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Pavane, by Keith Roberts
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A classic of alternate history, this novel is set in a twentieth century where the Roman Catholic Church controls the western world, and has done so so Queen Elizabeth was assassinated in 1588.
- Sales Rank: #337820 in Books
- Published on: 2011-12-15
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.90" h x .90" w x 5.90" l, .80 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 242 pages
Amazon.com Review
An ever-expanding subgenre of science fiction is devoted to "alternate worlds" or "alternate histories": fiction in which a crucial event goes differently than in the world we know, and history is changed. Keith Roberts's Pavane (1968) is set in a backward 20th century molded by the assassination of Queen Elizabeth I and the triumph of a militantly antiscience Catholic Church. This is a classic alternate history, in the same company as such highly regarded novels as L. Sprague De Camp's seminal Lest Darkness Fall (1941), in which a modern man slips back in time and attempts to avert the Dark Ages; Ward Moore's Bring the Jubilee (1953), set after the South wins the U.S. Civil War; and Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle (1962), set after the Germans and Japanese win World War II. Lest Darkness Fall and The Man in the High Castle are justly famous; the other two classics, Bring the Jubilee and Pavane, are less well known, and that is a shame.
One reason for Pavane's relative obscurity among American SF readers might be its British setting and author (the Moore and Dick novels are both set in the U.S., and De Camp, Moore, and Dick were all American). Another reason might be that Pavane is a novel created from interrelated but standalone stories (six "measures," or novelettes, and a coda), and the stories are of varying quality. Most are wise, beautifully written, and intensely visualized, especially the opener, "The Lady Margaret," and the closer, "Corfe Gate"; but "Brother John," the story of the monk-artist who witnesses Inquisition tortures and sparks an anti-Church rebellion, is far less detailed, and sometimes even unclear. Another reason for the novel's obscurity may be that some of the stories/chapters have more of a fantasy feel than is typical of more recent alternate history. Also, the nature of the coda's revelations may put off some readers. Nonetheless, Pavane is an intelligent, powerful, and moving work, deserving of a wide readership. --Cynthia Ward
From Publishers Weekly
First published in 1968, these intricately linked short stories (broken into six measures and a coda) constitute a pioneering work of alternative history that has influenced many contemporary SF and fantasy writers. In them a twisted Church of Rome rules a modern world where steam locomotives are the primary mode of transportation, semaphores (telegraph signals moved by hand and read via binoculars) are used for communication and the horrors of the Inquisition continue. Why? Because in 1588 Queen Elizabeth I was assassinated, leading to the Spanish Armada's defeat of England and the subsequent suppression of the Protestant Church. But in this stately "dance" of stories, revolution becomes inevitable when society's natural cultural and scientific progress can no longer be contained. Roberts displays intense respect and love for history as he rewrites it with deft abandon. Three measures in particular stand out as profound today, just as they did when originally published: "The Signaller," which allegorically portrays a young guild member who pays a high price for his dedication to communication; "Brother John," a stunning portrayal of a devoted priest's traumatizing encounter with torture and his resultant reaction; and, finally, "The White Boat," another almost mythological piece about a young girl's obsession with a boat that can take her to freedom. All the other stories are excellent, but these are outstanding examples of why revolutions occur. Impact is doing a great service by reprinting this and other classics.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Review
"A rare and beautiful novel."
--BRIAN ALDISS
"Brilliant . . . Fiction so convincing that it becomes reality for the reader. I simply cannot imagine anyone finishing this book without lingering over the last few pages, unwilling to let it end."
--SF Review
Most helpful customer reviews
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Religious Repression and Reform
By DrPat
The title is a brilliant reflection of the diversion-point from reality for this alternate-history novel (see footnote 2). This is the twentieth century of a world in which Queen Elizabeth—Good Queen Bess, the daughter of Harry VIII and his second wife Anne Boleyn—was assassinated before her reign could fairly begin. With the English Queen dead, Catholic Phillip brought his armada from Spain to conquer England in the wake of the chaos that followed. The Anglican church was thus suppressed; the Catholic Church is a major political power in the world, and industry is organized to serve the purposes of evangelism first.
The story is told from the point-of-view of several characters, one for each "measure," whose lives converge. Each of the measures can be read as a stand-alone story, but together they form a serious examination of the consequences of religious-ruled society in which internal combustion engines were until very recently banned as the work of the Devil, electricity is still under the Papal ban, and everyone tithes to the Vatican on pain of death.
