to the magical world of Fionavar. There they become involved in a struggle for the future. There is political turmoil in the court of Brennin, a bastion of light and civilisation. Meanwhile, dark forces are returning in the north.

Morally, it’s a less sophisticated narrative than Kay’s later works. There are clear forces of good and evil. We empathise with the good and not the bad. It’s very much a world of myth and legend.

In this regard, it shows the heavy influence of J R R Tolkien, whose Silmarillion Kay had recently helped to edit. Like The Lord of the Rings, there are hints at deeper legends, a large cast of characters both on and off the page, and divine forces lurking in the background.

Characters of Power

Like Tolkien, Kay in the The Summer Tree is concerned with people who have great destinies, however high or low their roots. From before the characters arrive in Fionavar it is clear that they are people of significance there. I’m not a fan of the use of destinies and chosen ones in fantasy, but it is in keeping with the mythical tone of the book.

In terms of empowering people, this book therefore featured two of my least favourite fantasy tropes – destiny and interventionist gods. Yet despite this, I found it engrossing.

A large part of the pleasure comes from the characters. They aren’t all as interesting as each other, and the women in particular feel less well developed, a sin I fall guilty of in some of my own writing. But characters such as Paul Schafer and Prince Diarmuid are rich and fascinating, their existence defined in relation to other people and their pasts, as our own lives are. I really enjoyed spending time with them.

Good by Any Standard

The Summer Tree is a good fantasy novel. The world is well developed, the characters interesting, and the mythical content, while not quite to my tastes, is well executed. Given developments in both fantasy and Kay’s writing since, I’d have trouble calling this great, but compared to the genre in general it is very good, and I look forward to seeing where the story goes.

If that’s got you intrigued, I’ll be discussing this book further later in the week.

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison – atmosphere and intrigue

A lot of fantasy set in secondary worlds, ones entirely detached from our own, tends to be action packed. Think of the grand quest of Lord of the Rings or the battles, chases and duels of Games of Thrones. I like that action, but it’s nice occasionally to find a book the breaks the pattern and takes a more contemplative approach to such a setting. The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison is such a book.

Relying on Sympathy, Not Strength

The Goblin Emperor is the story of Maia, a young half-goblin son of an elf emperor. Maia has grown up in exile, ignored by his father and the court. But when the Emperor and his other sons die in what at first seems to be an accident, Maia is propelled to the throne. The story revolves around how Maia struggles with his new position, both politically and emotionally. His life is suddenly better, but a lot harder and full of risks.

Maia is a great character to centre a book around. He’s only eighteen years old and a fish out of water, not particularly strong physically and only just starting to find any strength of character. The situations he’s put in would be difficult for almost anyone, and that makes his struggles with them very human, drawing the reader in through sympathy. The fact that he doesn’t understand how the court works also creates excuses to explain things to readers.

An Archaic Atmosphere

The most obvious books to compare this to are Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast trilogy, starting with Titus Groan. With their intense atmosphere of intrigue and incomprehensible ritual, the Gormenghast books evoke that sense of a court as a bewildering place held back by centuries of tradition. I loved those books when I first encountered them, and my mum still has a photo of seventeen-year-old me sat up an apple tree in my grandma’s back garden, completely indifferent to the real world, lost in Peake’s imagination.

But what Gormenghast isn’t is accessible. The language is rich but challengingly dense, the pace slow, the characters mostly unsympathetic. The Goblin Emperor achieves a similar, though slightly less intense atmosphere, while being far more accessible. We’re thrown into an intriguingly complex and inaccessible world, but Addison’s writing and Maia’s company carry the reader through with ease.

Inevitable Intrigue

This being a book about a court, the plot revolves around intrigue, and that’s probably its weakest point. The plot is good, but it doesn’t twist and turn in the way I’d hoped it might. Characters and their motives usually remain what they first appear to be.

