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A review by branomir
Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey
3.0
As many of my friends can attest, this was a frustrating book for me, or one with frustrating characters in it at least. Often was the time when I latched on to an unsuspecting person, in desperate need about to vent about the book I was reading. I rated it 4 stars, though this is a definite 3.5 stars one as I’m constantly going back and forth, wondering if the great plot and prose weigh up against the many, many issues it has.
This is a very long novel, so I’m going to review it in parts, I will spoiler cloak the most important bits but be warned, there will be some minor spoilers about the structure and direction of the novel that simply cannot be avoided when talking about it.
That is also my first issue with it. It is way too long. The story starts with Phèdre’s childhood and it didn’t need to. A lot of this could have been told instead of shown. We’ve no idea who she is or what we’re working towards so there isn’t much to make us care. The problem is that for the first 200 pages, hardly anything happens. I was not surprised a lot people quit at this stage, it took some persevering on my parts as well. After that Joscelin enters the story and he livens things up a bit by his stark contrast to Phèdre, even though he has plenty faults of his own . Even then it took another 100 or so pages for the story to finally kick into gear properly. But we’ll get to that in a moment, let’s talk about the opening phase first.
Now, as I’m sure pretty much everybody knows, this book contains lots of sex, most of it of the BDSM variety. While not subscribing to it myself, I’ve nothing against it, indeed it can even be hot to see or read if done properly. It was not done properly however, at least there was nothing enjoyable about reading it at all. Let’s start at the beginning with Kushiel, the god/angel/whatever that cursed (I use that word deliberately even though the author and fans of this book would probably disagree) her with feeling pain and pleasure at the same time. At birth. He’s a freaking fancypants mighty god and it never occurred to him: hmmm maybe I should have this awaken at a later age or something. Nope, instead we’re treated to awkward and cringy scenes of disturbing sexual imagery (though not actual sex I submit) of a child, including a near erotic whipping scene. Made my bloody skin crawl. It is also rather inconsistent, normally if you feel both at the same time, the pleasure should increase when the pain does, but for plot convenience, there is a breaking point where it is just pain, apparently.
I’ve nothing against adult people who take a conscious decision to become a sexworker, but this a child, groomed and pushed into this life by her god and parental figures, taken a pledge to enter the service at 13! (She doesn’t actually start the sexwork till she comes of age, but she promises to do it then and starts her training as well) And it is written as if somehow being “her choice”. I would have laughed had it not been so disturbing. Delaunay is supposed to be this lovable father figure, but I simply could not get over the fact that he held a 10 year old girl in indentured servitude for the faults of her parents and had her work off said debt by being a teenage, luxury, BDSM prostitute. Charming. And Phèdre is just over the moon about this all, I wanted her to rebel so badly but she just seems to think it all peachy. Despite being a very accomplished woman with many skills, everything seems to be subservient to her being good in bed and getting her jollies off on pain. At one point a character asks her if she thinks every problem can be solved by ending up in someone’s bed. A just question and one that I could put to the author as well.
The sex itself is just either awkward or boring to read about. There is no passion or love. Just horrible people that pay to do horrible things to her and she seems to love every second of it. This is not a judgement on people that enjoy BDSM, most of the people that contract Phèdre ARE horrible people that look down on her, she silently mocks one of the few that does show respect and care and loves the most cruel and horrible client of them all. ‘Love as thou wilt’ is the slogan of the book and of Terre d’Ange. While a beautiful sentiment in and of itself, in practice within the book it is more ‘lust as thou wilt’. Love hardly ever seems to enter it, or even passion. It’s all about lust and pleasure. Phèdre’s love for a character that had nothing to recommend her save her beauty and prowess as a dominant in bed, makes Phèdre come across as rather shallow. Most of the D’angelines were so in my opinion, in a land where everyone is beautiful and carnal pleasure has such high importance.
