Company of Liars
by Karen Maitland
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Book Summary Information
Author: Karen MaitlandEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-09-30
ISBN: 0385341695
Number of pages: 480
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Book Reviews of Company of Liars
Book Review: A Desperate Sojourn... and A Deadly Game of Truth
Summary: 5 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
OVERVIEW: Here we have a unique meshing of mild fantasy and historic fictional literature. This 458-page novel is set in 1348 C.E. England, a period and place where thousands were fated to endure an excruciating death from the Black (Bubonic and/or Pneumonic) Plague. This work is written in first person, a difficult approach for any author, but in this case quite an effective technique.
DESCRIPTIVE SUMMARY: The chief protagonist, Camelot, through a comedy of errors, picks up a number of "strays" during his travels from southwestern England and on toward the northeastern quadrant of that country until the company totals nine in number. These entrepreneurial opportunists grudgingly support one another through various privations and impedimenta including illness (non-plague); starvation; threats and assaults; a continual lack of adequate shelter, and; the burden of pregnancy on the road.
Most of these strange bedfellows exist by marketable trades: Camelot deals in the relics (bones) of saints; Zophiel runs a traveling freak show of sorts, featuring a diminutive stuffed mermaid; Rodrigo (the Master) and Jofre (his apprentice) are Italian minstrels; Narigorm, a young but not concupiscent street urchin of a girl, casts the runes and foretells the future; Pleasance heals the sick with herbs; Cygnus, "The Swan Boy," spins compelling yarns as a storyteller, and; Osmond and Adela are clearly on the lam, the latter being pregnant. Osmond could have been working as a journeyman artist of church paintings were it not for the fact that he was forced to escape from his home region before his master could (or would) issue his professional credentials -- absent these papers, he is effectively rendered skill-less. A final significant member of this motley band is Xanthus, Zophiel's cantankerous horse which pulls his exhibitor's wagon.
This curious aggregation of souls attains some level of safety in their numbers, even though they fuss and argue among themselves at every bend of the road. Their isolation from the plague seems to degrade on a growing scale until ultimately, at one particular village, they finally encounter the lethal "le morte bleu" - they pass this ill-fated hamlet as swiftly as they had arrived.
The nine make their respective livings primarily at street fairs, festivals, and shrines so the expeditious travel results in a conduit to their collective financial destitution. But the burdensome dark secrets which each of them bears is sufficient to keep them moving along, enduring the endless rain of an uncommonly cold summer, and ever-aware of the great pestilence which nips at their tracks.
And then one night yet another extremely ominous peril tags on to their trail. A wolf? A werewolf? In either case, the subsequent angst and anguish begins to take its toll... and then the first death occurs.
Here's a representative quotation from page 446:
"The roads were full of people on the move now, some travelling [English spelling] alone, their families dead or abandoned, some in groups making for the towns where there might be a hope of food or work. Some were mad with horror and grief; others were hardened to the point where they would cut a man's throat for a handful of dried beans. And if they did, no one lifted a finger to stop them, for there were no courts left to try a man and no executioners alive to hang him. Sometimes I wondered if God too had died up there in His heaven, if heaven, too, stood silent and boarded up, the angels left rotting on pavements of gold."
EVALUATIVE SUMMARY: Maitland wields a remarkably shrewd pen. This is some of the finest historical fiction to come along in many years, far and above the more common prose that we've unfortunately begun to find acceptable. I would not be in the slightest surprised to begin seeing little cult websites springing up here and there in the cyber-world, devoted to the discussion of this book. As I read on, I was reminded of yet another fine historical novel (mystery) of similar quality, albeit its overall content and context is of a different aspect: The Daughter of Time.
One of the more intriguing aspects of Maitland's work impacts the reader as s/he cannot decide whether or not this is a novel of fantasy. When one encounters the old Brothers Grimm fairy tale of "The Six Swans" (The Complete Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales, Deluxe Edition (Literary Classics (Gramercy Books))) playing out here as a facet of the account, the book seems to begin taking on a surreal, mystical flavor; however, in retrospect, just a little further along, the notion of a young man with an odd birth defect seems instead to merge with life's more incongruent realities.
Perhaps the most dramatic facet of the work is its core primal terror and creepiness. Ultimately, this is a really scary book... "disturbing" might also help to adequately describe it. And perhaps this book is so scary because there have been so very many factual, historically-based activities woven into the text. Maitland's expertise in psycholinguistics (she's a PhD) shines through in her depiction of various incidents and events: Catholicism "with a wink and a nod" (this story is dated long prior to Henry VIII's Church of England); the expulsion of all the Jews from England (which occurred in 1290 C.E.); the radical deterioration of England's mild climate (a phenomenon of the period including 1290-1348); a "cripples' wedding"... and numerous other intriguing episodes. Having formally and casually studied this period of England's history myself for many years, these notable (but little heard of) occurrences generated a significant amount of reading joy for me.
Maitland's writing is quite fluid and comprehensible - she maintains a marvelous continuity and her dialogue is both natural and compelling, a difficult blend to achieve. Given her quasi-Faulknerish approach to depiction, one is kept guessing in discerning whether certain incidents are "magical" or simply "trickery". Finally, the story definitely does not lack for big surprises - the book's conclusion simply cannot be deduced from any point in this fascinating tale. Maitland has also supplemented her fine novel at the end with a useful seven-page glossary of archaic English terms ("kirtle," "palfrey," "deodand," etc.)
I re-scanned my "reading notes" (I make copious notes on every book I read, usually three books per week), and my couple of obscure criticisms of this first-rate novel seemed to pale in the face of its overwhelming and multi-dimensional attributes... I felt compelled to just abandon these paltry comments. And thus I have done so!
I can highly recommend this work of top contemporary literature for all lovers of good fiction - but be prepared for a real harum-sacrum as you read on!
Summary of Company of Liars
In this extraordinary novel, Karen Maitland delivers a dazzling reinterpretation of Chaucer?s Canterbury Tales?an ingenious alchemy of history, mystery, and powerful human drama.The year is 1348. The Black Plague grips the country. In a world ruled by faith and fear, nine desperate strangers, brought together by chance, attempt to outrun the certain death that is running inexorably toward them.
Each member of this motley company has a story to tell. From Camelot, the relic-seller who will become the group?s leader, to Cygnus, the one-armed storyteller . . . from the strange, silent child called Narigorm to a painter and his pregnant wife, each has a secret. None is what they seem. And one among them conceals the darkest secret of all?propelling these liars to a destiny they never saw coming.
Magical, heart-quickening, and raw, Company of Liars is a work of vaulting imagination from a powerful new voice in historical fiction.
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