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- - G U E S T R E V I E W S - -
Pavane
by Keith Roberts
1966
Review by Steve Hooley — June 20, 2001
The assassination of Queen Elizabeth I plunged Europe into a new Dark Age, with technology
extinguished and France ruling over a defeated England, and a terribly strong Church looming over them
all. In this vivid and gritty alternate world, steam trains run on the high road and telegraph signals are sent
by line-of-sight wigwag towers while medieval castles still brood on the hills. In the sixties, in the Dorset
region of England, a chain of events is set into motion by a young man's impulse to name a new road
locomotive after a girl he desires which will end decades later with the dawn of a new Enlightenment.
Roberts understood machinery and humanity and describes them both with equal candor; how to overheat
and crack a piston, for example, or a human heart. How to operate a huge steam-powered road train, slowly
and methodically stoking the boilers, easing the brakes, edging the huge and beloved monster around sharp
turns and through close and cobbled villages with the cold wind in your face and the steam engine
growling. How to drink with, then kill your friend, all in a day's work in a cold and unforgiving world.
How to sand an etching stone to perfect flatness, then inscribe a depiction of terrible torture upon it; all for
the glory of the Church's Inquisition. How to grow up in an ignorant fishing village, yearning for
something you have no words to imagine, watching a mysterious white boat fly free at the horizon, or in
another small village, watching the semaphore signals passing messages over your head and wondering if
you will ever know what they say. And finally, how to stand tall when the lives of thousands fall into your
hand, when you are of the commoners and the aristocracy both and the wheels of politics begin to grind.
There is as much love for the ancient land of Dorset as there is for its indomitable people seeded into this
book, the stone rings and chalk giants, the bitter cold and the smells of steam and oil and hard work, and in
the end it is as much Dorset as her people who stand up at last against the terrible grip of Mother Church.
But another factor is at work in this alternate history: the mysterious fairy folk, who interfere in human
destiny for their own purposes. At the last a patterned stately dance, a pavane of pre-ordained steps in
which each step refers to the previous, suddenly begins to tread its last measure, with the steps interrupted
by the whistle of an old steam loco. Because of Jesse, Lady Margaret is there to save his niece, for a time;
enough for her to save her world. And suddenly the dance is over, the pattern complete, the Dark Age
ended, and the electric lights are coming on all over the world . . . and for a few, the secret is revealed in a
peaceful coda, and mankind is free to choose its own next steps.
I was happily shocked to see a new 2001 Del Rey trade paperback edition. Grab it before it's lost
again.
If you have comments, please contact the reviewer at hooley@gsvms2.cc.gasou.edu
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