Damiano

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.