Company of Liars

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My last lie had been the most honest, the most honourable of them all, for there is an art greater even than the creation of hope. The greatest art of all is the destruction of truth.” Maitland combines the story-telling traditions of The Canterbury Tales with the supernatural suspense of Kate Mosse's Sepulchre in this atmospheric tale of treachery and magic." - Marie Claire (UK). Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II. I want to leave you with a quote and I think an important antidote to the internalized shame that many of us carry : The plot is compelling and holds you in a spell, the characters are superb, and the pace is perfect. The historic sense of time and daily living conditions are vividly brought to life. The wonderful writing creates such magnificent images of landscape, daily hardships, and a looming atmosphere of foreboding. Karen has this wonderful ability to characterise the landscape and give it its own mesmerising role in the story.

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Sorry for the rant, this is probably not about this book, but about historical fiction in general. We want characters to be like us in some ways and to have similar values, but then the mindset of the period gets a bit confused. Allison Pagone is lying dead in her bathtub presumably by her own hand. She was about to be convicted of the murder of her boyfriend Sam Dillon, bludgeoned to death with a marble-based statuette that, although it had been missing since the murder several months prior, is now prominently displayed in Allison's home. It all looks very cut and dried and possibly very convenient. An FBI special operations division knew exactly what was going to happen. The cast of characters is varied and well-imagined. The narrator, Camelot, is never identified by name, only by his profession. At first I didn't like Camelot: he was surly and world-weary and I wondered how he could act as an appropriate filter for the drama that would inevitably unfold. Camelot grew on me, however; maybe it was his kindness toward strangers, which is the origin of the formation of the eponymous "Company of Liars." Joining Camelot: Rodrigo and Jofre, minstrels; Zophiel, a charlatan conjuror; Adela and Osmond, an expectant couple; Cygnus, a one-armed storyteller; and Pleasance and Narigorm, a nurse/midwife and the book's poster Creepy Child, respectively. All of the book's conflict stems from these characters' interactions, even threats that at first seem external. It has taken me months, years perhaps , to fathom the answer. 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 remember which tale of your own past is true and which is an invention, when you know that "you" are an invention, this is the time to seek out your home. Perhaps only when you have come to understand that can you finally reach home

Liars and Thieves (A Company of Liars short story)

Someone decided to market this book as a "reinterpretation of Canterbury Tales", but as others have remarked, I don't see the similarity beyond the basic concept (pilgrims in 14th century England). I'm willing to ignore this ... betrayal, because the book is actually quite good. Just not what comes to mind when I think "Canterbury Tales." In the Company of Liars is a truly original thriller, strikingly fresh and unpredictable. Told in chronological reverse, from its enigmatic end to its brilliant beginning, the novel is centered on a woman who is on trial for murder—Allison Pagone, a mother caught between competing forces, each represented by someone who may not care if the pressure kills her in the end. A prosecutor wants Allison convicted and put on death row. An FBI agent believes she can squeeze her into ratting on her family. A daughter and an ex-husband need to save their own skins. And circling them all: a group who would prefer to eliminate her quietly and anonymously, but who also are not what they seem.

Company of Liars by Karen Maitland | Goodreads

This is a wonderful debut novel that I have been wanting to read for a few years and finally gotten to. I was immersed from beginning to end and was such an interesting combination of genres ! I almost subtracted another star for the ideology that Maitland sneaks within some of her chapter headings and paragraph length quotes. Oh, they are definitely quotable. But I will put none of them here. Because some of them are more than incorrect to my life's opinion, and they simply don't come from that plague century either.

Company of Liars

Unfortunately, “Company of Liars” becomes tedious as the story progresses with the plot being repetitive. This is the premise of the tale and therefore must be accepted but readers searching for a more detailed and multidimensional narrative may find themselves to be disappointed. We were just preparing to settle down for another cold night when we heard the wolf again. A wolf’s howl, however often you hear it, still sends shivers down your spine.” A major issue with “Company of Liars” is the unnatural ease with which the characters accept each other and their mysteries. Yes, there are arguments and disagreements but overall, the loyalties of the strangers to each other are a bit difficult to digest. On the other hand, this adds to the foggy, mysterious allure of “Company of Liars”. Una Inglaterra arrasada por la peste. Unos variopintos personajes que se unen, más por necesidad que por ganas, en un recorrido hacia el norte donde puedan dejar atrás la epidemia. Estos personajes, y el recorrido que realizan, son lo mejor de esta atractiva novela de Karen Maitland, que, aunque publicada en 2008, no hubiese conocido de no ser por alguna reseña en este medio. It is I suppose comforting for some to believe that the social issues of today’s Britain are perennial, that there is a national character, perhaps, which continuously muddles through the same problems over and over. This is one explanation for Karen Maitland’s imagined world of England in the Middle Ages. The way she portrays the state of the nation - from immigration to the condition of the roads; from sexual harassment to fake news - suggests that the problems we have to deal with have a constancy that define the country.

Company of Liars - Wikiwand

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.

Entertaining read! The ending unexpected, at least for me.... Will definitely try more of this author. Karen Maitland, who also writes as KJ Maitland, lives in the beautiful county of Devon and has a doctorate in psycholinguists. I'm not saying all Medieval people should be depicted as absolute brutes, but in this book there is one particular character (out of 9) who is openly sexist, homophobic and antisemitic, and he is the one depicted as a terribly bad person in general, while most of the others seem pretty open-minded even by today's standards. Sure, we can imagine that there's a very specific set of characters, not representative of the whole population, but then, I don't know, maybe they could meet some of the population? I mean, the majority of my parents' generation are (sadly) pretty sexist and homophobic, but they're not all mustache-twirling, throat-slashing movie villains! For God's sake, my own grandmother thinks that red-haired children are born evil and she is literate and watches TV!

Company of Liars by Karen Maitland Book Review: Company of Liars by Karen Maitland

The narrator of this text (Camelot) is a wonderful voice to carry us through the proceedings and creates a sympathetic prism from which to view the other characters, all of whom have unlikable traits, but most of whom I was able to feel some empathy with.

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The author knows Middle Ages well, there are references to real places and customs, also, her settings are usually shabby and gritty, which adds to the atmosphere. Although minor, there are some errors with the text such as a character leaving the scene and then is said to have spoken but it was clearly meant to be another character. I am not sure if that made sense, but the point is that there are some errors which the editor appears to have missed. It takes a while to get going as the nine come into the story and the initial interactions and suspicions play out. If there is one thing I didn’t like about the book, it was the concept of someone “whipping up a mist”. It felt a bit corny but thankfully in one section of the book. However, this is overshadowed by a story that is atmospheric, complex, and beautifully written. Simply brilliant.