This book came up in an list of “Books To Read This Year Before The Movie Comes Out”. Vonda McIntyre already has high marks from me for her Star Wars novel “The Crystal Star” (which I really enjoyed) and her novelization of the movie “Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan” (which, don’t laugh, is one of the few books I’ve read that was so heartbreaking it make me cry). So to have a chance to read a fantasy novel with an upcoming movie that won’t be the start of another trilogy? I’m sold.
Father Yves de la Croix arrives at King Louis XIV Chateau in Versailles bearing gifts for his monarch: two sea creatures, and the promise of immortality. It will be Yves’s job to dissect the dead male creature he tried and failed to bring back alive. Yves’s sister, just released from a miserable five years in a convent, is assigned to care for and train the female specimen until it can be served up in a banquet once it’s been harvested of whatever it is that can give the king eternal life. It’s a hard enough for Marie-Josephe to bond with the gargoyle-like mermaid, but it becomes that much harder to do her job when she slowly realizes that the monster – which she’s teaching to leap for visitors and eat from her hand and eventually be eaten itself – is intelligent, and just wants to return to her family in the ocean.
The Moon and the Sun is a very fast read, but I made myself linger over it for almost a week, mostly for the descriptions of King Louis’s court in Versailles. Imagine what kind of pomp and circumstance can be created for a monarch who can use the resources of an entire country to make his home a fantasy world: musicians in each room, every wall hung with paintings by the old masters, candles that are burned exactly once and then replaced, whole orchards that are force-bloomed in greenhouses so gardeners can work through the night to make sure every tree on the property is always covered with flowers, those are just a few of the methods used to make sure the king never has to look at anything less than perfectly beautiful. Add to that a ceremony with many foreign dignitaries in attendance for the signing of a new treaty with the Pope, and throw in an enormous celebration to mark the capture of the sea creature, and the whole book is one gorgeous spectacle after another.
A fairyland of delicate gold archways and tall spires distracted the guests. Sprays of crystal dispersed the light of a thousand candles in colors across drifts and wreaths of flowers. The chamber orchestra’s music filled the perfumed air. The island was wonderful. Yesterday it had not even existed.
Into all of this comes Yves and his Marie-Josephe, neither of whom are really prepared for life in the royal court. Yves is intelligent and curious, and he’s spent enough time among sailors that he doesn’t get scandalized at what goes on in Louis’s court, other than anything he thinks might be corrupting his sister. And then he gets really scandalized. Their childhood of study and scientific exploration in Martinique seems a very long time ago, and Yves has become enough of a 17-century priest to start worrying that things like science, and art, and music, are all more than what a good Christian woman like his sister should be burdened with. And don’t even get him started on the low-cut dresses she wears as a lady’s maid to the niece of the king.
Marie-Josephe is more flexible, which is surprising considering her history. The five years she spent as a teacher in the convent at Saint-Cyr were a nightmare. The nuns forbade her to make music (whipping her when she was caught humming a tune), or read (knowledge corrupts), or to study mathematics (accusing her of writing evil spells in code), and tried in every way to convince her that she was sinful the way all women are sinful, and that she should be silent and submissive for the rest of her life. None of it worked, fortunately, and she came out of the convent even more eager to study, to write music, and to make charcoal sketches for her brother during the male sea-creature’s dissection. About the only good thing the convent was able to accomplish, and this was completely by accident, was protect her from getting caught up in most of the intrigues and affairs that went on in Louis’s court. For a while she isn’t really even aware of what some of the slimier courtiers are hinting at. Even when she’s had some things explained to her, she still has enough pride in herself to not be pulled into an easy affair despite the fact that no one at court seems to be able to sleep in their own beds. (Not kidding here; by the end of the book the revelations about who was or wasn’t someone else’s child started to feel a little unnecessary to the plot.)
Unfortunately Marie-Josephe still doesn’t have an easy time of it There are far too many people in the court of Louis XIV who know – no matter what Marie-Josephe may believe – what is right and good: the Church never hurts anyone who doesn’t deserve to be hurt, sea-creatures are animals without souls, women are too emotional and shouldn’t be allowed to actually do anything. And women without a title and a prosperous family certainly ought to be grateful for the attention if, say, two highly-placed gentlemen who she no longer trusts or even likes decides they want to take a token of her “affection” from her clothes. This particular incident happens in the middle of a “hunting” trip (translation: the entire menagerie of exotic animals is released into a field while the king and the whole court shoots them), with animals dropping under a hail of gunfire, and Marie-Josephe on horseback trying to fend off a courtier and a duke who think snatching hairpins and tearing ribbons and lace off of a woman is funny, and having her be terrified and fighting the entire time is downright hilarious. McIntyre puts together an unbelievably unsettling scene for this, and it goes a long way to illustrate what Marie-Josephe is up against when she realizes that she can’t allow the captive mermaid to be butchered like a mindless animal.
The story of the sea-creature weaves through the book the way the creature’s music weaves through the Fountain of Apollo where she’s held captive. Marie-Joseph is the one to discover that she speaks with music, but of course she’s the only one who understands what the sea creature is saying, so no one believes her. Well, one person starts to believe her. The story of Marie-Josephe and her growing friendship with the sea creature runs parallel with a very improbably romance with the least likely member of Louis’s court. Does that make the romance predictable? Maybe a little, but it’s still very believable.
Do yourself a favor before reading this one: memorize the list of names and their descriptions at the beginning of the book. Everyone has a given name, a title (sometimes two titles), occasionally a nickname, and McIntyre uses all of them interchangeably, so it can be a real bear to figure out in the first few chapters who’s being referred to. Even better, make sure to do an image search of the Court of the Sun King, and the Palace of Versailles to get an idea of the kind of luxury that’s present in just about every chapter. I’m really looking forward to seeing what kind of imagery we’ll get to see when the movie comes out, which I think was scheduled for this April. (Quickly checks for news about the film.) Annnd Paramount announced FOUR DAYS AGO that the release has been cancelled, with no word on a new release date, if any. Well darn. The book’s still an excellent alternate-history fantasy, probably one the best books I’ve read in a while. And now you have even more time to read it before you see the movie. If you can see it. At all. Anyone who has news about whatheheck happened, please post a comment. ‘Cause gee darn.
10-Mar-2017: Update! The movie is tentatively scheduled to be released this year! It’s been renamed The King’s Daughter (which Marie-Joseph definitely is not in the book), Yves De La Croix is now a good nine inches taller than her, and the whole idea of Marie-Joseph being an aspiring scientist and mathematician has been chucked in favor of her being an unknown harp-player who catches the king’s eye. Damn it, Hollywood, you had ONE job…