PDF / EPUB File Name: Company_of_Liars_-_Karen_Maitland.pdf, Company_of_Liars_-_Karen_Maitland.epub Im Namen der Lüge. Thriller. Aus dem Amerikanischen von Alexander Wagner. Originaltitel: In the Company of Liars. To me it didn't have much 'historical' wibe, I saw this narrative as some kind of RPG in a Medieval setting with a hint of "mafia" (you know, the party game). When you look at it this way, it is actually very compelling and well written and the ending might not bother you that much.

Company of Liars Quotes by Karen Maitland - Goodreads Company of Liars Quotes by Karen Maitland - Goodreads

Mezcla de novela histórica y fantástica, con sus apuntes culturales de la Inglaterra de la época. En ese aspecto, el del viaje, y el de los personajes, me ha parecido una novela extraordinaria. Pero quizás no tanto la resolución de algunas situaciones, que se me quedan por debajo de lo que yo esperaba. La ambientación también me parece soberbia. Y, por supuesto, la superstición y las creencias en mitos y supercherías están bien descritas a cada vuelta de página. In this extraordinary novel, Karen Maitland delivers a dazzling reinterpretation of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales—an ingenious alchemy of history, mystery, and powerful human drama. I wasn’t aware of the Canterbury Tales marketing comparison when I read this one, but yeah that would be pretty wrong. It’s not a re-interpretation as far as I can see (and I’ve read the tales, dull, dull, dull as I found them – it was for uni) but a sort tenuously of related story (it’s about a group of people travelling and about pilgrimage sort of I suppose).

Company of Liars

There is also a state of the nation feel about it (possibly then and now) as Maitland brings it the plight of the Jews in fourteenth century England, being queer, xenophobia (dislike of foreigners is nothing new), religious superstition, fear of those who do not conform, incest and a well signalled twist at the end. Some of the stories are not given much depth and there is a bit of unreliable narration. The whole thing falls apart a bit at the end and I felt Maitland was unsure how to end it.

Karen Maitland » Company of Liars

The plague has come to England and nine people have joined together in an attempt to outrun it and find safety. A very disparate group it is: a scarred trader of holy relics, a magician, a musician and his teacher, a storyteller with a deformity, a pregnant couple, a healer and a white-haired girl who reads runes. As they travel, they share stories, face danger and die--one-by-one. Can you begin a novel with your climax and still have a surprising twist at the end/beginning? Ellis can, and does, in this well-crafted thriller.” Death by fire. That was something they all knew about, even those who hadn't seen it, hand't smelt the stench that hangs round a town for days, hadn't heard the screams that echo night after night through your dreams; even those who had not witnessed a burning had heard tell of it and shuddered.”

I agree. I don't think I would have liked the book as much if it had had a happy ending which is what it looked like it was going to do. Especially since the real Canterbury Tales does include interesting female characters! Wife of Bath, anyone! That gives Ellis a chance to show off some humor. Allison wonders what reporters would say if they followed her into the grocery store: “Yes, Bob, we can now confirm that Allison Pagone has decided to go with the sugarless gum Trident as her breath freshener, baffling experts who had predicted cinnamon Altoids.” And the newspaper headline, “Murder suspect: ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter!’ ” You’ve heard tales of beauty and the beast. How a fair maid falls in love with a monster and sees the beauty of his soul beneath the hideous visage. But you’ve never heard the tale of the handsome man falling for the monstrous woman and finding joy in her love, because it doesn’t happen, not even in a story-teller’s tale.

COMPANY OF LIARS by Karen Maitland ★★★★ | Kara.Reviews COMPANY OF LIARS by Karen Maitland ★★★★ | Kara.Reviews

Although the conclusion may be unsavory; Maitland’s after word describing the historical merits and liberties of her novel plus a glossary of terms is well-received and notable.

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Home is the place you return to when you have finally lost your soul. Home is the place where life is born, not the place of your birth, but the place where you seek rebirth. When you no longer have to remember which tale of your own past is true and which is an invention, when you know that you are an invention, then is the time to seek out your home. Perhaps only when you have come to understand that can you finally reach home.” But there is a clear difference between historical fiction and sci-fi. We already have (and are) the solutions to the problems of the past. So the genre of historical fiction can only work if it can suggest how we arrived where we are. If there’s not much sociological variation from where we started, the setting of the story is quaint but largely irrelevant, and, from a literary perspective, fraudulent, an unintentional parody. Why not set the tale in Ancient Rome? Or Victorian England? Or contemporary New York City? The allusions to things like xenophobia, commercial fraud, knife crime, child and substance abuse, and the English Summer weather could be made where and whenever. ’Plus ça change, plus c’est la meme chose’ would seem sufficient to get the point across.