The Last Light of the Sun

The Last Light of the Sun (2004) Guy Gavriel Kay

Good luck finding this book. I came across it only because I was searching Amazon for another of his books, and realized that he had a new book out. Of course I’ve found a lot of books on Amazon recently that I saw nowhere in our local book stores, so you may yet be able to find this book.

I have to say that someone should give Guy Gavriel Kay an award for being able to tell a story in a single book. Excluding the ‘Fionovar Tapestry’, he manages to tell his stories in one or two books. I can think of several authors who could stand to learn a thing or to from him.

The Last Light of the Sun seemed from his previous books, although not in a bad way. I think it was the faerie realm that did it. Although it suited the book, it struck me as unexpected, although not out of place. (After all, how could he write something that was so Celtic without including faerie?)

Set again in the same space, although not time, as several of his previous books, The Last Light of the Sun is Celtic and Norse in spirit if not exact detail.

The Erlings are the Vikings, the Cyngael are the Celts, and the Anglcyn are the Anglo-Saxons (though it took me more than half to book to see that Anglcyn could probably be pronounced Anglican. Chalk it up to the say my brain works–it’s the same quirk that makes me a poor speller.)

As I’ve read only minimal Norse folklore (Celtic folklore is far more popular and easier to find) the Erling culture fascinated me, and I wonder which concepts were fantasy and which were historical. (What historical precedent, if any, did volur have? If it was based in history, where can I read more about it?

As always, it is strange, the things that speak to one from a book. On one day, at one time, it may be one thing, but on a different day it might be something else entirely. This is the passage that struck in particular on this day:

“There is no piety in my heart,” said Aeldred. “I am not in a state to address the god.”
“We are never in a state to do so. It is the way of our lives in his world. One of the things for which we ask mercy is that inadequacy.” He was on familiar ground now, but it didn’t feel that way.
“And our anger?”
“That too , my lord.”
“Bitterness?”
“That too.”

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