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'Lord Of Snow And Shadows', book one
of 'The Tears Of Artamon' draws on the classical convention of the
goatherd prince. A nobody from nowhere who is suddenly thrust into
a position of inherited leadership. This character tends to be unremarkable
in most ways before this advent of good fortune races him through
the ranks to sit at the top of the pile.
 Once
there, this character either displays a remarkable aptitude for
the position or they scrabble their way desperately through adversity
to prove themselves worthy.
Here,
Sarah Ash has created Gavril Andar. A painter, an idealist, a romantic- a sophisticated
equivalent to the goatherd. One who dreams of winning the heart of his latest
famous portrait, Astasia. She, who is scion of a ruling family, is thus a crucial
political pawn in the game of thrones. One dark night, Gavril is given
the key to his identity and heritage and literally abducted to assume the mantle
of this legacy by his father's men. A father, he has never known the truth about
or met, nevertheless bequeaths him a rich but nightmarish inheritance.
So
the novel continues in this vein. Gavril is uprooted from his mother's sun drenched,
sophisticated home and re-planted in his father's icy domain where he struggles
to find purchase and re-establish. It is a rite of passage novel, a coming of
age plot. This, as book one, charts Gavril's ascension to the throne and
his tenuous grip thereafter. As such, the tone of this novel resounds with jarring
notes of post-adolescent discord and reflects the relative youth and inexperience
of its hero. Labouring under an ancient curse which, incidentally, is also the
source of Gavril's power, sometimes makes his position as hero ambiguous. Sarah
Ash, however, does not exploit this role choosing to create of him a straightforward
hero. A simple hero as opposed to a more morally suspect anti-hero. She
plays with this technique in her portrayal of the 'villain', Tielen's First, Eugene.
A man whose loss of his wife evokes sympathy, but whose character is as frigid
as his frost-frozen kingdom and just as ruthless. I believe this is a method Ash
intends to employ to better effect in the second part when Gavril grows into his
position and rivalries burgeon.
This novel is an easy read and no real
hardship to have read. It would benefit from becoming more complex. Currently,
it presents no challenges whatsoever and runs the risk of boring the reader.
Sana
Master |
