TITLE: Agyar
AUTHOR: Steven Brust
GENRE: Urban Fantasy
PUBLISHED: 1992
RATING: ★★★★★
PURCHASE LINKS: Amazon
MOBILISM LINK: Release
Review: Steven Brust. Two words, one name; together they equal Hallelujahs from fans of fantasy literature - and hosannas from his fellow authors. Steven is that good. From one novel to another, he will change anything and everything to challenge himself, including narrative voice. And succeeds every single time. An admission: I care not at all for Steve's fantasy novels (his Vlad Taltos and Khaavren series); unalloyed fantasy is not my thing. However, I treasure, and keep close for frequent re-reads, his magisterial To Reign in Hell, Freedom and Necessity, The Gypsy, The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars, and Agyar. Consider the opening two sentences of his phenomenally wonderful, wholly unforgettable The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars...
"You want to know what good is? I will tell you what good is."
And then, over the next 1 1/2 pages, he crafts a word-painting so vivid as to leave you gasping for oxygen, and the thought, "I must own that." (I will not reveal what "that" is.) But note his craft: with 14 words he sucks you in to his story. And not just via telling that story ("Come closer, while I whisper a story about...") but in his creative use of repeating words ("good"), ask/tell ("Want to know? I will tell"), etc. And so you keep reading. This is how the best authors do it. And even though The Sun... is my favorite novel by Steve, this review is of Agyar, which is, in a word, amazing.
MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD! Read no farther, if you prefer your first time perceptions of Agyar not be sullied by this review. I will try to reveal as little as possible, but any conversation about this book, especially its plot, risks revealing too much.
Agyar is set pretty much here and now, thus a contemporary setting, except... well, it’s kindasorta urban fantasy. It includes a ghost (at least one ghost), and vampires (at least two vampires). Told in first person voice, the novel is also John ("You can call me Jack") Agyar's memoir. And just to set the creative bar a tad bit higher for himself, Steve riffs repeatedly on Marcel Proust's themes of time and memory. (Which familiarity you need not have to enjoy this novel.) Jack Agyar has lived a very long life, but senses he nears its end. So he commits to paper his memories/memoir, covering the past (how he came to be), present (what is happening there and now), and future (what happens?). And we readers, including Jack's intended audience of one (or is that two?), learn what we need to know.
But never enough. Steve demands his readers pay attention, so he tells his story indirectly; he leaves out of the story many items that would provide clarity. Consider...
I kissed her temple, her ear, and her neck. We sank down onto the bed, still holding each other. I ran my hands along her body. Yes indeed, she was a dancer, or an acrobat, or a swimmer. She was strong, inside and out. I touched her and she shivered; she touched me and I trembled. I felt her enter the maelstrom of sensation at the same time I did, and we explored it together. She made low moaning sounds of pleasure, while mine were harsh and animal-like, but the urgency was mutual.
I know what you're thinking: "A sex scene! Only not spelled out." Except not exactly; it is her neck that is important.
Did I say indirect? So indirect that the word vampire never appears in the novel. (Although Steven confided that the transliteration to English of the book's title is "Fang.") Make no mistake: Agyar is no Twilight; it includes no sparkly vampires. It does include pain, anguish, desire, intelligence, human frailties - among the living and the undead, and plenty of reasons, once begun, not to set the book down until complete.
I often wonder, did Steve's act of creation proceed something like this...
Okay, my main character will be a vampire. He will have lived a L O N G life. I will not reveal to readers, at least not directly, his nature as a vampire, his span of life, how he became a vampire, the choices he must make being a vampire. I will limit the plot to the quotidian, and then twist on readers' expectations. I will write the story discursively, with plenty of digressions on all manner of topics. Finally, I will weave all these elements, and others, into a tesseract-like structure, so that the meta-story, sub-text and all, imbues the plot and characters with the scent of destiny. And I will write it so damn well that no publisher will refuse to buy it, and no reader can refuse to read it. And, once read, never forgotten.
