1.The third book of what was initially a trilogy(and which now has had two 'interqels' added) seems more like part two of the Grail War. It seems to pick up immediately after the last book ended, and the last books ending felt more like the climax of an act than the climax of a complete story.
Once again, we enter a world of horror and war. This one is set after the horrific, climactic, almost nuclear conflagration of the last one, and the characters wander in a landscape wasted by fire and psychological horrors. Parsival,(eventually joined by his friend Gawain and his lover Unlea) having abandoned his quest for the Grail, searches for his long-lost son, the only remnant apparently of the family he once had.
His son, Lohengrin, meanwhile, wanders also, suffering from amnesia from a chuck of the grail that has embedded itself inside his skull. At the same time, the sturdy, practical Broaditch continues to let fate run him on its course, eventually meeting up refugee family.
There is a lot of despair and depression in the characters, in fact, if there is one overarching theme, I would say it's probably the idea that amidst all the hell that is life on earth, there are these fragments of beauty that we all share and partake in, and it's human nature that largely creates the hell. Although there are definite Christian themes(it's a medieval, magical Christianity, though) there also seems to be something very Eastern about a lot of it...very...Taoist, maybe? I'm not sure.
My first impressions were that the book was more colorful than the relentless browns and greys that characterized the last one...but it's also more horrific, at least to me. The post-war 'Britain' it depicts is a hell of the squabbling remains of armies, religious fanatics, cannibals, murderers and madmen. Again, the story builds to a climax that left me in awe at it's bloody scope--it wasn't so much like reading a book it was like looking at a live-action uber-violent Hieronymous Bosch painting of hell on acid. Really disturbing images and events that almost got to be too much for me, and I'm not super squeamish...and finally a vision of an inhuman, destructive mechanized future, that must refer to the time we live in now.
None of that is to say it's not good. The author was reaching for a lot, and I think that what is so weird about these books, is, yes, they are novels, but they are also prose poems, prose paintings, even prose opera--the rhythms of the language are extremely musical and with the grand-if-depraved-and-bloody images building upon each other and the rhythm building too, it reminds me more of a climax of a symphony or opera than of a book.
More than anything, I want to impress upon anybody reading this the following: these books are written like no other I've read. I mean, I see a bit of Faulkner in there, maybe, but otherwise the books are unique works of art that transcend their genre of dark fantasy or whatever. They almost transcend the form of the novel itself in a way, and I think that's what the author was going for.
His son, Lohengrin, meanwhile, wanders also, suffering from amnesia from a chuck of the grail that has embedded itself inside his skull. At the same time, the sturdy, practical Broaditch continues to let fate run him on its course, eventually meeting up refugee family.
There is a lot of despair and depression in the characters, in fact, if there is one overarching theme, I would say it's probably the idea that amidst all the hell that is life on earth, there are these fragments of beauty that we all share and partake in, and it's human nature that largely creates the hell. Although there are definite Christian themes(it's a medieval, magical Christianity, though) there also seems to be something very Eastern about a lot of it...very...Taoist, maybe? I'm not sure.
My first impressions were that the book was more colorful than the relentless browns and greys that characterized the last one...but it's also more horrific, at least to me. The post-war 'Britain' it depicts is a hell of the squabbling remains of armies, religious fanatics, cannibals, murderers and madmen. Again, the story builds to a climax that left me in awe at it's bloody scope--it wasn't so much like reading a book it was like looking at a live-action uber-violent Hieronymous Bosch painting of hell on acid. Really disturbing images and events that almost got to be too much for me, and I'm not super squeamish...and finally a vision of an inhuman, destructive mechanized future, that must refer to the time we live in now.
None of that is to say it's not good. The author was reaching for a lot, and I think that what is so weird about these books, is, yes, they are novels, but they are also prose poems, prose paintings, even prose opera--the rhythms of the language are extremely musical and with the grand-if-depraved-and-bloody images building upon each other and the rhythm building too, it reminds me more of a climax of a symphony or opera than of a book.
More than anything, I want to impress upon anybody reading this the following: these books are written like no other I've read. I mean, I see a bit of Faulkner in there, maybe, but otherwise the books are unique works of art that transcend their genre of dark fantasy or whatever. They almost transcend the form of the novel itself in a way, and I think that's what the author was going for.
