The Kings in Winter

Rating:
Summary: A Peak She Never Recaptured
Review: Cecilia Holland was one of the great literary disappointments of my life (like many reviewers, it seems, I first read her 20-30 years ago). The reason is that 'The Kings In Winter' was the first of her novels that I read, and I mentally punched the air and cried 'Ah-hah!', as one does on discovering a champion. All her other novels then failed to meet the standard that it set. Back in the 60's and 70's she was a landmark for the brilliance of her realisation of worlds alien in space and/or time, but for me all her other novels (including 'Floating Worlds', her essay in science fiction) foundered on a near-total impenetrability as to WHY all these people were carrying out the (frequently odd, sometimes atrocious) acts she depicted. The books were like beautifully designed, brilliantly pigmented, totally lifelike toys - from which the spring had been omitted (when I was a kid toys went with clockwork). In particular, she seemed driven to introduce, or even centre her plots around, what I can only call Barbarians with a capital "B" - the Normans in 'The Firedrake', the Mongols in 'Until The Sun Falls', the Styth in 'Floating Worlds' - but I never could get the hang of what they were all about. Sound and fury, signifying nothing, as your man says - but then again, that may just be me.

That 'missing-spring' defect definitely does not apply to 'The Kings In Winter'. The driving force of the novel is the tension between power and justice in the context of Celtic kingship/chieftaincy, and you can hardly ask for a more powerful spring than that. The proper role of the Celtic King (even a petty chieftain of a minor clan like Holland's protagonist, the O Cullinane) is justice, and at one level the whole first half of the novel is about the erosion of justice by the demands of power and force. The MacMahon, the O Cullinane's hereditary foe, has never even tried to follow anything but the path of power; the High King Brian Boru lost the path of justice long ago in the pursuit of power; and the climax of the entire novel is when the O Cullinane himself, the man of justice par excellence, takes the road of violence to avenge his slain brother. And that brother was himself in life a man of power to whom the O Cullinane's path was incomprehensible, but as his Tanist and war-leader violence on behalf of the clan was his own proper role; between them they had achieved a point of balance in the tension. After that, just about anything would be an anti-climax, and so I find the second half of the novel to be, notwithstanding it contains the Battle of Clontarf (also an egregious mis-reference to 'Njal's Saga'). I was not helped by the surfacing of Holland's band of incomprehensible Barbarians in the form of the assembled Viking hosts of Dublin, Man and Orkney, though originally I didn't realise they were only the vanguard of a greater army. One almost had a feeling that Holland found herself with all her important matter declared but couldn't think of an excuse to avoid covering the great historical event. The justice theme does re-surface one last time, right at the end of the novel, with the passing of a just (not a sentimental) judgement on the O Cullinane by his own teenage son, now leader of the clan.

All Holland's books should carry a warning on the cover 'Engage Brain Before Opening'; as the French say, "Elle en a pensée un peu" and it's no good complaining if you fail to do likewise. Some other reviewers have found the Irish names hard going. As an Englishman born and bred who has settled in Gaeldom, I sympathise (Erse/Gaelic is the only language in the world with sillier spelling than English) but don't excuse; if people can't handle the unfamiliar, why are they reading historical fiction? There are plenty of on-line Gaelic dictionairies with pronunciation guides.

Oh, and she can write. The O Cullinane's harping before his enemies at Cathair still makes my back hair stand on end the way it did 30 years ago.

Rating:
Summary: What is so special here!
Review: Contrary to the previous reader, I've read it only once and don't recommend you to do it - you can find much better historical novels (more or less fictional). Myself being an avid reader of all types of historical fiction and biographies (you can see it by the books I've reviewed) and having heard before about talents of Ms Holland, I was taken aback by incongruity of plot and indifference of the topic: it's Ireland of the 11th century swarming with internal feuds and Viking invasions from the seas and the main hero, Muirtagh the Harper roams the country for the purpose known to only himself: it seems he tries to avenge someone, but you can never understand whom, for the book is full of unpronounceable names of other fierce Irishmen and Vikings drinking in dreary halls. You also get a glimpse of his family (to which he never returns?) and of his (?) old king, who seems to exercise no authority whatsoever. True, short and crisp descriptions of nature, weather and night roamings of the characters are convincing, while sometimes short dialogs between characters are not - one can't understand what they mean by one-word phrases. Probably it is to stress the set of the book and ruthless characters? Also note tha almost total lack of female characters in the book. In short, this book seems more to be a fragment of some bigger narration or even a short novella for the author trying her pen (it's written in 1967), otherwise I see no point.

