G. R. Grove

Disclosure: I received this book as part of the LibraryThing Member Giveaway program. Some people think this may bias a reviewer so I am making sure to put this information up front. I don't think it biases my reviews, but I'll let others be the judge of that.

I have never sat before the fire in a Welsh Chieftain's Great Hall and listened to a bard sing songs about heroes, spin tales of happiness and woe, and pose riddles in verse. Thanks to Guernen Sang Again I don't have to imagine what the show more experience would be like.

Poetry is difficult to do well. It is especially difficult to do well when attempting to recount particular stories of myth and legend, but many of the poems included in this book do just that, and do them well. Grove deals with many traditional stories drawn (mostly) from Welsh myth: Gwydion's war for Pryderi's pigs, Pwll's sojourn in Annuvin, Blodeuwedd's betrayal of Lleu, and of course, a couple of poems about Arthur. She also draws from a couple other myth traditions for inspiration, most notably Greek myth for a poem centered on Achilles. All of these are good, and some are quite good.

Where this collection shines for me are the humorous poems. There are numerous funny poems about animals, including several about the dog Bruno. Host Raider was particularly fun to read. Dogs are not the only animal subjects featured - chickens and cats also have verses devoted to them: Birdsong at Dawn is a funny tale of a cat's frustrations.

Finally, the poems touch upon loss, and aging. The Choice, for example, telling the choice the narrator made to live a human life, but not knowing if he could make the same choice again as he nears death. As with much poetry inspired by the Celtic tradition, many other poems are tinged with loss and sorrow.

This collection is not without some flaws, but they are mostly minor. The only thing that is truly missing from this book is that it doesn't come packaged with a drummer, harper, piper, and bard to sing the verses. I can forgive that oversight (the packaging would probably be quite costly), and I will have to settle for simply imagining them. show less

The fourth installment in the Storyteller arc, Stones is reminiscent of the episodic storytelling of the first book, but knitted together more deliberately than was the case in Flight of the Hawk. Gwernin's travels to and through Ireland, and an abiding search for the history of Lovernos, serve as a common thread stitching together separate locales. Certain characters new to this adventure, along with familiar friends, lend an overarching continuity. The result is a satisfying blend of what show more is known and what is new, precisely what draws me to new books in series.

For me this served as a comfort read, providing the character portraits and patient plotting I admired in prior stories, not rehashing what came before but also no dramatic break. There is, for example, no shift of structure or character development as occurred between the first and second books. The biggest change with The Fallen Stones comes in its overt supernatural elements, which Grove acknowledges are drawn from the historical record (The Chronicle of Ireland) but infused with Grove's own druidical studies. These are new in being overt, but relayed comfortably within a narrative style established in prior books, though supernatural occurrences there were more ambivalent in the telling.

Gwernin is not the same person, either, but has grown in the intervening six years since The Ash Spear. He is recognisably himself, but fatherhood and a more sedentary life have inflected his old longing for travel. Though he jumps at the chance at traveling again, he returns in thought to how his outlook has been altered by the challenges and achievements in a settled community.

A welcome return to old characters and their experience in Dark Ages Britain. I will continue following Gwernin Storyteller, as other books come to light. show less

What a treat! I loved following Gwernin as he told tales and collected them on his travels through Ireland. The blending in of mystical elements was very well done, giving just a hint of the otherworldly to the story.

Although this is the fourth book in the Storyteller series, it stands on its own well enough that it's not necessary to have read the preceding volumes.

54/59. [The Druid's Son] by G. R. Grove (2012, 273 pages, read Oct 3-13 & reread Oct 16 – Nov 7)

What confuses me in trying to review this is the contradiction between that place our imagination takes us when we read Tacitus's description of Roman destruction of the Druid stronghold on Anglesey in AD 61 and that place just afterward, where GR Grove takes us. History has just happened; the next is the inevitable, at least from our perception, looking backward. "The harvest was over." opens show more The Druid's Son, a story that is built more on the reconstructed lifestyle and landscape of the Wales of this period, then the striking history it's wrapped in.

Here is Tacitus.

“On the coastline, a line of warriors of the opposition was stationed, mainly made up of armed men, amongst them women, with their hair blowing in the wind, while they were carrying torches. Druids were amongst them, shouting terrifying spells, their hands raised towards the heavens, which scared our soldiers so much that their limbs became paralyzed. As a result, they remained stationary and were injured. At the end of the battle, the Romans were victorious, and the holy oaks of the druids were destroyed.”

The Celts in future Wales are silent in history, leaving only foreigners descriptions like this, and a curious archeology to document them.

Grove creates her version of this Celtic world though the story of the son of last Archdruid on Anglesey, conceived shortly after these holy oaks were destroyed and shortly before this last Druid in Wales has himself ritually sacrificed. This story works quietly, keeping close the annual cycles, the Celtic festivals and the everyday focus on agriculture that just barely sustains the tribes. Year by year the druid's son grows and learns and the book accumulates through dialogue and relationships, the interweaving of the even more ancient history, the mysterious megalithic ruins, and through the magic and religion he is able to find and fully wrap himself within. She reconstructs her own version of a druidic and bardic context of thought and learning and philosophy.

This is fourth book I've read by Grove. In each book she works between or even after some dramatic events, crafting quiet tensions based often on everyday concerns about survival. Her version of druidic religion and magic are worked strongly into the stories, but these things can be taken two ways. The reader is left to decide how much should be taken as real and how much as artifact of the characters perceptions; and then to wonder about what this may tell about the psychological make of these characters. Thorough research goes into these, and is part of what makes these stories special. Historically darker eras, Grove excels in using her knowledge of the landscape and the known practices and then reconstructing her versions of these worlds to build her stories.

2012
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