The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson is a 270-page book that took me about five months to finish. This is not because it is bad, but because it succeeded very well at its goals. It can be seen as a precursor of “grimdark”—all of the characters have great personal flaws, there are no Good Guys, there's all kinds of violence left and right (there's a strongly-implied rape in the first 10 or 15 pages which is part of the inciting incident of the whole story), and there are no happy endings in sight. I was really not in the right frame of mind to stick with such a story for much of the last several months, hence my slow pace. But my life has calmed down now, and I found that reading The Broken Sword went from adding to my stress to being a source of catharsis.
The book is set in Viking-age England: a time when not all pagans had converted to Christianity, and at least in this story, gods (both Norse and Celtic) and faeries (mainly elves and trolls) still roamed the earth. All have been diminished by the coming of what they call “the White Christ,” but all are still mighty and cunning. Against this backdrop, the central plot concerns the intertwined dooms of a boy and his changeling counterpart. Without going into too much detail, the story will bring to mind Tolkien's The Children of Hurin. Yet where Tolkien's vision is leavened, even at its darkest, by his Catholic faith and attendant belief that good will win out in the big picture, Anderson's tale does not have even that faint ray of hope. The world of The Broken Sword seems to be caught in an endless cycle of violence, trapped there by inscrutable gods. If “the White Christ” could offer a way out, none of the protagonists seem very interested in it.
This book was published the same year as The Fellowship of the Ring—1954—yet to say it isn't as well-known would be a serious understatement. It's known among writers and serious fans of the genre, but is otherwise extremely obscure. I think one reason is that it simply isn't as groundbreaking–while it ably blends the style of Norse sagas with some historical fiction sensibilities and and interesting All Myths Are True setting, it isn't the magnificent synthesis of styles and themes that Tolkien's work is. (That would be an impossible goal to live up to, especially for a first novel.) I think its overall bleak outlook is a bigger reason, especially because it's hard to root for any of the characters. There is little solace of any kind to be found in these pages, except catharsis for serious pain. Game of Thrones shares much of The Broken Sword's bleakness, but it has a whole cast of colorful characters for the audience to latch onto. This novel, written nearly as if it were a lost Nordic saga, has no such characters. That isn't necessarily a flaw, but it does make it hard to get really wrapped up in the tale. Its heart can feel as cold as the slopes of Jötunheim.
Yet it is not the numbing cold of indifference—it is the fiery cold of extinguished passion and utter despair that burns like an Arctic wind. This book's strength is its ability to tap into our most profound frustrations and offer catharsis for them. Reading about Skafloc, the hero, slaughtering his enemies by the dozen is a powerful way to vent one's pent-up rage, if one is so inclined. I do not find it ultimately satisfying—there is none of Tolkien's eucatastrophe to offer solace or redemptive meaning—but it can be a first step towards higher things, like a cleansing fire. Much as Tolkien saw Norse mythology as one of many myths pointing to (and in some ways preparing the way for) the True Myth, this book, with its bleak pagan-derived outlook, can provide powerful catharsis to a troubled soul, leaving it ready to begin anew.
I would be remiss not to mention the book's prose. Anderson adopts a flowery and intentionally-antiquated style. Some will feel that it is overdone: Anderson was no Tolkien—who used archaism sparingly—and he was no Dunsany—who mastered the art of constant poetic archaism with little concession to modern English. But I felt that he did a good-if-imperfect job of creating a poetic tone that elevated the tale into the realm of faerie.
If these musings amused you, you might want to check out r/fairystories, where discussion of classic fantasy both old and new is to be found.
by Kopaka-Nuva