Rating:
Summary: Historical Fiction - Done With No Frills
Review: I found this book very difficult to follow - mostly because of the unpronounceable names. I have done quite a bit of reading about ancient Ireland, and this book is certainly not the best I've read about this time. The writing has promise - Ms. Holland's prose is quite complex, even though the book is short. But if you've read any of Patricia's Finney's books about an Irish Harper, this book doesn't even come close to the research and attention to detail that it should. I found that half the book was character development and then we were rushed into a war in a very few pages. Needs more description in order for the reader to get to know the characters.

Rating:
Summary: Historical Fiction - Done With No Frills
Review: I found this book very difficult to follow - mostly because of the unpronounceable names. I have done quite a bit of reading about ancient Ireland, and this book is certainly not the best I've read about this time. The writing has promise - Ms. Holland's prose is quite complex, even though the book is short. But if you've read any of Patricia's Finney's books about an Irish Harper, this book doesn't even come close to the research and attention to detail that it should. I found that half the book was character development and then we were rushed into a war in a very few pages. Needs more description in order for the reader to get to know the characters.

Rating:
Summary: Recycled gold
Review: I have always loved this book, and still treasure my crumbling old paperback edition. For me, "The Kings" defined purely and precisely what COULD be done by combining history and fiction, but so rarely WAS done. To see it available again to a world of new readers delights me.

This book is pure Holland: powerful, lyrical and stark, with characters of great humanity and complexity, a story both comprehensible and immediate; tragic and inevitable. Livened with intelligence, wit and plain hilarity, made utterly real by the thousands of details shown so frankly and clearly that they had to be true, and the reader's transportation to the world of ancient Ireland is complete. Buy it. Read it: You can't read it only once. Buy it for your friends, your co-workers, your mother (I did; they all loved it). And treasure your own edition as I have done mine.

Rating:
Summary: Heart-breaking and unforgettable
Review: I read this book when it was first published, when I was in my early teens, and I've never forgotten it. I'm happy that it's back in print.

An earlier poster summarized the plot pretty well, so I won't rehash it. It's not a book for those who want bodice-ripping, swash-buckling "historical" fiction. As in all her books, Holland achieves her effects quietly and with economy, conveying passion without sentimentality and fleshing out her well-researched historical knowledge with rare sympathy and insight into human nature. Her books, including this one, seldom have happy endings, so those looking for a feel-good read should go elsewhere. Those who want a challenging and thought-provoking trip to the past need seek no further.

Rating:
Summary: Nicely Done Tale of the Battle of Clontarf
Review: The confrontation at Clontarf (near the expatriate Scandinavian colony of Dublin) between the Norse world and the Irish king Brian Boru, which ended in the total route of the vikings (who had come from all over the North to seize Ireland) and the death of the famous high king himself, has always seemed to me a fitting subject for a great work of fiction. It resonates in the great Norse sagas, as so many famous Icelanders and Norsemen took part in it, and historically because it was a turning point in the Irish battle against the viking incursion. Ms. Holland here offers a very nice literary rendering of the time and its events in this, her tale of a renegade clan chief, driven to side with the insurgent king Maelmordha and his viking allies in their doomed bid to unseat Brian the high king.

Muirtagh o' Cullinane is a fascinating anti-hero who is too small to fight sword to sword against bigger men and so has perfected his archery as a counterweight in the world of warriors. An accomplished harpist, and thoughtful beyond the measure of most of his contemporaries, Muirtagh is the victim of a generational feud with the clan mac Mahon which has all but wiped out the bulk of his kin. Struggling to suppress the blood feud for fear it will result in the wholesale destruction of his remaining family members, Muirtagh is finally drawn back into it through the killing of his younger brother. Driven into exile and outlawry as a result of this killing and his dramatic response to it, Muirtagh finds uneasy comradery with his country's viking enemies and is present at the final showdown which resolved the longstanding threat of the Dublin vikings.

