'LEGEND' by David Gemmell - Flick Through Review
It had been a while since I tried hard to read. I took a break from literature after my degree - in my head, it would be a few months but it turned into half a year without properly throwing myself into a novel. A shame too; I never really escape reality the way I do with a good book, and losing myself in a different world through pages is something I constantly crave (and something I want to one day give to somebody else). But, after what felt like thousands of recommendations I dragged myself up and back into reading. I was worried that it would feel like work or wouldn’t be relaxing after so much academic reading for Uni.
LEGEND (1984) by David Gemmell was the perfect book to prove my worries wrong and pull me back in like someone trying to escape the mafia.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPw-3e_pzqU&w=560&h=315]
In Gemmell’s world, the tribal Nadir are moving from the wild North and putting the pieces of war into place as they advance into the South, and the Drenai kingdom. The novel follows three characters in this turbulent universe - there is Rek, a coward who has seen his share of battle and wants to be as far as possible from the bloodshed. Then there is Virae, Rek’s love-interest; with Virae, Gemmell drifts between genuinely powerful writing about the burden of power and into trite romance that feels forced, especially at first. But then there is Druss, the Legend. Gemmell’s characters are certainly the strength of this novel, they breathe life into the plot, and Druss is easily the strongest of the lot. We are presented with a mythical warrior who is long past his prime and although he is still a formidable foe, his back is bad and his knee plays up after a long day of fighting. Druss is tired and pathetic and bad-ass and disciplined all at the same time - I was quite glad to find out after I finished LEGEND that there is a prequel book devoted to the greataxe-wielding hero. It’ll find a place in my mountain of things to read!
LEGEND was David Gemmell’s first book. I did wonder while reading it if that had a stylistic effect - Gemmell’s writing throughout the novel is sharp and to the point but with very distinctly separate sections of description. It makes the whole plot pacey and urgent, in a way that is hypnotic and urges you to read on and on. That clashes with the last sections of the book though, chapters of bloody war with visceral detail and real emotional stakes. The flashy action in the first half was cool and made you grin with fiendish delight. By the end, the bloodbath at the walls of Dros Delnoch is gritty and uncomfortable and each character who dies has a farm and a family that will miss them in the aftermath.
I can’t imagine a book that would ease me back into reading better. The light sprinkling of magic into a world that feels so real is a triumph, and the strong characters give actual feeling to a story that in less capable hands might have been dull. The start has an air of whimsical fantasy and the end possesses real tension. I recommend LEGEND to anyone, and everyone. The next book I will review will be very different, but for now Snaga sleeps - next I will be looking at Lars von Trier’s Melancholia (2011).