The Harp and
the Blade was originally published serially in 1941, but my edition of the
book is the 1985 Ace edition of the 1982 release of the novelized collection of
the serial’s chapters. Before 3 months
ago, I had never heard of the novel or of John Myers Myers. An artist friend of mine whom I’ve been
coming to know through some online conversations listed it as one of his favorite
books, and one that he occasionally reread.
I thought there might be no better way to get to know a person than be
reading one of their favorite books.
I’m not big on
reading pulp adventures, and this cover is about as pulpy as it gets. It looks like a young David Spade and a
jacked-up Judd Nelson modeled for the half-dressed figures on the cover. Like, I was not comfortable carrying the book
with me to jobs because I didn’t want to have to answer questions. But I’m happy to report the literary content
is much more rewarding than the cover art.
The story is told
in the first person by the bard Finnian, who is wandering through a lawless
part of France in an unspecified year.
Finnian is clever and self-assured, wanting only to make his way through
the land. Early in the novel, he
trespasses on a druid’s sacred ground and gets cursed for his troubles. The druidic man bemoans Finnian’s selfishness
and condemns him to helping everyone in need whom he encounters. From there, Finnian, through his cursed
wanderings, introduces us to the four main forces struggling for power in the
region. He makes friends and enemies,
encounters a love-interest, and manages to talk or fight his way out of every
corner he gets shoved into. By the end
of the novel, the unsettled power dynamics have been sorted out with a sense of
justice and rightness.
The idea of the
curse is an interesting inciting incident, especially since it is
unnecessary. It’s never clear if sorcery
is at work at all, since Finnian needs no curse to give aid to those in
need. The effect is that Finnian is a
more careless and morally ambivalent person than he acts, wishing that he could
give in to his selfish side to make things easy for himself. It gives us the trope we are long used to
seeing now, though I have no idea if it was a trope in 1940, of the tough guy
who begrudgingly does right, whose cynicism we can enjoy and in whose triumphs
we can rejoice. I expected the druid to
return at the end of the novel to gloat over the efficacy of his curse, but he
never makes a second appearance.
Finnian seems like
the kind of guy I’d be perfectly happy staying far away from, but he does make
for an interesting hero, in that he is as good at bargaining with people as
fighting, as quick with his wit as with his sword. I enjoyed the novel well enough, but I was
especially impressed by the big rescue chapter, in which he has to help a
captured friend escape from an enemy hold.
Nothing feels off by being too clever, but every turn is impressive and
well done.
There is a great
sense of pacing throughout the novel, from the level of each chapter to the
overarching story with adventure and meditation or friendship balancing back
and forth. And the language, which I
expected to feel dated as 80-year-old stories tend to do, felt surprisingly
modern. I can only imagine it was on the
cutting edge of hipness when it was released.
It’s a playful
and dramatic romp of a read. I think the
book could stand up to an analysis about the time and place of its creation. We have a war-torn country with unstable
power centers and a character who would desperately like to stay neutral and
out of the fighting but joins forces with reasonable power over power-hungry
ambition that cares not for its subjects.
It takes all the race and cultural issues out to have the argument exist
between a bunch of white dudes, but the structure seems relevant. Beyond these matters of plotting and action,
there was not a lot in the language itself to prompt me toward analysis or
introspection. Taking you inward is not
what Myers is about in this book.
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