Some confusion seems to exist as to the true provenance of "Amadis Of Gaul," and even as to its true author. Did Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo write it, or Vasco De Lobeira? Was its original language Spanish or Portuguese? No idea, but the confusion (such as it is) seems rather appropriate – our main character's provenance is similarly uncertain.
In brief, Perion the king of Gaul visits Great Britain at one point, gets a look at Elisena, the daughter of that country's monarch, and the two of them fall instantly in forbidden love. There's nothing very unusual about that in knightly literature, of course, nor even the birth of a secret son to them. What strikes me as out of the ordinary is that, once the child is born on the British coast, Elisena instructs one of her servants to build a little watertight basket, put the baby in it, and set it afloat. If this reminds you of the Moses story from the Bible, I can only assume that's deliberate – the parallel never gets another mention.
Anyway, the basket makes its way all the way to the Scottish coast, where another knight picks it up and raises the child within along with his own recently-born son. So here's my question: For the first several chapters at least, the child is born in Britain and raised in Scotland, doesn't even see his biological father's country until he's well into adulthood, and very rarely afterwards. Considering all of that, and the novel's evident origin on the Iberian Peninsula, why is it and the hero called Amadis Of Gaul?
Oh well – you will say that this is a story from the Age Of Chivalry and need not make sense, and you'll be right. For that matter, Amadis himself and all the other knightly travelers he associates with do a great many things that don't make a lot of sense either – they're knights, after all. They're after adventures, honor, and reputation, not logic. Is it logical, to take just one example, to not only find an enormous demonic creature with scales, leather wings, and poisonous breath in a land that's not even yours, but decide to fight it as well, when everyone else who's ever even seen the thing died within five minutes or less? I won't even bother to answer that one.
Which brings us to the nature of the story once Amadis reaches adulthood. It would be all too easy for the author, whoever he was, to simply tell us tales of the knight's various disconnected adventures as he travels around looking for honors and combats, and there are indeed plenty of such yarns, What makes this a unified novel is that it follows an overarching plot of sorts. Amadis periodically encounters the challenges presented by one Arcalaus The Enchanter. This guy, despite his name, doesn't exhibit any magical powers, nor does he ever explain why he gives Amadis so much grief. One who does show magical powers, or at any rate some profound knowledge of the future, is Urganda The Unknown, who pops up without warning from time to time to encourage and protect Amadis.
More significant, of course, is Amadis' love interest – this would scarcely be a genuine knightly romance without one. Her name is Oriana, the daughter of King Lisuarte of Great Britain, a tremendous patron of knights errant (the kind that travel around doing deeds of derring do). Like his father, Amadis finds himself under the necessity of keeping his feelings secret – not from Oriana, who returns them with great passion (and in the great tradition of such things, gives birth to his son), but from everyone else. Complicating this relationship is the fact that although Lisuarte brings Amadis to his court and favors him, he eventually allows the jealous lies of a couple of his other knights to convince him that Amadis is after his crown. On top of that he allows the Emperor of Rome to convince him to send Oriana to Rome as his Empress. Hijincks, as always, ensue.
Stylistically, this work doesn't surprise much. Every once in a while we hear some knight described as "the greatest in the world," or some lady as "the most beautiful in the world." Not only is this terribly sexist by modern standards, it also makes you wonder just how many bests the world can contain. And of course this is not to mention the fact that there's next to nothing here about anyone below the nobility – someone other than the occasional monk has got to grow the food, keep the inns, clean the bathrooms, and so on, but you never meet any of those. All of a piece with the fantastical nature of the chivalric events, I guess.
Other such repetitions include the surprising constancy of lances that break during jousts, and knights that come together with such force that the ground shakes. Giants pop up so frequently that you'd wonder where all their offspring are in the present day, except of course that they all get killed by one or another of the knights crawling all over everything. Amadis eventually acquires an island of his own to rule by virtue of the fact that, by the purity of his love for Oriana, he is able to break the spell on that island and walk through the Arch Of True Lovers. So, not any stylistic surprises as compared to knightly romances. It's just a lot of fun.
Benshlomo says, Once you get used to the fact that you're reading a fantasy, it all makes sense.
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