Company of Liars by Karen Maitland Summary and Reviews
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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!
Book Review: A Disappointment
Summary: 3 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
Karen Maitland's "A Company of Liars" is the story of 9 travelers--and their individual tales/secrets--as they try to outrun the Black Plague in 1348 England. The story is told in first person narrative with a camelot (hawker of goods) serving the role as narrator.
This is not a novel comprised of nine individual first-person narratives although there are several times in the book where different travelers relay their stories to the group. This is not a novel of great suspense or mystery or poetic writing. Instead, it's a barely engaging mystery (the mystery is in wondering just what the heck is going on) with occasional foray into what it would be like to live in the mid-14th century with the fear of plague taking over the countryside.
The books moves at a middling pace for most of the book and seems a bit too long to me. Once the book veered into the supernatural (30-40% in), I rapidly lost interest. For my taste, I'd prefer historical fiction to avoid the ridiculous. Nevertheless, I slogged on and finished the book although I can't say it was time well spent. I don't believe any comparison to Chaucer is apt--this is a middling mystery with some bright spots (some of the scenes within English villages as the travelers move north were well portrayed and give a sense of time/place). Not recommended overall.
Book Review: A delightful read!
Summary: 5 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
This is a retelling of the Canterbury Tales based on a time when the plague had reached the shore of England in the 1300's. Maitland's descriptive style brings you into the time and place in such a way that you can feel the dust from the road on your skin, smell the roasted suckling pig and taste the succulent meat as the juices run down your chin. The characters in the book are well developed and quickly become your friends (or not!) as you travel with them, trying to escape the petulance.
If you enjoy reading about a different times and places, you will enjoy this book. It is an easy read but don't start reading too late in the day because you won't be able to put the book down. Instead you'll read through the night as you try to unravel the mystery of Camelot, Jafre, the odd albino girl and the rest of the "Company of Liars".
Book Review: A disappointment
Summary: 2 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
<<<<Spoilers ahead>>>>>>
I was quite disappointed with this novel. When a novel is tauted as a "reinterpretation" of a classic work of fiction (see back cover), I almost always cringe because I know what's coming...a poor attempt to capitalize on the already-fantastic original.
What I found with "Company of Liars" is that is has none of the beautiful language that defines, in my mind, great literature. The language is quite ordinary, actually. I found it a bit odd that sometimes she would try to make the speaker "have an accent" and reflect that in their spoken dialect, and other times not at all. No real feeling of old English here.
This unevenness is seen in the plot as well. At times the story moves rapidly and at other times gets bogged down in the descriptive passages, not unlike the mud and rain that are mentioned hundreds of times throughout the novel. A bit cumbersome to get through, I might add. I think, honestly, the book should have been about 100 pages shorter.
The secrets that the travelers share include homosexuality and incest. There are a few passages in this novel that go beyond my tolerance for these themes. Again, not exactly high-end writing here. I believe that these concepts can be dealt with with greater class than they are here.
The concluding revealed secret is just so corny to me. I honestly rolled my eyes during the last few pages.
The best part of the novel were the images of the plague and the descriptions of the villagers trying to rid themselves of it, but for a better description of the effects of mass infectation, read Albert Camus's "The Plague".
Not recommended.
Book Review: A fascinating tale of the Black Plague with a slew of interesting characters
Summary: 4 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
Karen Maitland's Company of Liars is set in England in the year 1348 and basically revolves around a group of interesting characters who are trying to escape the onslaught of the Black Death, the plague that decimated millions in its time.
The characters portrayed in this tale are a motley group indeed - there is the young expectant couple, a child who is also sort of a seer [using runes], an herbalist, a unique storyteller with a human arm and a swan's wing[!], a horribly scarred relic seller,a weird magician and an Italian maestro and his protegee.
Besides the journey towards safety [from the plague that is], these characters are all harboring some form of secret that will have nasty repercussions. Despite the depressing description of the landscape and atmosphere, the characters themselves are fascinating enough that I found this to be an engrossing read. Reminiscent of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, this is a richly woven tale with complex characters and worth a read.