Jesse Strange would be an industrialist in real, Protestant England; in this alternate Catholic land, his haulage engines are strange locomotive/truck hybrids, and the non-Church focus of his business puts him on the fringe of society. "The Lady Margaret" is the name of his locomotive, the title of his measure, and a clue to his unrequited love for Margaret the barmaid.
In "The Signaller," Rafe is a fortunate youngster whose obsession over the signal towers that form the single non-Church power network in England is rewarded when a childless officer in the Signaller Guild "adopts" him into the Guild. His luck vanishes when his first solo assignment runs afoul of the Church's ancient opponent in England. This measure is the most mystical and fantastical of the six.
In "The White Boat," a naive Poole Harbor girl named Becky makes an assumption about her options. She can stay in her southern coast village, which is already under suspicion because of an unexplained incident with a mad monk named John in her father's time, or she can swim out to the ship she sees off-shore, and escape her rural fate. Alas, the white boat is no innocent craft, but a smuggler's vessel from Bermuda. Its cargo is strange indeed.
"Brother John" is a relatively happy lithographer-artist, serving his city monastery print shop until his cheerful industrial service to God is overturned by a command session as illustrator for the Office of the Inquisition. Haunted by the memory, he rejects the Church and begins to preach the need for reform throughout southern England.
In "Lords and Ladies," Margaret Strange toys with a wealthy young man whose world is alien to hers. Her heritage as a hauler's child (daughter of Margaret the barmaid and Jesse Strange's younger brother) bars her from consideration as wife of the heir to Corfe Gate, the south-coast castle. But her confidence as heir to the Strange Haulage empire gives her an advantage the "ladies" of the castle do not have.
The final measure, "Corfe Gate," ties together the threads of reform that are woven through the first five stories, as the Church clashes with a revolt they themselves have fueled with punitive tithes and Inquisitorial torments. The spirits of Brother John, Jesse Strange, and Signaller Rafe are all evoked in the battle for religious freedom in England.
The world of "Pavane" described in these six measures is rich, strange and familiar by turns. If it feels medieval, this is perhaps a natural result of centuries of involvement by the Catholic Church in every facet of civil life, and the anti-science focus the Church's power has taken.
Liner Notes:
1. I found the "Coda" (actually an epilogue named in the same dance-piece theme as the "measures") a let-down after the growing power of Pavane's measures. It is worth reading it to see the direction the author intended for his tale, but it comes off as an afterthought.
2. Ravel's "Pavane for a Dead Princess" [Maurice Ravel: Daphnis & Chloe/Pavane For A Dead Princess] was described by the composer as "a wistful daydream of something a sixteenth-century Spanish princess might have danced to," rather than a dirge or funeral piece. Ravel often complained that too many pianists played his pavane too slowly.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
Pavane: Keith Roberts
By A. B. Spellman
Pavane is a masterpiece of creative imagination. In this alternative history, Roberts has constructed in graphic detail a late 20th century England that missed the evolution in technology and civil liberty that the industrial revolution stimulated. This is an England whose renaissance was stunted by the victory of the Spanish armada after Elizabeth"s assasination and has endured three centuries of the dictatorship of the Church of the Inquisition, which permitted no more advanced machinery than the steam engine & the most elementary radio.
The social mores and the individual personalities that are the result of such an environment are biopsied in Pavane in lucid, plausible detail. & the revolution, when it comes, is messianic as it must be, from a dissenting frior.
Keith Roberts is a strong, literate writer. He made me think, my greatest compliment.
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful.
An eerie, but beautiful, book
By Frank J. Konopka
In case you were wondering, a "pavane" is a stately dance in elaborate clothing, and this book is contructed like such a dance: six measures and a coda, each one a separate, but tenuously connected, story. It's an alternate history of the world in which Queen Elizabeth I is assassinated in 1588, and the Spanish Armada conquers England. For hundreds of years after that date, the Roman Church rules most of the world with a somewhat iron hand, keeping to a minimum the progress of science and inventions. Throughout the book you wonder about the rationale of the Church leaders for this stance, until everything (sort of) is made clear in the Coda. The writing is quite lyrical at times, and even though a reader might wish for more information about the world the author created, enough is given to enable you to understand what is happening, even if you don't quite know what's going on (if that sounds like a contradiction, it certainly is, but you have to read the book to understand what I mean). If you enjoy "alternate history" works, I think you will like this book very much.
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