Finally, mercifully, the book moved to Skaldia and became a different beast all together. Here we saw a different side of Phèdre, when she finds herself in dire straits and realises there is more to life than fucking and whipping. She shows tremendous strength, courage, resourcefulness and perseverance. She even seems to realise love can be about caring rather than lust. I LOVED this bit of the book, I absolutely rushed through it at three, four times the speed I had the previous chapters and the whole thing culminated in one of the few meaningful moments in the book. (Annoyingly, Carey actually decided to keep this scene succinct in contrast to all the meaningless sex scenes she did write out in full)
Sadly when we return to Terre D’Ange, more of the old faults reappear in the story. Not quite as pronounced, as Phèdre has grown, but still, not as good as things had been. It also added something I hate in my books in general and which this book most definitely did not need: a love triangle. I hated this with a passion, this book had the perfect opportunity to show a deep, meaningful yet platonic relationship between a straight man and woman but no. Everything has to be sexualised and Phèdre seems to be only able to express her affection by sleeping with people. Such a disappointment, all the more because Carey had set herself up with loads of opportunities to write it differently, she really had no need nor reason to go the route she went.
The next bit has them moving to Alba. The Alban storyline is another great one, in spite of more Phèdre’s ‘sex solves everything’ philosophy and her loving absolutely dreadful people for whom she’s no reason to feel love. Still this was another high light of the book, this story always seem to be better when we move away from Terre D’ange and its shallow philosophies. One thing I really didn’t like post Skaldia, was that Phèdre’s and Joscelin’s behaviour really diminished the moment they had had in the end and their seeming cluelessness made no sense either and only seemed to serve as a plot device. But like I said, the Alban story line was fun and entertaining and provided one of the few instances of actual love the story had to offer. Eventually the story moves to a final, spectacular and well written grand finale in the final arch with, what would have been a very satisfying conclusion if not the very end and set up for the sequels deflating it all again.
In conclusion, the story is well and beautifully written, with great world building and (mostly) great plot development and interesting, though frustrating characters. It’s a divisive book, I think, well written but certainly not for everyone. As of writing this, I have not decided if I’m going to read the sequels, as a first glance seems to indicate more choosing lust over love and I am really tired of reading that. These are long novels to read and that’s a big investment for the risk of being set up for disappointment.
Oh, and one more thing. I don’t care how skilled you are, there’s no way you can fend off such a load of swordsmen with just daggers. It may have seemed a good idea in Carey's head, but the fight scenes were often unrealistic because of it.
2022 update: decided to change it to 3 stars as I still don't feel like picking up the sequels 4 years later.
This is a very long novel, so I’m going to review it in parts, I will spoiler cloak the most important bits but be warned, there will be some minor spoilers about the structure and direction of the novel that simply cannot be avoided when talking about it.
That is also my first issue with it. It is way too long. The story starts with Phèdre’s childhood and it didn’t need to. A lot of this could have been told instead of shown. We’ve no idea who she is or what we’re working towards so there isn’t much to make us care. The problem is that for the first 200 pages, hardly anything happens. I was not surprised a lot people quit at this stage, it took some persevering on my parts as well. After that Joscelin enters the story and he livens things up a bit by his stark contrast to Phèdre, even though he has plenty faults of his own . Even then it took another 100 or so pages for the story to finally kick into gear properly. But we’ll get to that in a moment, let’s talk about the opening phase first.
Now, as I’m sure pretty much everybody knows, this book contains lots of sex, most of it of the BDSM variety. While not subscribing to it myself, I’ve nothing against it, indeed it can even be hot to see or read if done properly. It was not done properly however, at least there was nothing enjoyable about reading it at all. Let’s start at the beginning with Kushiel, the god/angel/whatever that cursed (I use that word deliberately even though the author and fans of this book would probably disagree) her with feeling pain and pleasure at the same time. At birth. He’s a freaking fancypants mighty god and it never occurred to him: hmmm maybe I should have this awaken at a later age or something. Nope, instead we’re treated to awkward and cringy scenes of disturbing sexual imagery (though not actual sex I submit) of a child, including a near erotic whipping scene. Made my bloody skin crawl. It is also rather inconsistent, normally if you feel both at the same time, the pleasure should increase when the pain does, but for plot convenience, there is a breaking point where it is just pain, apparently.