That said, this allows a greater degree of optimism than in a book such as Titus Groan or Guy Gavriel Kay’s Lord of Emperors. From early on, Maia makes small positive changes to the lives of those around him, and aspires to larger changes in a way that’s hopeful but not unconvincing for the setting. A tension remains over whether he’ll maintain this trickle of positive change in a tradition-bound court, or drown in a reactionary tide.

Allowing the Heart to Sing

I really enjoyed this book. Though the plot achieved neither sudden turn-arounds nor the sense of crushing inevitably present in Peake and Kay’s courtly works, it had another sort of emotional engagement. It presented Maia in an incredibly personal, accessible way despite the impersonal nature of the setting. It balanced optimism and sympathy with darkness and doubt. It’s the most accessible book in this style that I’ve read, and a very enjoyable one.

My cultural highlights of 2014

I’m really bad at keeping on top of modern culture. There’s just so much of it, and so much stuff around the corner behind us that I want to peak back at. That’s no bad thing, just a reflection of how much awesomeness there is out there. But it means that as I think back on what I’ve really enjoyed this year, not all of it’s actually from this year. Still, here are the new(ish) things that really rocked my brain in 2014:

Reading

I’ve done more reading recently, as my befuddled brain has emerged from the fog of the last few years. And from that enshrouding miasma appeared a thing of spell-binding beauty – Guy Gavriel Kay’s Sarantine Mosaic. I cannot recommend this pair of books enough – Sailing to Sarantium and Lord of Emperors are breathtaking in their majesty, their immediacy and their beauty. They’re big, slow, weighty reads, but well worth the heavy lifting. Many thanks to Glenatron and Everwalker for pointing me towards Kay, and to Sheila for the present.

This was the year Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie returned to their old stomping ground of pop culture as magic, launching The Wicked + The Divine. It’s a beautiful looking and cleverly written comic that explores what it is to be an artist, a fan and a believer. There are clever layouts, smart references, intriguing characters and a fascinating plot. The only thing currently matching it is Chew, with its crazy world building, madcap plotting and offbeat characters. These two together show that comics can be fun, wild, entertaining and carry a serious emotional message all at the same time. They also show that the medium doesn’t have to get all dark to get beyond superheroes.

Viewing

Speaking of superheroes, did Marvel bring their A game this year or what? Agents of SHIELD turned from a limping pet only fanboys would love into a TV show that is dark, twisty and full of character. Tying its fate to Captain America: The Winter Soldier crippled it for most of its first season, but then created a moment of spectacular cross-platform awesomeness. The film and TV show spiralled around each other in ways that let them entertain as stand-alone viewing but break new ground as a cultural project. It helped that the Winter Soldier was a good film in its own right.

As if that weren’t enough, Marvel also brought out the biggest, funnest thing I watched in the cinema this year – Guardians of the Galaxy. A bunch of bickering misfits, forced to work together to save themselves and the universe? A talking raccoon and his walking tree buddy? A dance-off against a villain? Hell yes, I’m in for that. It wasn’t a smart film, or a ground-breaking one, but man was it ever entertaining.

But my favourite new film this year didn’t get a cinematic release, and that’s part of why I loved it. Joss Whedon, mastermind behind Marvel’s Avengers movies, took time out from his regularly scheduled blockbusters to help create In Your Eyes, a beautiful and unusual film about love and an inexplicable magical connection. It also took a bold approach to distribution that, for me, points towards the future I want to see. Just when we thought Whedon couldn’t get any more awesome, he upped his game again.

Aside from that, I’ve been making much more use of YouTube, and particularly recommend the PBS Idea Channel. Every week they come out with a slice of smart commentary, combing intellectual insight with popular culture. So cool.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3EBR1hlbI&w=560&h=315]

Listening

Here’s where we leave science fiction and fantasy behind. I listen to some sf+f podcasts, and a bit of geeky music, but my favourites this year have been other things.

The Revolutions Podcast is an entertaining and extremely well presented show covering some of the most fascinating slices of history – political revolutions. So far it’s covered the English Civil War and the American War of Independence. Now it’s onto the French Revolution. Mike Duncan previously created the excellent History of Rome podcast, but this is even better. If you like history at all, check it out.

