PotsandPlots

The Knight and the Moth was my Chapter 25 Book Group’s choice for this month. Often discussing a book means my opinion of it improves. Other readers’ perspectives open up new viewpoints and ways to interpret what I’ve read.

Unfortunately for The Knight and the Moth, my fellow book chatters’ observations lowered my opinion. My “it’s ok” converted to a definite, “meh.”

Growing Information:

Plant With: Romantasy, Magic, Yearning.

Grows Into: A tale of tense passion, prophecy and hidden forces with a barbed ending.

Rating: Garage Flowers 🌻(Check here for rating information.)

Available now in paperback (affiliate link).

The Review:

It’s probably telling that a week or two has passed since I completed The Knight and the Moth AND I’ve discussed it at the book group meeting, yet I can remember almost nothing about it.

The book is narrated by “Six,” a “Diviner.” She’s one of a sextet of prophets, to whom people come from far and wide to pay for predictions of the future.

I say “far and wide”, but the Kingdom in which all this takes place feels very small. Like Liechtenstein, maybe. Certainly, once Six and her titular Knight start roaming the countryside, everything feels very close, and frankly, not at all Kingdomy. At best, it feels like the novel is set in a dull, rustic provincial county.

Six lives at Aisling Cathedral and is looked after by the Abbess. (Maybe. I’ve forgotten if that is actually her title.) The Abbess chooses which Diviner will perform a particular augury. These rituals aren’t gruelling. Each Diviner is plunged beneath magical waters, where they effectively drown before being pulled out of the water to report what they saw in their “dying” vision.

These dreams are all very cryptic but centre around the nation’s six “Omens,” powerful abilities wielded by the gods. When the new King comes for his first augury, Six is chosen to perform it. It does not go well. All the signs are negative.

Then, to make matters worse, the diviners all start going missing. One by one until Six is alone. She vows to find her sisters and leaves with the King and his retinue of Knights, who also have a Very Important Quest of their own.

One of the Knights, the King’s most loyal retainer, is on the surface, a bit of a dick, but somehow we know there will be on/off shenanigans with Six. She hates him, you see. Or does she?

To Cut A Long Story Short

I can’t actually tell you very much more than that without starting to give spoilers. The Abbess has some stone helpers called gargoyles. One of whom goes with Six on her journey. He’s probably one of the best things in the book. Gillig uses his implacable nature and very literal grasp of the English language to comic effect, and we can’t help but like Bartholomew.

Talking of the English language. The Knight and the Moth makes for frustrating reading. There are some great turns of phrase here. Gothic touches, a tapestry of grey, gloom and doom, punctuated by moments of light. “A pale smear in the darkness,” a description of the Abbess that I loved.

At the other end of the spectrum, several turns of phrase were so 21st Century they pulled me right out of the narrative. The use of “dingbat” being the most egregious. I found it impossible to take the novel seriously after that.

Fortunately, The Knight and the Moth takes itself very seriously, so that I don’t have to. Lots of ponderous glances and dark gothic brooding. Themes of identity and duty permeate the book, but it’s all too leaden to make it worth the effort of reading.

There is a twist at the end, which, although there is some foreshadowing, did take me by surprise. Yet, in view of the pedestrian nature of what had gone before, overall, it felt like a cynical move to lure me in for the next book, rendering most of what had come before it meaningless.

The motivation behind the actions that led to the twist does resonate with the state of contemporary politics, which is another tick in The Knight and the Moth’s plus column. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough ticks in that column for me to recommend the book.

Its biggest problem is that none of it feels real. The truth behind the Omens, the character interactions and the tiny scale this is all being played out on, made the worldbuilding feel flat and incomplete. I wasn’t really sure that anybody in the book ever behaved like a real person.

The plot is both glacial and nonsensical. It did not take me with it, nor lure me in deep enough to suspend my disbelief, which a fantasy novel must do if it is going to be convincing. Yet despite feeling slow-paced, the completion of the quests felt all too easy, with little jeopardy. I cared not for their resolution. Not that those resolutions were ever in any doubt.

The overall view of the Chapter 25ers was very middle of the road, with my group particularly disliking it (though not many of them were readers of fantasy). Across the group as a whole, there were those who loved it and can’t wait for more and many who found it fine, if not exceptional. I guess that’s the beauty of books, they mean different things to everyone who reads them.