brightly woven

I am reading Guy Gavriel Kay's The Fionavar Tapestry this weekend. I started The Summer Tree on Friday at the lake, finished The Wandering Fire this morning and have now gone on to The Darkest Road. I read these books first as a child, and one of the best things that came out of working at Half Price Books was being able to purchase the set in the exact same book club editions that my mother had, with Martin Springett's illustrations. These stories are traditional summer reading for me, though it has been almost five years since the last time I read them. There was too much grief inbetween. But I remember that summer, reading them by the swimming pool in the clear noon sun.

I have a habit of investing myself too deeply in stories and other people. Always. Since I was very young, it was this way. I was quiet, and lived a somewhat solitary, private life away from everyone else in my head. From very early on, I was conscious of the gap between myself and other people. My entire life, I have spent trying to find ways over that gap in everything I do. For me, these stories are a spar across that chasm and darkness between worlds. In the end, there is so much light.

I've met few people in my personal life who didn't like these stories if they had read them. From time to time I have heard Kay's worked derided as being too simplistic and derivative of the mythologies he combined. But I think that is an unfair assessment, as these stories very much have a heart and soul of their own. I think there is enough to make you feel with each one of the characters, to mourn and celebrate with them. There is fierce exaltation, and deep, abiding grief. I love these stories. They make me cry, each time, even though I know what will happen. Rachel's song and Kevin's sacrifice, the rain in Brennin, the lios alfar and their golden horses, the Dalrei riding for the river and the war with the dark. If Tolkien's stories were ultimately about fellowship, then Kay's stories are about love.