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A review by sbbarnes
The Fool's Tale by Nicole Galland
3.0
I guess 3.5 stars? I am having a really hard time deciding whether or not I liked this book. It follows the high medieval border wars between England and Wales and also between bits of Wales, with some of it being historically accurate-ish and most of it being fiction. Maelgwin, the king called Noble, marries Isabel in order to end the fights with her English family over the border. She is at first disgusted and later fascinated by Gwirion, the king's sort-of court jester (only not really because that wasn't a thing in Wales). And also there's a lot about politics and fighting and backstabbing lords going back on treaties.
On reflection, I think my central problem is that the two big issues of the book - namely the political infighting and the love triangle - have basically nothing to do with each other. The former never even gets resolved, which is I guess vaguely more historically accurate but also unsatisfactory fiction. Similarly, the resolution to the love triangle is pretty darn unsatisfying (but you can take that with a grain of salt because I generally hate love triangles and think they should be solved by polyamory THEN AGAIN that would have been an ideal and elegant solution in this case). It just kind of ends abruptly with a lot of character motivation left unexplored. In my opinion, you could probably cut out a good half of the political whatnot and thus shorten the first half of the book, which drags, and then lengthen the resolution to be less...Shakespeare-y? Galland herself clearly states that her writing focus was always on the relationship between the three characters and the history stuff came in later, and honestly it really shows.
Pacing is in general a problem, because while this book being about a love triangle is announced on the back cover, the book doesn't get there for about 300 pages, and they're kind of slow pages. For another thing, while Isabel's relationship with both male characters is pretty extensively demonstrated, I really can't put my finger on why Gwirion and Maelgwin still tolerate each other. I've seen this a lot in fiction - the sort of "we-hate-each-other-but-we've-been-friends-forever-and-now-we're-codependent" relationship, but it almost always struggles for me to show that codependence. I didn't see much more than Maelgwin being amused by Gwirion and sort of using him a little escape from responsibility, nothing of the affection and codependence I would have expected. And Gwirion seems kind of over the whole thing already at the beginning, but can't/won't leave? It's hinted that this has something to do with the Childhood Trauma in the prologue, but not very clearly. Like, I could have done with an episode of Gwirion trying to leave and then panicking and giving up to demonstrate any internal conflict besides wanting to bone Isabel.
The other issue is that Maelgwin is a straight up psychopath. This is demonstrated and even explicitly stated (well ok they use the word "tyrant" but like in an era where you still paid cash for virginity in Wales and that was a-ok, that's pretty much the same thing) multiple times in the book, starting pretty early, so I don't think I'm really spoiling anything here. And that also doesn't really get resolved. Honestly I found the ending kind of baffling, because I had kind of read Maelgwin as ultimately coldly self-interested with flashes of startling brutality, but I didn't really see his actions towards the end lining up with that. I mean he even spins wanting to have consensual sex as like a kink that helps out his self-interest and ego. Thus there's kind of a confused aspect to his character because on the one hand, he's legit nuts, and on the other, he apparently loves Gwirion like a brother, or at least needs him, and he also treats Isabel pretty well about half the time and the other half then...not so much. I guess typical abuser tactics? Like, for about half the book you're left thinking they should just have a threesome already and for the other half you want to punch this guy in the face.
Final note: Gwirion's character is also kind of interesting. Gwirion and Maelgwin reminded me of that bit in Pride and Prejudice where Lizzy says something like "there's only enough goodness between them to make one really good man, and I'm afraid one got all the goodness and the other all the appearance of it", which I think is kind of what Galland was going for here? There's certainly enough pride and prejudice going on between Isabel and Gwirion. Gwirion has these occasional flights of being a good dude, like being anti-rape and anti-kidnapping (way to set a low bar). He's also pretty much a coward, kind of flighty, and doesn't really know what he wants. Which honestly I think is great characterization. Isabel too, while I'm at it. The book is really unflinching with her faults - childishness, pettiness, some amount of prudery, certainly excessive pride, as well as with her positive traits, like her sense of justice and duty, and also in some ways her understanding of passion. This could have honestly been just such a good love story with a solid base in character and it was kind of wasted on the two plot threads that wouldn't really go together and Maelgwin.