Musically, my favourite discoveries this year haven’t been new to this year, but they’ve been new to me. A friend pointed me toward the Wanton Bishops, a spectacular blues rock outfit from Lebanon. For pure grinding energy, they’re hard to beat.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwV5LfxFMxU?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

Then there’s Macklemore & Ryan Lewis. I like to hear clever rapping and pop musicians getting away from tired themes of romance and and self-aggrandisement. Macklemore absolutely hits the spot, backed by Ryan Lewis’s catchy and diverse beats, from pro-equality anthem Same Love to the ridiculously exuberant Lets Dance to recycled shopping tribute Thrift Shop. Even when they’re crafting whole songs about Cadillacs, basketball or trainers, their sheer passion keeps me wanting more.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QK8mJJJvaes?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

But my heart really lies with folk rock, and for that I recommend checking out The Patient Wild. Theirs are beautifully crafted storytelling songs, the sort of thing I can’t get enough of. And a member of the band reads this blog, so everybody wave to Glenatron – hi dude!

Gaming

As Laura will testify, I’m pretty much obsessed with the card game Smash Up, in which you combine genre favourite factions to battle it out for domination. Whether I’m leading robot ninjas against time travelling pirates, or dipping into madness with the Cthulhu expansion, I would happily play this all day every day. It’s a lot of fun.

I also enjoyed the story/game combo of Device 6, which showed just what great things we can do with storytelling in the age of phone apps. Looking back, it feels like a test piece for greater things to come, but it’s a fascinating and atmospheric test piece.

And now I’m addicted to Minecraft. I’ll probably blog about this another day, but it’s kind of like having a giant Lego set on my Kindle, except a Lego set where zombies try to kill me. I don’t know why I didn’t play it years ago, but I’m glad I didn’t given how much time it’s sucking away.

Other stuff

Tiger stripe espresso beans. Manchester’s beautiful new central library. Costa Coffee’s caramel crunch cake. This year has been full of great stuff. Here’s hoping for more.

And so, in a variation on yesterday’s question, what have been your cultural highlights this year, big or small? Please share some recommendations in the comments, give me cool things to check out next year.

Magic and art

Magic and art are a natural match in our minds. Art taps into the parts of ourselves we understand least – our emotions, our instincts, our subconscious. And magic, from card tricks at a kids’ birthday party to vast elemental spells in an epic fantasy, is all about the unexplained.

Casting of magic in stories often involves some form of art. It can be singing and chanting to cast a spell, dancing around a campfire to communicate with the spirits, drawing symbols or stitching together creepy voodoo dolls – if there’s an artform out there then there’s a form of magic to go with it.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCO0J1N661U&w=560&h=315]

Joss Whedon created one of my favourite examples, the Buffy The Vampire Slayer episode ‘Once More, With Feeling’. For a single episode song and dance are both enforced by and and unleashed by the power of magic, as the cast show off their variable music talents. It’s an in character excuse for an out of character novelty, turning a popular fantasy show into a musical for one episode, and it’s great fun.

Guy Gavriel Kay often explores art and power, and though magic often plays a low key part in his works, it still fuses with art in Sailing to Sarantium. Sculptures of birds are brought to life, art capturing the human spirit in a way that becomes unsettling as the truth behind it is revealed.

Combining art and magic is something I’ve tried to do myself in some of the stories in By Sword, Stave or Stylus. The emotional core of ‘Live by the Sword’ is about how the gladiator characters use art as an escape from the terrible brutality of their lives, and about magic making this literal. ‘The Essence of a Man’ fuses oil painting with alchemy, combining two arts that created high excitement during the European Renaissance. ‘The Magpie Dance’ is about dance as magic, while ‘One Minute of Beauty’ is about a very conscious attempt to squeeze the art and magic from life, the artist in his and her modern form.

I love to see magic and art combined in stories, one becoming an outlet for the other. So what other great examples are there? What other books, shows or films have combined magic and art in interesting ways? What have I missed?