Book Reviews for May

Well, this will be an itty-bitty post, since I only found time to read four books in May. This was due in large part to how busy I was: finals, packing, and settling in at home for a year-long stay! However, quantity does not necessarily equal quality, as April proved! So, here are my book reviews for May!

Black Ships Before Troy, by Rosemary Sutcliff
I might have mentioned before that my dad got me a box full of Rosemary Sutcliff books for my birthday this year, and I have yet to finish reading all of them. But managed to read some more of them this month--in fact, they're the only books I read this month. This was the first, read during finals week! Basically it's a retelling of the entire body of Trojan War mythos, so it tells not only the story of "The Iliad", but also about the Judgement of Paris, Achilles' death, Ajax's suicide, and of course the Trojan Horse. I adore "The Iliad". So a retelling of its stories needs to be REALLY good to satisfy me (I've rejected a few other 'redoings' of the tale already). I'm happy to report that Sutcliff does a fine job. Again, however, it would only serve as an intro to the stories, and is by no means a replacement of them. This book is clearly written for children, albeit written well.

Outcast, by Rosemary Sutcliff
More excellent Sutcliff writing, this time in the form of an original story about a Roman boy who after being orphaned in a storm was adopted into a British tribe, only to be cast out when he reaches adulthood. His subsequent trials and tribulations as he struggles to find a place for himself in a world where both his adopted culture and the culture of his blood rejects and abuses him are pretty harrowing. He's enslaved, he's duped, he's beaten, he's starved, and he has pretty much the worst life ever. But it's all excellently written as usual; a little bit reminiscent of "Ben-Hur" in its plot, but with more heart. The ending was a little weak in my opinion, because I didn't feel it made sense after everything Rome did to him, but the story was strong. Definitely a good read.

The Sword and the Circle, by Rosemary Sutcliff
This is the first in an Arthurian trilogy by Sutcliff, a retelling of the Arthurian legends from the story of Merlin uncovering the red and white dragons in the earth to when Perceval arrives at Camelot shortly before the beginning of the quest for the Holy Grail. Now, I have a confession to make. I have not yet finished reading Malory's "Le Morte d'Arthur" in full, although I'm in the middle of it. I have, however, read "The Mabinogion", Layamon's "Brut", various medieval lays telling the stories of Arthur and his court, and other more recent works like "The Once and Future King" and Tennyson's "Idylls of the King". Thus while I can judge that Sutcliff's book is a great retelling of the stories, I cannot really tell how much originality she injects into the stories. She gives motives for characters which I find fresh and interesting, but I don't necessarily know which are canon and which are of her own devising. Nevertheless, it's a worthy read. Her descriptions are, as always, beautiful, and her rendition of the Lancelot-Guinevere-Arthur triangle is reminiscent of White's. I especially liked her Merlin and her telling of the Tristan and Isolde story. I have a question though: She describes Lancelot as ugly. White describes Lancelot as ugly. Is this canon or not??? Where did Tennyson's raven-haired Lance singing 'tirra-lirra' come from then??????

Warrior Scarlet, by Rosemary Sutcliff

Book of the Month time! It's also, incidentally, the winner of my "Worst Cover Art EVER" award, but let's gloss over that, because the story was magnificent. I want to rip off the cover of my copy and draw my own cover to paste in its place.

"Warrior Scarlet" is set in a prehistoric Britain--prehistoric, but not at all primitive, which is something I love very much about Sutcliff's writings. The culture is elegant and beautiful, as well as strangely and instantly relatable, and the story is engaging and poignant as well as surprising, and the ending was very satisfying. I would have loved to have an entire story set around the supporting character of Talore the one-handed Hunter, but never mind that now. Drem is a wonderful protagonist, and his struggle to become a warrior of his tribe despite his withered spear-arm is both believable and engrossing. The girl who is adopted by Drem's family--I forget her name at the moment, though I know it began with a B--is also an excellent character and significant presence in the story despite her appearances being rare.

I don't want to spoil the story, so I won't really say any more. But I do strongly recommend it. This is a definite case of "Don't Judge a Book By It's Cover"!


May was the month of Sutcliff. This is not a bad thing, but I hope to add a bit more variety to my reading schedule in June!