Subject: A Song for Arbonne by Guy Gavriel Kay

From: [email-masked] (Magali Mathieu)
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 1994 06:56:07 GMT

A Song for Arbonne
			  by Guy Gavriel Kay

I have seen a few reviews on Arbonne, but I thought I would give
you the point of view of someone from South of France...

First thing : the setting is not inspired by medieval Provence, but by
medieval *Languedoc* , which at the time comprised all the south of
France, from the Pyrenees to Provence. To give you an idea, important
towns of the time were Toulouse, Carcassonne, Beziers, Albi, Narbonne
(ever heard this name ?), all way west of Provence.  Just something I
wanted to clarify (and it's not because I'm from Beziers myself...:-)

I bought Arbonne only because I had read Tigana, and I had not the
slightest idea about its content, so I was quite nicely surprised (and
a bit afraid) when reading the introduction. Already looking at the
map, I could guess the origins of the names of the various towns and
lands, and in fact I had and still have problems remembering some of
them since I constantly confused them with their 'real' counterparts
(Miraval / Miramas being the best example).

All along the book I had this feeling of reading two stories at the
same time, the one told in the book, and the one from which it was
inspired.  Two examples (with maybe some mistakes in them, but overall
correct) :  in medieval France (at the time of the hundred years war
between England and France), there was a man, Gaston Phoebus, count of
Foix and Bearn, who was madly in love with his wife. She was killed,
and this started years of rivality between him and the family of
Navarre, whom he suspected of the crime.  I should add that Gaston
Phoebus was a man of great culture, and that he also wrote a song in
memory of his love. Remind you of someone ?

Before the time of Phoebus : Languedoc (as opposed to Languedoil, which
was kind of like north of France) was rich, cultured, and tolerant.
Because of the latter, a heresy was successfull in it, the catharism,
and the cathares were living in peace with the rest of the Christian
(and Jewish) population.  This was not well accepted first by the pope,
then by the king of France, and so started the Crusade of the
Albigeois. This crusade was also the excuse for the invasion of the
south of France, and lots of killing went on at the time (with the
famous scene in front of Beziers : when asked how to make the
difference between proper christians and cathares, the priest in charge
answered : 'Kill them all, God will recognise his owns')

Anyway, I really enjoyed Arbonne. The characters are maybe not as much
developed than in Tigana, but they all feel real, and the atmospher of
the story more than makes up for that. Furthermore, this 'two-degrees'
reading was a great experience, and because of the richness of the
world, and all the references to our world (most of them I'm pretty
sure I missed, mainly concerning the troubadours), it gave the feeling
of an alternative history.

I can only warmly recommend 'A song for Arbonne', and I'm looking 
forward to anything Guy Gavriel Kay will write !
 
Magali

%A      Kay, Guy Gavriel 
%T      A Song for Arbonne
%I      HarperCollins
%C      London
%D      1992
%G      ISBN 0-586-21677-4
%P      608pp
%O      paperback