Sword at Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliff

[regshoe]

I'd been looking forward to this one for a while and, well, it didn't disappoint.

Sword at Sunset (1963) is Rosemary Sutcliff's take on the Arthurian legend*. It's not so much a retelling as a historical novel attempting to reconstruct the sort of plausible events that might have given rise to the legend. Sutcliff deliberately removes the more 'romantic' legendary elements, notably including the characters of Lancelot (but not his role in the story, which is given to the more authentically British character Bedwyr instead), Merlin and the Lady of the Lake (both entirely absent; what magical elements there are are very subtle and the plot is basically a mundane one). Instead, Artos is a Romano-British war leader working to hold back the inevitable oncoming tide of the Saxon invasion, gathering a loyal Company to fight alongside him. The book follows their campaigns throughout Britain, from Artos's home in what's now North Wales to the banks of the Tweed and the downs of modern Berkshire.

The book is very ambitious in scope: the plot covers much of the geographical area of Great Britain and several decades of time, there are loads of characters, several big battle scenes, a great many highly memorable dramatic episodes of various sorts. Sutcliff's writing style suits this sort of thing really well—her prose is so dense, rich and emotionally evocative, the nature descriptions are detailed and perfectly placed, and she keeps it all up relentlessly for the entire five hundred pages without stopping. I'm honestly a little overwhelmed by it all—I can only sit back in awe—and I won't try to do the whole thing justice in a review. I'll just talk about a few points that stand out...

The mood of the book throughout is one of a sort of noble fatalism, a pervading sense of inevitable doom combined with an attitude that's neither resignation nor hopeless defiance: Artos and the Romano-British know they're doomed, they know the Saxons are going to win, and they keep fighting out of a belief that, despite that, it's worth something to hold back the darkness for a few more years, to raise the 'sword at sunset'. This philosophy is very appropriate to Arthurian mythology and it's something Sutcliff does really, really well. The book is also technically another part of the Dolphin Ring sequence, with the main character of The Lantern Bearers and his son and grandson appearing as side characters. I didn't enjoy The Lantern Bearers much—it got a bit too relentlessly grim—but this book, which gets harrowing enough at times but which always has that attitude of hope and of things worth fighting for, was much better.

The story is told in first person by Artos himself, which in some ways I thought sat oddly alongside the grand, wide-ranging scope of the thing—but, then, it's Artos's story as much as it is the story of the end of Sutcliff's Roman Britain, and having the one to narrate the other worked well.

There's a canon, positively portrayed m/m couple! Pretty impressive for 1963, and I found their story very sweet (and very heartbreaking, of course, but that goes without saying in this book). It's interesting to think of that as something Sutcliff was aware of as a possibility for her characters, especially given that the relationship between Artos and Bedwyr is another of the very subtexty loyalty-filled complicated friendships she likes so much—is some of that intentional, too? I don't know. In any case, the Artos/Guenhumara/Bedwyr relationship is an excellent take on the Arthur/Guinevere/Lancelot triangle—they all love each other in different ways and it all comes together in the worst way possible, as everything goes towards doom.

There's a lot more to be said about this book, but I think it's a great deal more than I can do after reading it once. I'll just summarise by saying again this is a really, really good book and my love and admiration for Rosemary Sutcliff only increases.


*Although not her only one—she also wrote an Arthurian trilogy which seems to be a more classic/traditional version of the story.

Comments

[theseatheseatheopensea]

I have a bunch of her books in my to-read list, and this one looked especially interesting! After reading this review, I will definitely move it up a bit, hehe! Thanks for sharing it!! :D

[regshoe]

It's highly recommended :D I hope you enjoy it, and whatever others of her books you read!

[luzula]

I have written fic for this! : D

Yeah, it's very good, I agree! By the way, have you read Jo Walton's The King's Peace and The King's Name? If not, I recommend them--they are my favorite Arthurian books. The attitude is not noble fatalism, but instead they tackle Saxon immigration in a much more nuanced way.

[isis]

I somehow missed that you'd written for it! I'll have to go check it out!

[regshoe]

Aww, I was just going through the fandom tag on AO3 and saw your name :D I'll check it out!

I've not read those two—they sound pretty interesting, although perhaps a bit too grim for me. I suppose with how little is really known for certain about the details of that period of history, there must be room for different nuanced historical takes. I think my favourite Arthurian retelling is still The Once and Future King, weird as it is (although the historical setting is not one of its good points—a complement to Sword at Sunset, perhaps!)

[luzula]

Actually, I would say that Sword at Sunset, as a whole, is more grim! But it's true that Walton's books do open with a rape, even if I think that and its consequences are very well handled through the book.

[isis]

I love this book! It's probably my favorite Sutcliff.

they all love each other in different ways and it all comes together in the worst way possible, as everything goes towards doom

That's an elegant way to put it! It's so achingly tragic, in the sense of tragedy being the slow realization of an inevitable unhappy ending.

I wrote a Levin/Gault fic some years back that I still rather like; it's more of a canon remix than a fic, as it's basically Sword at Sunset from their point of view, but I think this was the book that established my love for doomed lovers, and so I had to write something to flesh out their story and elaborate on the hints of meaningfulness.

[regshoe]

It's so achingly tragic, in the sense of tragedy being the slow realization of an inevitable unhappy ending.

Yes! I think that's what I like best about the Arthurian legend as a whole, and Sutcliff does it so well.

Oh, that fic sounds great—I would very much like to read more about Gault and Levin from their point of view! I'll check it out :D

[starshipfox]

This sounds really interesting! I read my first Sutcliffe this year -- Eagle of the Ninth -- and I wasn't that impressed, but this sounds huge in scope and full of lots of elements that I would love. I'll have to add it to my list.

[regshoe]

Aww, I loved Eagle of the Ninth when I read it a few years ago. But this one is very different from it (actually, the more Sutcliff I read the more I realise how unrepresentative EotN is—it's way more optimistic than the later Roman Britain novels), and 'huge in scope' is certainly accurate. I hope you enjoy it!

[starshipfox]

Interesting to know that EotN isn't very representative of her work! I liked many things about it, and wish I had come to it when I was younger, but as an adult I was too critical of how neat the story was, and its treatment of slavery made me really uncomfortable. I'm interested to try something else though, as her work seems very much my speed.

[regshoe]

Fair enough—and yeah, while the later books get a great deal more bleak it does mean they're much less neat, in terms of plot and in terms of easy answers for the fraught historical context of it all.

I can also highly recommend Frontier Wolf, which is set a bit before Sword at Sunset and features some lovely heartwarming character development and some absolutely awful tragedy amidst the breakdown of relations between Romans and Celts. Oh, and I've also read Bonnie Dundee, which has a completely different setting in seventeenth-century Scotland and is much more historically precise—but less emotionally vivid than the Roman books in terms of the relationships, I thought.