Jonathan Stroud II: Heroes of the Valley

Since I enjoyed Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus Trilogy so much, I went back to the library and snatched up a copy of his new book, Heroes of the Valley. I found this uneven but ultimately quite satisfying. Stroud seems to have a thing for making his young, male protagonists jerks. Halli Sveinson is the younger son a noble clan in a Scandinavian sort of place known only as the Valley. The story of Halli is interspersed at regular intervals with stories about the great hero Svein, founder of his house, one of the heroes who came to the valley from a forgotten homeland far away, drove away the trolls, and founded human settlements. In those days the Valley was a violent place where heroes battled each other as well as trolls, but by Halli's time feuding has been suppressed and the making of swords and armor banned. One of the themes of the book is the relationship of Halli's world to that of the heroes: Are the stories true? Are the trolls real? Should Halli emulate the violent heroes or the legalistic committeemen who lead the houses in his own time?

I almost stopped listening to Heroes of the Valley three or four times, because of Halli. He is a sort of walking disaster, and I hate stories in which tension is generated by your fearing that the protaganist is about to do something incredibly stupid. Halli is brave, resourceful, and determined, but he makes several terrible mistakes and can't seem to avoid saying the worst possible thing. The story follows a chain of violent, tragic events that Halli starts off with a prank that goes wrong and keeps going with his pride and stubbornness. As he did in the Bartimaeus Trilogy, Stroud gives us a female character who has all the social skills Halli lacks. This is Aud, daughter of another noble house, who spurns the handsome, well-behaved young men her family chooses as possible husbands in favor of the short and ugly but heroic Halli. Their relationship is very well drawn, and their friendship grows believably through shared pranks and shared dreams of escaping from the valley and following the heroes trail to some other land.

Although, as I said, I almost stopped listening, I was very glad that I stuck with Heroes of the Valley to the end. The end is magnificent, a piece of fantasy writing at the very highest level. The lingering questions about the old world of the heroes are resolved, and in a way that I found both believable and surprising. Halli and Aud's triumph is tinged with sadness, their heroism very human. I loved it.

I am impressed with Stroud's ability to write fantasy that feels magical without being rooted in archaic aristocratic values. (Or sliding over into feminist pacifism, although I rarely find books like that very magical.) In Halli's world violence causes terrible problems and also helps to solve them. Rule by aristocrats is neither inevitable nor very good for the peasants. The old ways are not always the good ways. Fantasy literature has a strong tendency toward reactionary anti-modernism and the glorification of violence (as long as it is done with swords), and most attempts to make it gentler and more democratic are heavy-handed failures. Jonathan Stroud can write books that are entertaining and magical without calling for King Arthur's return or reveling in piles of severed orc heads, and that is a rare talent.