Gossamer Axe by
Gael Baudino
Penguin Books, 1990.
Overview:
Gossamer Axe tells the story of Chairiste a woman born in sixth-century Ireland
who is separated from her lover, Siudb, after seeking out new musical knowledge
from the bard in what I started describing to the Lesbrarian as fairy hell.
After discovering the nature of said fairy hell, Chairiste is able to use the
bard’s own best harp to escape, but she does not manage to bring Siudb with
her. We enter the story after Chairiste has spent two centuries plotting and
occasionally attempting Siudb’s rescue, which has led her to Denver in 1987,
where a portal to fairy hell awaits her assault. Through a harp student,
Chairiste—who goes by Christa in modern-day Denver—discovers rock and roll and
metal, and recognizes that they are her best hope for saving Siudb. As you can
guess, this is a very music-driven book, so if lots of descriptions of music
will bore you, this might not be the book for you.
My reaction: While I wasn’t expecting too much from this book, I was
sucked right in. Two centuries of longing for and attempting to rescue a lover?
I ate it right up. I’m not even a metal fan, but I was inspired to actually
listen to what Baudino described as some of the more “rarefied” stuff—Malmsteen’s
“Black Star” was Christa’s introduction—and discovered somewhat to my surprise
that I liked it. (Here’s Malmsteen’s “Black Star”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNOa5Gjh2lc
). I definitely giggled in a few
places that I don’t think I was supposed to, and the unusual number of typos in
the second half were sometimes a bit irritating, but overall I was invested in
Christa’s fight to save Siudb, and supporting characters’ struggles with their
own demons of homophobic/rocker-phobic parents, a sexually abusive father, and
drugs. Without trying to spoil anything too badly, I was kind of upset by
Christa’s apparently magical vagina which, through (in my opinion) blissfully
hardly-described sex allows for the “rebirth” of a male partner. I guess I can
grudgingly accept it on a re-read, though it came dangerously close to “I’ll
have sex with you because I owe you” for my taste, even though he’s a good
friend. On the upside, it doesn’t affect her love and devotion to Siudb in any
way. If anyone has any reactions to that plotline (or any others!) I’d be happy
to hear them in the comments. Despite my quarrels with it, I stayed with the
musical magic/star-crossed lovers elements to the end, and if you can get into
a battle-of-the-bards type novel, I recommend it!
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