This book was enjoyable, but the writing was not extraordinary. A light, easy read. I rated the entire trilogy a 3, but I almost rated this book a 4 due to the last 25 pages or so. I particularly enjoyed Isolde's conversation with the arrogant envoy from "the ear of the Pope himself," "Dom Luis Carlos Felipe Arranganzo de Sevilla y Cadiz y Pinca y Salamanca and so forth and so forth..." p. 72Arranganzo curled his long, elegant lip. "God has ordained that only men should rule. Why should we share that rightful power with you? Why should men give power to women at all? Think what you are, my lady, all of you. You are no more than the rib of Adam, the serpent's plaything, the dust of the earth."Isolde sighed. "Ah, Christian, your ignorance is vaster than oceans, darker than a starless sky...Every woman is the vessel of the Goddess, bringing new life to the world. And she is the Goddess in her life, in her family, in her home...You Christians have stolen from our Goddess...Your holy Trinity is only our Goddess in her threefold incarnation of Mother, Maiden and Crone. Your holy communion is our Goddess's feast of love, where all are served and none are sent empty away. Even your Grail--why every woman is a grail! Every man is born to seek the woman of the dream and to find his finest self in that great search...what you call the Grail is a woman's vessel of her womanhood, forever rich, moist, and full."The priest was quivering with disgust..."How dare you talk of a woman's body to a man of God?"..."Our religion teaches us to delight in our bodies and to share with our lovers the joy the Goddess gives. And that sharing, that love, brings forth our offspring, the children we love in the way the Mother loves us. That is why we stand for birth, while you glorify death. Regeneration, not crucifixion, is our faith." ...All the earth is in the hands of our Great One, who is both land and sea. From her dim cavern underneath the earth she works at two mighty looms. At the first, she weaves life upward through the trembling grass, and at the second, she weaves death downward through the kindly mold. The sound of her weaving is all eternity, and the name we give it here is 'time.' But it is the warp and weft of all that is rich and rare. It is all we know of beauty in this world, though from time to time it comes to us as pain...There is no life worth living without pain. Even love becomes pain when our loved ones fail and die. But the pain of change is the price we pay for growth. Without love, without life, without growth, we are hollow husks. The Great One gave us this world to enjoy it to the full." pp. 335-337While this book depicts one Christian devotee as loving and wise, the others are portrayed as women-despising, power-hungry men, willing to "adjust" their morals in the name of service to the Church. As a person insulted by hate-mongering, it was easy to dislike the remorselessly resentful Dominion and the representative of papel power, Arranganzo.The Lady tells Isolde:"Three candles light every darkness: nature, knowledge and truth. Fear not, you have them all." p. 342"We all fail...but we rise and renew the struggle every day. That is our task. At the end of our lives, we hand over the work we have done. We are only set here on earth to light the way for those who follow on." p. 342"Watch the wheel, Isolde, always watch the wheel. The wheel is the sea, rolling around our world. The wheel is the world and the lives that flourish there. The wheel is the shape of life and of time itself. Our faith teaches us how to watch that wheel and to follow the wheel of the year every year of our lives." p. 344"This is your destiny, Isolde, this is your fate. Now you will feel in yourself the force of all things that live and breathe in this world of ours. Every plant, every leaf, every tree will be alive to you, as real to you as you are to yourself." p. 345As the story concludes,"A last whisper drifted down and around them like a wind from the moon. Go with your Gods. Make the world a better place." p. 349Amen!
The conclusion to the Tristan and Isolde story that started with and . I love Miles portrayal of Isolde, the Queen of Ireland as she maneuvers her way to becoming a fierce political rival and warrior queen. She had so much great and meaty dialogue that I really enjoyed reading. Unfortunately, I continued to dislike Tristan throughout this series. I couldn't stand all the weeping and stamping out in temper tantrums when Isolde and he disagreed. Dareth, King of the Picts was so interesting and I felt he was a much better match for Isolde. I guess that probably distracts from the actual real love story.
Do You like book The Lady Of The Sea (2005)?
How oh so romantic! Normally, this isn't really my thing ,but this series was quite wonderful. I very much enjoyed Miles' feminist take on a very old story. Its like she stripped away the awful male-dominant Christian veneer a found the true tale of a time when women were strong and not broken down beings who were owned by their husbands. That being said, not all the men in this were horrible sexist pigs. Quite a number were Goddess worshipping and loved fierce independent women. A great book for anyone into fantasy or historical fiction and for those interested in feminist fiction.
—Sue
This was an interesting twist on the traditional Tristan and Isolde legend.I'm a sap for a happy ending, so that was a good thing. But I felt that the journey of the characters to that happy ending was filled with more depressing moments than truly necessary.I thought that the wrap up was a little too easy. The book was a downer until the last three or so chapters, when everything turned out just fine.
—Lisa
I gave this book 3 stars, whereas Ive given the other two books 2 because it was set at a faster pace and everyone got what they deserved. Plus, it was the last one and I dont have to feel obligated to read any more of them. I have known Tristan and Isolde to be such a terrific tragedy. Ive known their story to be one of epic love and soul crushing loss. This invention of them left me wishing for bad things to happen to them so that they would experience that burn for their missing half. So the way it ended was a little confusing for me and it felt like the author was reaching a bit. I actually found myself pinning for Isolde and Mark to work their marriage out! I guess what Im trying to say is that the forbidden nature of Tristan and Isolde was either not conveyed well enough in this series, or it just plain wasnt there.The supernatural, "otherworldly," happenings were a bit wonky and hokey, I thought. I mean, I am a very open minded person, but even I, in the last chapter, was like, "Whaaaat?" I had to re-read that chapter to really understand all that was happening. I dont know. Im still an advocate for these books being appropriate for tweens or anyone looking for a really quick read and mostly historical possibilities instead of true romantic notions.
—Prom