On reflection, I think my central problem is that the two big issues of the book - namely the political infighting and the love triangle - have basically nothing to do with each other. The former never even gets resolved, which is I guess vaguely more historically accurate but also unsatisfactory fiction. Similarly, the resolution to the love triangle is pretty darn unsatisfying (but you can take that with a grain of salt because I generally hate love triangles and think they should be solved by polyamory THEN AGAIN that would have been an ideal and elegant solution in this case). It just kind of ends abruptly with a lot of character motivation left unexplored. In my opinion, you could probably cut out a good half of the political whatnot and thus shorten the first half of the book, which drags, and then lengthen the resolution to be less...Shakespeare-y? Galland herself clearly states that her writing focus was always on the relationship between the three characters and the history stuff came in later, and honestly it really shows.
Pacing is in general a problem, because while this book being about a love triangle is announced on the back cover, the book doesn't get there for about 300 pages, and they're kind of slow pages. For another thing, while Isabel's relationship with both male characters is pretty extensively demonstrated, I really can't put my finger on why Gwirion and Maelgwin still tolerate each other. I've seen this a lot in fiction - the sort of "we-hate-each-other-but-we've-been-friends-forever-and-now-we're-codependent" relationship, but it almost always struggles for me to show that codependence. I didn't see much more than Maelgwin being amused by Gwirion and sort of using him a little escape from responsibility, nothing of the affection and codependence I would have expected. And Gwirion seems kind of over the whole thing already at the beginning, but can't/won't leave? It's hinted that this has something to do with the Childhood Trauma in the prologue, but not very clearly. Like, I could have done with an episode of Gwirion trying to leave and then panicking and giving up to demonstrate any internal conflict besides wanting to bone Isabel.
The other issue is that Maelgwin is a straight up psychopath. This is demonstrated and even explicitly stated (well ok they use the word "tyrant" but like in an era where you still paid cash for virginity in Wales and that was a-ok, that's pretty much the same thing) multiple times in the book, starting pretty early, so I don't think I'm really spoiling anything here. And that also doesn't really get resolved. Honestly I found the ending kind of baffling, because I had kind of read Maelgwin as ultimately coldly self-interested with flashes of startling brutality, but I didn't really see his actions towards the end lining up with that. I mean he even spins wanting to have consensual sex as like a kink that helps out his self-interest and ego. Thus there's kind of a confused aspect to his character because on the one hand, he's legit nuts, and on the other, he apparently loves Gwirion like a brother, or at least needs him, and he also treats Isabel pretty well about half the time and the other half then...not so much. I guess typical abuser tactics? Like, for about half the book you're left thinking they should just have a threesome already and for the other half you want to punch this guy in the face.
Final note: Gwirion's character is also kind of interesting. Gwirion and Maelgwin reminded me of that bit in Pride and Prejudice where Lizzy says something like "there's only enough goodness between them to make one really good man, and I'm afraid one got all the goodness and the other all the appearance of it", which I think is kind of what Galland was going for here? There's certainly enough pride and prejudice going on between Isabel and Gwirion. Gwirion has these occasional flights of being a good dude, like being anti-rape and anti-kidnapping (way to set a low bar). He's also pretty much a coward, kind of flighty, and doesn't really know what he wants. Which honestly I think is great characterization. Isabel too, while I'm at it. The book is really unflinching with her faults - childishness, pettiness, some amount of prudery, certainly excessive pride, as well as with her positive traits, like her sense of justice and duty, and also in some ways her understanding of passion. This could have honestly been just such a good love story with a solid base in character and it was kind of wasted on the two plot threads that wouldn't really go together and Maelgwin.