Since long years ago / I hid my lord / in the darkness of the earth. SiÞÞan geara iu / goldwine minne / hrusan heolstre biwrah In the Anglo-Saxon poem, The Wanderer, the narrator ruminates on his past happiness in service, feasting with his comrades and enjoying the generosity of his lord, all now dead: For example, in the poem Beowulf, the eponymous hero is referred to as goldwine G_ēata – the gold friend of the Geats and Hrothgar, king of the Danes, is described as goldwine gumena – gold friend of warriors. Isn’t that fascinating? I suppose we might think of a word like goldwine – often translated as the Old English term for Lord – it means ‘gold friend’: a kenning, or compound expression, that was deployed specifically to reference a generous leader. Rowell’s magic-system: it’s unlike any other I’ve encountered in fantasy literature. And sometimes an old phrase stops working when the rest of the world is sick of saying it.” “Sometimes to reveal something hidden, you have to use the language of the time it was stashed away. “Magic words are tricky,” Snow informs us, A philologist’s wet-dream, it’s developed around the principles of language change and evolution: I’ll be frank: Rowell’s magic-system gies me the thirst. Firstly, Rowell’s magic-system: it’s unlike any other I’ve encountered in fantasy literature (although I’m sure comparable systems exist and no doubt you’ll haughtily helpfully remind me of that fact via email or twitter).

Instead, I’d like to draw your attention to two points that most captured my attention. Of course, I could fanboy with abandon for the rest of this review but, alas, time isn’t as charitable as it used to be: places to avoid, colleagues to undermine, you understand. Of course, the premier pleasure of this novel is the burgeoning romance between the eponymous character and his arch-nemesis, Tyrannus ‘Baz’ Basilton Grimm-Pitch: paced with exquisite insufficiency, each encounter (or collision) between them nuanced and wonderfully imprecise, it is, without doubt, one of the most enjoyable and – crucially – satisfying same-sex relationships in literature I’ve encountered. Fantastically well-written and edited, Rowell’s prose is hypnotising – such that it renders a dissolution of borders between the reader and the world she offers, an amorphous state interrupted only by the end of a chapter or being twatted by one’s hungry cat.

The highest compliment I can pay Carry On, my George Cross or Légion d'honneur, is that my childhood (a somewhat more distant realm than I’m currently prepared to recognise) would have been immeasurably improved by its presence. Heavy spoiler alert! If you haven’t read Carry On, desperately want to, and read this review first, you really only have yourself to blame for what happens next.

Carry on rainbow rowell a03