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Title: The Kings in Winter by Cecelia Holland ISBN: 0-312-86888-X Publisher: Forge Pub. Date: 01 February, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.62 (8 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A historical novel of character
Comment: What makes Holland so distinctive among historical novelists (along with Rosemary Sutcliffe) is that while others write plot-driven action-adventure stories only slightly more literary than the Hardy Boys, she writes modern, character-driven novels of psychological realism that just happen to be set in medieval history. Understandably, those who only enjoy swashbuckling heroes on epic quests would find them dull and confusing. But if you want to get a sense what it might have felt like to be a medieval Irishman, this story of Muirtagh O'Cullinane is a miniature masterpiece. Muirtagh is a complex man caught in a complex political and personal situation, torn between allegiance to his king, family loyalty, and an oath he swore not to continue the feud between his clan and the MacMahons. (Much of this takes place before the novel opens and is revealed through conversation rather than straightforward exposition--you have to pay attention to understand it). The working out of his personal dilemma as he struggles to maintain his own integrity in the midst of the routine treachery of Irish dynastic politics is really the subject of the novel. The war is only background.
Muirtagh is one of the most fully realized characters in historical fiction, and The Kings in Winter is one of Holland's best.
Rating: 3
Summary: Historical Fiction - Done With No Frills
Comment: I found this book very difficult to follow - mostly because of the unpronounceable names. I have done quite a bit of reading about ancient Ireland, and this book is certainly not the best I've read about this time. The writing has promise - Ms. Holland's prose is quite complex, even though the book is short. But if you've read any of Patricia's Finney's books about an Irish Harper, this book doesn't even come close to the research and attention to detail that it should. I found that half the book was character development and then we were rushed into a war in a very few pages. Needs more description in order for the reader to get to know the characters.
Rating: 4
Summary: Nicely Done Tale of the Battle of Clontarf
Comment: The confrontation at Clontarf (near the expatriate Scandinavian colony of Dublin) between the Norse world and the Irish king Brian Boru, which ended in the total route of the vikings (who had come from all over the North to seize Ireland) and the death of the famous high king himself, has always seemed to me a fitting subject for a great work of fiction. It resonates in the great Norse sagas, as so many famous Icelanders and Norsemen took part in it, and historically because it was a turning point in the Irish battle against the viking incursion. Ms. Holland here offers a very nice literary rendering of the time and its events in this, her tale of a renegade clan chief, driven to side with the insurgent king Maelmordha and his viking allies in their doomed bid to unseat Brian the high king.
Muirtagh o' Cullinane is a fascinating anti-hero who is too small to fight sword to sword against bigger men and so has perfected his archery as a counterweight in the world of warriors. An accomplished harpist, and thoughtful beyond the measure of most of his contemporaries, Muirtagh is the victim of a generational feud with the clan mac Mahon which has all but wiped out the bulk of his kin. Struggling to suppress the blood feud for fear it will result in the wholesale destruction of his remaining family members, Muirtagh is finally drawn back into it through the killing of his younger brother. Driven into exile and outlawry as a result of this killing and his dramatic response to it, Muirtagh finds uneasy comradery with his country's viking enemies and is present at the final showdown which resolved the longstanding threat of the Dublin vikings.
Although the story is somewhat slow in the beginning, it picks up sharply with the killing that forces Muirtagh into exile and becomes truly fascinating when he finds himself in the company of viking killers in Dublin. The overall depiction of Irish clan culture and the final battle at Clontarf are wonderfully done though I must admit I thought the ending rather a letdown. I would have preferred something less anti-climactic in its denouement and which also served to resolve many of the threads Holland had earlier sewn into her tapestry, rather than the almost tossed off finish to this tale that she offers. But, on balance, this one's a good one and will, I suspect, please those who, like me, enjoy the tales of older times, particularly when set around the North Atlantic world of old Europe.
SWM
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Title: The Angel and the Sword by Cecelia Holland ISBN: 0312868898 Publisher: Forge Pub. Date: 01 November, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Pillar of the Sky: A Novel of Stonehenge by Cecelia Holland ISBN: 0312868871 Publisher: Forge Pub. Date: 07 July, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: City of God: A novel of the Borgias by Cecelia Holland ISBN: 039441277X Publisher: Knopf ; distributed by Random House Pub. Date: 1979 List Price(USD): $8.95 |
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Title: The Firedrake by Cecelia Holland ISBN: 0595175821 Publisher: Backinprint.com Pub. Date: 01 March, 2001 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Until the Sun Falls by Cecelia Holland, Holland Cecelia ISBN: 0595007996 Publisher: Backinprint.com Pub. Date: 01 September, 2000 List Price(USD): $28.95 |
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