Damiano

3.5 stars http://www.fantasyliterature.com/reviews/damiano/

Young Damiano Delstrego is now the head of his house after his father, a witch, was killed when a spell went horribly wrong. Damiano is also a musician, an alchemist, and a witch, but he???s a good Christian, too, and he tries to use his powers only for good. That???s why he refused to help the army who came to take over his town, though they offered him riches. Instead, Damiano decides to follow the townsfolk who???ve fled for the hills. He wants to warn them that the army plans to find and plunder them. He???s particularly worried about Carla, the girl he has a crush on. He also wants to seek the aid of a powerful sorceress.

So, with an Italian medieval village behind him and the towering Alps ahead, Damiano sets off in the snow with his lute and his beloved talking dog, Macchiata. Along the way, Damiano has a few mishaps, witnesses brutal deeds done by Roman soldiers, gets some inspiration from the archangel Rafael, finds out some uncomfortable facts about his father, and is offered a deal by the devil. He also learns that there???s more to life than his dog, his lute, and Carla.

Damiano is the first volume of R.A. MacAvoy???s DAMIANO trilogy, a historical fantasy set in Renaissance Italy. MacAvoy???s prose is lovely and she makes the most of her setting, with allusions to real historical people, events, religious beliefs, literature, and art. The story takes place in winter and all the brutal events that Damiano witnesses seem especially vile when set against the whiteness of the winter alpine landscape.

I didn???t love the plot as much as I loved the writing and the setting, but this is more of a personal preference rather than any problem with the plot itself. Though it depicts some ugly events, Damiano, his talking dog, and the beautiful angel were a little too sweetly innocent for me. The main focus is Damiano???s struggle with his desire to use his powers for good and his discovery that sometimes it???s hard to know what???s right and wrong. He???s also worried about his soul because Satan has informed him that, since he???s a witch, he???s automatically damned. I didn???t find this to be riveting subject matter, but I thought the excellent writing made up for it.

Though the DAMIANO books were marketed to adults, I think this coming of age story will be appealing to teenagers, and it???s certainly written more beautifully than most YA fantasy is. It???s so lovely, in fact, that I plan to try the second book, Damiano???s Lute. This story has plenty of potential. I???m listening to Audible Frontiers??? version and am very pleased with Nicholas Tecosky???s narration.

This is a really strange book, and I'm not sure what I think of it yet. I rate it 5/5 for its themes and characters, but 3/5 for my personal enjoyment.

Content warning: the dog dies, on-page, and it's terrible. She comes back in the end as a ghost.

It was first published in the early 80s but doesn't feel dated at all. I wasn't surprised because I loved another book by this author, Tea with the Black Dragon.

The first half of the book is pretty idyllic, although there are hints that things will turn darker. Damiano, along with his talking dog, goes on a quest through the countryside of Northern Italy in order to stop bandits from occupying his city. The dog is a wonderful character; she seems like a dog, even though she can speak, and not like a furry human.

I think the blurb mentions faith-based magic and that isn't true. The magic in the book is standard elemental stuff, for the most part, although a lot of people believe it's evil, and Damiano struggles with that question himself. Where it comes from is unclear, which is a plot point. But Damiano's Christianity is a very important part of the book. It's all real, too; the angel Raphael is his best friend, and eventually, he meets with Satan.

After the idyllic opening, Damiano becomes obsessed with a female witch, and the book takes a very dark turn. Then, Damiano is saved from his own opinion of himself as damned. The plot makes sense, and I was happy with the resolution. It was a really big tonal shift, though, and I feel unsettled.

This is the start of a trilogy and I'm curious to continue it at some point. I didn't love this book, but I'm glad I read it. I think it's one I might appreciate more with a reread in the future.

3.5 stars, Metaphorosis Reviews

Summary
Damiano emerging from a long session of potion-making, finds his Piedmontese town deserted and occupied by an invading army, and a general looking to use Damiano's witchcraft for war. Refusing, he and his dog seek out the town's fleeing inhabitants, and his true love, Carla. But somehow, despite friendship with an angel, Damiano finds little going the way he anticipated.

Review
I don't recall why I picked this up. It was my first R.A. MacAvoy book, and my experience with her writing has been mixed – she writes well, but not always about things that interest me. This book should fall squarely in the ‘not interested' group (religious, historical), and yet I bought all three books in the series, and broadly enjoyed them. I don't know that I've reread them since, though. So, almost 40 years on (!), I thought I'd try them again.

This book pretty much matches my memory – it's very well written and evocative, but I struggle to be very interested in the historical setting, and the religious element (the frequent appearances of the angel Raphael) didn't move me. To her credit, MacAvoy plays these fairly straight – it's an angel, but without too much fanfare, and Damiano is a devout believer, but in some ways pragmatic and down to earth.

I had much less trouble, and much greater interest, in getting through this book than L.E. Modesitt's Imager's Challenge, a book that on its face is a much better fit for me. Damiano witters on about this and that as much as Modesitt's Rhennthyl, but something comes of it. It's not musing for its own sake, but to decide or accomplish or feel something, and Damiano does all those.

The book's not perfect. The end is rushed, and Damiano's heart is somewhat inconstant in important and disappointing respects, but overall, it's a pleasant, fairly enjoyable read, propelled largely by MacAvoy's engaging prose and style.