Celtika
Robert Holdstock
Simon & Schuster Earthlight, 434 pages
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Does the world really need another series about Merlin? The fantasy genre is awash in Arthurian books, many
of them, it has to be said, pretty unexciting, no matter which approach to the legend they choose. But Robert Holdstock
(who visited the Merlin story earlier in 1994's Merlin's Wood) has dusted off this rather shopworn subject
and given it a unique twist, in a novel that situates Merlin mostly outside the Arthur legend, and blends Celtic
themes with elements of Greek myth.
Holdstock's Merlin (a nickname; we never learn his real name) is an ancient creature, born in an epoch when the
world was nearly empty of humanity. His memories of that beginning time are strangely clouded and incomplete, but
his magic is instinctive, for it's engraved upon his bones. To use it ages him. For most of his existence he has
hoarded his power, keeping himself young as he walks a mysterious Path around the world. From time to time, when
interest or adventure calls, he deviates from the Path; one such call made him part of Jason's band of Argonauts,
on the quest for the Golden Fleece.
Now, centuries after the goddess-guided Argo bore Jason off for burial, Merlin has discovered that Jason's two
sons, whom Jason believed dead by Medea's hand, are somehow still alive. Following a legend of a screaming ship
sunk in a frozen lake, he journeys to the dark north: he believes the ship is Argo, and that if she can be raised
Jason can be brought back to life.
Argo is brought up from the depths, and Jason revived. His thirst for revenge against Medea is intact, exceeded
now only by his desire to find his sons. Argo is rebuilt, and a new goddess--Mielikki, patroness of northern forests--bound
into her keel. Jason assembles a second crew of Argonauts, and sets out with Merlin for the south, on a trail that
brings them to a vast pan-Celtic army, marching to raid the treasure-filled oracle at Delphi. Jason senses he is
moving closer to his children, but there are ominous signs. The goddess Mielikki is resentful of her kidnapping,
and isn't acting as the protectress she was meant to be. Merlin is tricked by Niiv, an eager young enchantress
who wants his love but settles for stealing his power. Urtha, a British chieftain, discovers his lands strangely
empty, blighted by a magic even Merlin doesn't recognize. And over everything hangs the vengeful shadow of Medea--who
like her sons still lives, and to whom, Merlin begins to realize, he may somehow be bound by that ancient past
he can't quite recall.
The mythagos of Holdstock's earlier books, ghostly figures confined to mysterious woodlands, are here brought into
the world and made flesh: Jason, Medea, Merlin, Niiv (who, I'm betting, will turn out in subsequent volumes to
be Nimue, the Lady of the Lake). Celtic mythology has been at the center of Holdstock's previous work, but he has
never confined himself to just one culture, incorporating aspects of Greek and North American myth as well. In
Celtika the Greek myth is central, while the Celtic elements for the most part aren't mythical at all--the
book often reads, in fact, like a straightforward historical novel, with much realistic detail and many sweaty
battle scenes. As for the Arthur legend, it's almost completely absent from this part of the story. Urtha is obviously
Arthur's forbear, and there's a scene in which Merlin's future association with Arthur is prophesied, but that's
as far as it goes. Merlin himself, with his strange history and mysterious life-journey, is explicitly severed
from the legend, becoming a archetypal figure of no readily identifiable provenance.
I have to say I found all these juxtapositions uneasy at times. The contrasting elements--Greek/Celtic, fantasy/historical--are
convincing on their own, but odd when they collide: Jason in Urtha's ghostly Britain, Urtha in the thyme- and honey-scented
lands of the Greeks, Medea magically meddling in a battle that echoes the historical Battle of Thermopylae. Since
there's no obvious parallel between the Matter of Britain and either the original Argosy or the revived Jason's
quest to find his sons (which Holdstock structures like a Greek tragedy), it's not really clear why Holdstock chose
to wind this particular myth into Merlin's story. As a result, I was never quite able to shake my sense of arbitrariness
in the connections between Jason and Merlin, Merlin and Medea, Celtic heroes and Greek oracles. Too, there's a
scattered quality to the narrative: the story leaps from the nightbound north to haunted Britain to sunbleached
Greece, raising mysteries and refusing to follow them. Holdstock is working with a very large canvas here; I expect
that much will be explained as the series unfolds. But there are no "aha!" moments in this book where
connections come clear, and this opacity ultimately becomes frustrating.
That said, this is a striking work, which compels attention even in its oddest passages (which are many; the dialogue
especially is peculiar). The central notion of Merlin as part of an ancient forbear race, whose magic is literally
inborn and whose choice to hoard it has kept him not just youthful but childlike, is a fascinating one. Disassociated,
selfish, and not greatly gifted with self-knowledge, he's not a likeable narrator, but he is believable as a nearly
immortal creature who has seen almost everything and forgotten much of it. What will induce him to grow up and
share his sorcery? Who are the ten mysterious figures that haunt his dreams? How will he encounter Arthur? Who
will Medea turn out to be, and where do Jason and his sons fit into it all? Despite my frustrations with Celtika,
these and other questions will draw me on to the next installment of this unusual series. Titled The Iron Grail,
it's due this summer.
Copyright © 2002 Victoria Strauss
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