Book Review: West Oversea

West Oversea, by Lars Walker (Noble Novels 2009) has more than its share of magic, and at first, I thought Walker was cheating. Would the Eye of Odin that Father Aillil is asked to dispose of in approximately the Year of Our Lord 1002 become as troublesome a bauble as the Ring of Power that nearly up-ended J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth? Would the blood and iron proper to a Viking saga take a back seat to psychological adventures of the kind written by Ursula K. Le Guin? Might a promising tale shipwreck on the iceberg of "magical realism" where Gabriel Garcia Marquez reclines with the tote bag he got from a pledge drive on National Public Radio?

I need not have worried. Without quite rising to "Gates of Fire" levels, Walker delivers the goods. Scandinavian mythology plays an important role in this novel, but like the late Tony Hillerman did for Navajo detectives in the American Southwest, Walker uses otherworldly elements (such as a shape-shifting villain) to shed light on the strengths and weaknesses of his characters, most prominently Father Aillil, the Irish priest who narrates the story, and his friend Erling Skjalgsson, chief man of west Norway.

This chronicle of a voyage that ranges from Norway to Iceland, Greenland, and the hitherto-uncharted lands that would later become parts of Canada is set in motion by two things: Erling's unusual willingness to peacefully surrender most of his landholdings to a rival with a stronger (by dint of battle and inheritance) claim, and Fr. Aillil's ardent wish to find and free his enslaved sister Maeve (she's a thrall, actually, but "enthralled" does not have the meaning it once did).

Walker adeptly uses several characters to describe the tug-of-war between pagan and Christian (Catholic) impulses throughout Northern Europe in that era.

Although West Oversea is part of a series of novels that Walker calls "romances" in the older sense of the term, it can also be enjoyed by people whose only previous exposure to Vikings in fiction comes from the more-determinedly-secular stories of Bernard Cornwell. Some previous exposure to Vikings in literature provides a useful yardstick for measuring how well Walker succeeds as a historical novelist, which in my opinion is well enough to belong to the "A" team, a little shy of Jeff Schaara, but shoulder-to-shoulder with Ellis Peters and her Brother Cadfael boooks.

I chuckled at the artistry of one scene where Father Aillil's German bishop mocks the Irish priest's uncertain grasp of ecclesiastical protocol by saying that "It took you Irish long enough to learn the proper date for Easter and how to shave a decent tonsure." In a response that only readers are privileged to hear, Fr. Aillil thinks, "I might have replied that the Irish brought the faith to the Germans, but I thought it wiser to hold my tongue."

Per the dictates of medieval hospitality and the rigors of sail-powered travel in the North Atlantic at the turn of the first Christian millenium, Walker's characters spend more of the story ashore than at sea, but he handles geographical and maritime detail as deftly as he handles the finer points of combat in a shield wall. The relationship between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law is a main theme of this novel, and that, too, is handled well, with unforced philosophizing sandwiched between home truths like "A man is known by the greatness of his foes," and "The law is like a sword; it can be well- or ill-balanced."

My criticisms of the book are minor. It does not rise to epic levels, but only because Walker did not aim that high. Beyond that, the women in this story have little to do. One might also argue that there are more characters throughout the narrative than necessary, although Walker has wit enough to make the tangle of relationships a running joke for his Irish priest, who lets his own exasperation with Icelandic focus on geneology show several times. Moreover, Walker and his editors do identify key character names and relationships in a helpful list that appears where a preface would be.

Quibbles aside, if the measure of an author is the literary company he keeps, I can't remember another book review of mine that name-checked such an all-star writing team. It's not often that any one author is refreshingly original enough to evoke comparisons to Le Guin, Hillerman. Cornwell, Schaara, and Peters, especially because most of them never sat on a bench in a Viking hall telling sea stories. I hope it's plain that Walker ranks with fast company, and West Oversea is more than good enough to make me want to read his other work. Erling is an honest merchant who can also fight, and Father Aillil, though frequently seasick, is excellent company. You'll want to follow them around, and cheer them on.

(N.B: The original version of this post incorrectly referred to William Goldman as a writer of historical fiction, but on reflection, I realize that the novel I had in mind while thinking of him belongs to the fantasy or "alternate history" genre).