A Distant Magic, by Mary Jo Putney (review)

I didn’t notice when I bought the book that A Distant Magic was the third title of a trilogy. The Guardians series normally reads as follows:

1) A Kiss of Fate
2) Stolen Magic
3) A Distant Magic

Fortunately, trilogies and other such series in modern romance don’t imply books with “un-ends” like in fantasy (see A Song of Ice and Fire) or cliffhanger endings like in Christopher Pike’s Final Friends (review of the first part coming this week). Unlike many other types of stories, in which the suspense lies in who’s going to end up with who, modern romance keeps you curious about how the two main characters will manage to end up together. For the reader to not be able to guess outright who the heroine and hero are is usually considered a flaw in characterization and narration. Which isn’t to say that it’s completely impossible to stray from the norm, if you’re going to do it with purpose and talent.

A Distant Magic, making good on its last-book-of-a-series status, is probably the least “Guardian” plot of the trilogy. I’ve noticed that after spending several books with one sort of characters or context, authors often like to somewhat depart from it; that and tying loose ends have them look for more drastic, exotic and unprecedented solutions. This is exactly what’s going on here, to my nearly greatest delight. I would have loved indeed to brandish A Distant Magic as my new all-time favourite romance novel. Alas, this is a powerful story which gets carried away and eventually trapped within its own ambitions. Definitely good, definitely interesting, but not the best literature yet.

The problem with this book is that, in its excitement at being both the trilogy’s climax and oddball, it aims at too many things. Just take a look at the tags: it’s a historical romance novel, using time travel as an element of its fantasy aspect, carrying a strong political message. If everything had worked perfectly till the end, this work would have been simply brilliant, incredible… As it is, it at least remains so for the whole first part. I was especially drawn by the slightly enigmatic, touching interludes which Ms. Putney wove into the main story of Scottish patriot Jean Macrae and Nikolai Gregorio, a mulatto pirate avenger (did I mention that I like dark men?). We’re in the eighteenth century, and European powers thrive on the profits of slavery…

“Would you like to learn how to read, Addie? It would be interesting to see if you can do it.”
Adia’s rush of excitement blocked her irritation at her mistress’s assumption that a slave might not be capable of learning. She wanted desperately to read and write, for education was a path to power.

- A Distant Magic, Mary Jo Putney (2007)

But the author goes way beyond a mere description of the well-known evils of slavery. Boldly yet wisely, she steps into the political with both feet. I felt like screaming in wonder and was resolved, by then, that everybody I knew should absolutely read this book, starting with my fantasy-loving (dark) boyfriend (Stolen Magic is on the Fantasy/Sci-Fi shelf at my national library).

“That’s absurd! Slavery is too huge, too integral a part of the world, for one man to bring it down. The West Indies sugar trade alone is a vital part of the world’s commerce, and it uses countless slaves. [...] slavery has been with us for as long as history has been recorded, and surely before that. A thousand men couldn’t make a difference. Is it worthwhile to devote your life to such an impossible goal? [...] even if you spend a long life freeing galley slaves, you will affect only a relative handful of people. You will not make any real difference.”
“You saw the men freed today. Did I make a difference to them?”
[...] “You’re right. Though you can’t eliminate slavery as an institution, what you do has meaning.”
“Don’t be too sure that there is no way to eliminate slavery. It wouldn’t be quick, and certainly not easy, but if there is a way, I shall find it,” [...]

- A Distant Magic, Mary Jo Putney (Ballantine, 2007)

Not that people around me nowadays need convincing about slavery, as you can guess. Neither do I think Putney wrote it in this intention. On the other hand, writing about slavery, about how hardly anybody back then thought it realistic or possible to ever abolish it, and about how it was abolished all the same, is a magnificent lesson for all the struggles for human rights and human dignity we are presently fighting. All “social” movements work according to the same logic. No democratic progress was ever conceded by elected politicians before it had become a force to reckon with within the population, within the masses.

American Civil Rights Movement (1950's-60's)

“You’ve never really thought much about slavery, have you?”
“No, I haven’t,” she admitted. “I’ve seen a few black slaves in London, but in the distance, dressed in their master’s livery. Not so very different from an English footman except for the color of their skin.” She began to eat again.
“You never thought about how the sugar in your tea comes at the price of women working in the sugar fields until they drop, or men scalded to death in the refining sheds.”

- A Distant Magic, Mary Jo Putney (Ballantine, 2007)

So stop telling us that as members of the “civil society”, we have no power; that only professional politicians can change anything. Stop telling us that something which has been there forever cannot cease or change, because it is part of human nature. Stop telling us that we threaten the country’s economy! There are always at least two versions of the same history. How Britain and France became such great world powers during the eighteenth century is one side, and colonialism is the other side of the same coin. How much is all this wealth, and this glorious economic growth really worth? In so many ways, the neoliberal forces of today are just like the pro-slavery lobby of yesterday.

Every time you do nothing, every time you think in terms of necessity, most especially economic necessity, you let civilisation move one step backwards; you thumb your nose at all the people who fought and worked and gave their lives for freedom and equality. It is not a natural order of things we’re living at the moment; it’s the result of some people’s “fantasies”, visionary thinking and sacrifices we now benefit from. The least we can do is continue their efforts and give our children the same gift our ancestors left us with. A better world.

This may sound corny, but Mary Jo Putney’s book is not corny at all. The very strength and intelligence of it consists in taking the reader well past good intentions and concepts such as charity and common empathy. This author understands exactly the significance of political―as opposed to individual―action (see quote #2) and a good portion of the book is actually dedicated to explaining it. Sadly, that’s when the novel loses its literary vigour and flow. Never quite becoming a full-blown History of the Abolitionist Movement, but maybe hovering a little too close to it, it also gets caught into magical technicalities which I felt were superfluous. To put it simply, the last part seems like a jumble of information forced into a too-tight 400-page format.

Do you think that modern romance is the place for an author to get passionately political? Know of any who did it successfully?* Do you believe in apolitical writing, or apolitical being for that matter?

* Mary Jo Putney herself tackled social issues in other books such as the amazing Thunder and Roses, or the blander contemporary novel Twist of Fate.