I doubt Steve conceived the novel as I describe above. No question, though, that in its pages, he plays with exposition, which tends to slow a story's narrative thrust. Consider...
When I was much younger, and far more naïve, I thought that the line between legal and illegal stayed close to the line between right and wrong. Well, either I was living an illusory life then, or everything has changed now, so that when the two lines intersect it seems only momentary, transitory, coincidental.
Or
"People are down on sociology,” I said, “because it was invented by people who felt someone ought to answer Marx, and there’s no answer for Marx outside of religion, a field any civilized person ought to avoid.”
“That’s preposterous—” he began.
“What is?”
“Your contention about sociology.”
“Oh. I thought you meant my contention about religion.”
“What makes you think—”
“Who first popularized the term?”
“Sociology? It was coined by Comte—”
“Who popularized it?”
“I suppose it was Herbert Spencer.”
“And what did he say about Marx?”
“Huh? Almost nothing, as a matter of fact.”
“And what was the strange thing the dog did in the nighttime?”
Jill laughed...
Or
There are a few boxes of books in the attic, and I spent some time digging through them. Old boxes of other people’s books are always interesting, even if the books themselves aren’t, and here there were a few that caught my eye, such as a 1933 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica that I looked at for a while. It seemed to specialize in world history, and I was surprised at how much they got right. I also found ten volumes of “Great Orations,” published in 1899. They were in much worse shape than the encyclopedias, but I allowed myself the luxury of a couple of hours with them.
There were plenty of newer books, too, but I feel about books much the way I feel about music; if it’s still being printed in fifty years, I’ll read it then. If, of course, I’m still around in fifty years, but there’s no point in dwelling on that. I’d rather remember Zola’s speech to the jury on the Dreyfus case, which I found in Volume 10. I don’t know who recorded that speech for history, but he ought to be thanked.
Certainly, there’s a good deal of nonsense in it. “Who suffers for truth and justice becomes august and sacred.” Indeed? I remember laughing aloud the first time I read that, and wishing I’d been there when he said it just so I could have looked at his face and seen if he believed it. But there is some truth in his speech that goes far beyond the case of the moment, and his love for his military, and his worship of that stupid country full of stupid Frenchmen. “For when folly and lies are thus sown broadcast, you necessarily reap insanity,” he said, and what man who has lived for more than forty years has not seen that truth?
“We have had to fight step by step against an extraordinarily obstinate desire for darkness.” Yes, indeed, Emile, we have; or, rather, you have, you and your ilk. That is certainly not my fight, nor will it ever be, but I can applaud yours, and even, to my surprise, discover a couple of tears for the way it has been fought. And, do you know, sometimes I even think that some ground has been gained. But then I read, in Volume 6, Robert Emmet’s speech from the scaffold, and I remember that Great Britain has banned songs that might even hint that all is not well in Northern Ireland, and I see that darkness is reclaiming its own.
But, as I said, this has never been my fight, and never will be. Darkness, I think, has its own charm, as long as one can see well enough to avoid tripping over the furniture. As for me, my only desire is the quite natural one to live; to continue my chain of existence. And even that doesn’t matter much to me. That is a strange thing to say, but it has been going through my head since Jim brought it up, and it seems to me that I continue to exist, and I enjoy it, but should the end come, as it might soon, I will meet it with a shrug. This is no great virtue, nor any great flaw, it is simply my nature, and what man can contend with his nature?
But there, too—this is a strength. Zola and Emmet notwithstanding, strength does not come from passion for justice, it comes from not caring—about life, about justice, or...
This is the type of stuff we all used to argue about late into the night while in college; a conversation Steve wants to have with you. These digressions do not belong in a fantasy or vampire novel. Or do they...? Remember that while a book's author will die, a book, and its included ideas, live on. Just like Jack Agyar, on the printed (or e-) page, if not in life. Even if undead. Should these digressions resonate for you, as they do for me, then you have added another book to your reading pile. Except move it to the top.
Reading...