Although the story is somewhat slow in the beginning, it picks up sharply with the killing that forces Muirtagh into exile and becomes truly fascinating when he finds himself in the company of viking killers in Dublin. The overall depiction of Irish clan culture and the final battle at Clontarf are wonderfully done though I must admit I thought the ending rather a letdown. I would have preferred something less anti-climactic in its denouement and which also served to resolve many of the threads Holland had earlier sewn into her tapestry, rather than the almost tossed off finish to this tale that she offers. But, on balance, this one's a good one and will, I suspect, please those who, like me, enjoy the tales of older times, particularly when set around the North Atlantic world of old Europe.

SWM

Rating:
Summary: Wouldn't even script an awful made-for-TV movie.
Review: The stage for THE KINGS IN WINTER is Ireland, 1014 AD. Our hero - a loose use of the term - is Muirtagh, chief of the Clan ó Cullinane, who becomes reluctantly embroiled in a resumption of a blood feud that almost wiped out his clan when his father was chief. After the High King of Ireland refuses to intervene on behalf of peace, Muirtagh's brother is slain by men of the ó Cullinane's main rival, the Clan mac Mahon. In order to draw off his enemies from pursuing the surviving remnants of his clan, Muirtagh renounces his claim to the chieftainship, and departs into the wilds of western Ireland as a self-declared outlaw. Subsequently, he joins forces with the Irish rebel leader Maelmordha and his Viking allies in a confrontation with the High King and his army.

It all sounds terribly exciting, but isn't. The book is relatively short (205 pages in paperback), and the author spends fully the first half establishing for the reader the relationship between Muirtagh and his wife, his children, his brother, the High King, and his clan's rivals. Several pages would've sufficed. Then, there's a brief flurry of activity when Muirtagh's brother is killed, followed by another stretch of boredom until the final battle in the last twenty-five pages. At the conclusion of it all, the extent of the happy ending is that Muirtagh still lives as a free man. Nothing else is decided, won, regained or achieved. By then, I didn't care.

The book has a superfluity of unpronounceable names, incoherent conversations, and minor characters. While the whole might serve as a couple of chapters in a longer novel, by itself it is utterly and totally pointless. Had it been any longer, I would have disdained to finish.

Normally, I give my books away to friends. This one I simply trashed.

Rating:
Summary: A Modern Classic
Review: This is wonderful example of historical fiction in the modern style.The language is clear and spare with great rhythm, the canvas personal and character driven . There is no pretense at creating some fanciful re-creation of Medieval Irish speech in the Masterpiece Theater style. The Ireland of the Kings in Winter was politicaly complex, and the resulting conflicts sometimes brutal. Ms Holland writes precisely and directly about these subjects with great style and art.

I hope the publishers will soon re-issue The Firedrake and Rakossy, two other early Holland novels.

Rating:
Summary: A historical novel of character
Review: What makes Holland so distinctive among historical novelists (along with Rosemary Sutcliffe) is that while others write plot-driven action-adventure stories only slightly more literary than the Hardy Boys, she writes modern, character-driven novels of psychological realism that just happen to be set in medieval history. Understandably, those who only enjoy swashbuckling heroes on epic quests would find them dull and confusing. But if you want to get a sense what it might have felt like to be a medieval Irishman, this story of Muirtagh O'Cullinane is a miniature masterpiece. Muirtagh is a complex man caught in a complex political and personal situation, torn between allegiance to his king, family loyalty, and an oath he swore not to continue the feud between his clan and the MacMahons. (Much of this takes place before the novel opens and is revealed through conversation rather than straightforward exposition--you have to pay attention to understand it). The working out of his personal dilemma as he struggles to maintain his own integrity in the midst of the routine treachery of Irish dynastic politics is really the subject of the novel. The war is only background.

Muirtagh is one of the most fully realized characters in historical fiction, and The Kings in Winter is one of Holland's best.