John Burnside

An epic quest

It’s the story of a quest, not unlike The Lord of the Rings. But there’s more to this sprawling African fantasy than that

issue 23 February 2019

Anyone who has issues with Tolkien (at 16, even in a suitably ‘altered state’, I could not finish The Hobbit, never mind The Lord of the Rings), anyone who falls asleep while watching a tedious Joseph Campbell-formula flick such as Star Wars, anyone saddened by the 2014 BBC poll of adult readers that included six fantasy books among its top ten British novels of all time may well approach Marlon James’s latest offering warily. With a cover puff from Neil Gaiman that invokes Tolkien (as well as Angela Carter) and comparisons elsewhere to George R.R. Martin and Charles R. Saunders’s Imaro books, (but also to Beowulf and classic fairy tales) we might be forgiven for wondering if this is the same Marlon James who penned the Man-Booker-winning A Brief History of Seven Killings, a gritty, politically astute and wholly compelling account of events around the attempted assassination of Bob Marley in December 1976.

Comments

Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.

Already a subscriber? Log in