I’ve nothing against adult people who take a conscious decision to become a sexworker, but this a child, groomed and pushed into this life by her god and parental figures, taken a pledge to enter the service at 13! (She doesn’t actually start the sexwork till she comes of age, but she promises to do it then and starts her training as well) And it is written as if somehow being “her choice”. I would have laughed had it not been so disturbing. Delaunay is supposed to be this lovable father figure, but I simply could not get over the fact that he held a 10 year old girl in indentured servitude for the faults of her parents and had her work off said debt by being a teenage, luxury, BDSM prostitute. Charming. And Phèdre is just over the moon about this all, I wanted her to rebel so badly but she just seems to think it all peachy. Despite being a very accomplished woman with many skills, everything seems to be subservient to her being good in bed and getting her jollies off on pain. At one point a character asks her if she thinks every problem can be solved by ending up in someone’s bed. A just question and one that I could put to the author as well.
Spoiler
she even convinces a monarch to go to war just so he can sleep with her and not even a bad foolish sort of monarch at that.The sex itself is just either awkward or boring to read about. There is no passion or love. Just horrible people that pay to do horrible things to her and she seems to love every second of it. This is not a judgement on people that enjoy BDSM, most of the people that contract Phèdre ARE horrible people that look down on her, she silently mocks one of the few that does show respect and care and loves the most cruel and horrible client of them all. ‘Love as thou wilt’ is the slogan of the book and of Terre d’Ange. While a beautiful sentiment in and of itself, in practice within the book it is more ‘lust as thou wilt’. Love hardly ever seems to enter it, or even passion. It’s all about lust and pleasure. Phèdre’s love for a character that had nothing to recommend her save her beauty and prowess as a dominant in bed, makes Phèdre come across as rather shallow. Most of the D’angelines were so in my opinion, in a land where everyone is beautiful and carnal pleasure has such high importance.
Finally, mercifully, the book moved to Skaldia and became a different beast all together. Here we saw a different side of Phèdre, when she finds herself in dire straits and realises there is more to life than fucking and whipping. She shows tremendous strength, courage, resourcefulness and perseverance. She even seems to realise love can be about caring rather than lust. I LOVED this bit of the book, I absolutely rushed through it at three, four times the speed I had the previous chapters and the whole thing culminated in one of the few meaningful moments in the book. (Annoyingly, Carey actually decided to keep this scene succinct in contrast to all the meaningless sex scenes she did write out in full)
Sadly when we return to Terre D’Ange, more of the old faults reappear in the story. Not quite as pronounced, as Phèdre has grown, but still, not as good as things had been. It also added something I hate in my books in general and which this book most definitely did not need: a love triangle. I hated this with a passion, this book had the perfect opportunity to show a deep, meaningful yet platonic relationship between a straight man and woman but no. Everything has to be sexualised and Phèdre seems to be only able to express her affection by sleeping with people. Such a disappointment, all the more because Carey had set herself up with loads of opportunities to write it differently, she really had no need nor reason to go the route she went.
The next bit has them moving to Alba. The Alban storyline is another great one, in spite of more Phèdre’s ‘sex solves everything’ philosophy and her loving absolutely dreadful people for whom she’s no reason to feel love. Still this was another high light of the book, this story always seem to be better when we move away from Terre D’ange and its shallow philosophies. One thing I really didn’t like post Skaldia, was that Phèdre’s and Joscelin’s behaviour really diminished the moment they had had in the end and their seeming cluelessness made no sense either and only seemed to serve as a plot device. But like I said, the Alban story line was fun and entertaining and provided one of the few instances of actual love the story had to offer. Eventually the story moves to a final, spectacular and well written grand finale in the final arch with, what would have been a very satisfying conclusion if not the very end and set up for the sequels deflating it all again.
In conclusion, the story is well and beautifully written, with great world building and (mostly) great plot development and interesting, though frustrating characters. It’s a divisive book, I think, well written but certainly not for everyone. As of writing this, I have not decided if I’m going to read the sequels, as a first glance seems to indicate more choosing lust over love and I am really tired of reading that. These are long novels to read and that’s a big investment for the risk of being set up for disappointment.
Oh, and one more thing. I don’t care how skilled you are, there’s no way you can fend off such a load of swordsmen with just daggers. It may have seemed a good idea in Carey's head, but the fight scenes were often unrealistic because of it.
2022 update: decided to change it to 3 stars as I still don't feel like picking up the sequels 4 years later.