'Orphans of Eldorado' - Milton Hatoum

Milton Hatoum’s ‘Orphans of Eldorado’, a book I picked up at random this weekend, turned out to fit Carl’s ‘Once Upon a Time Challenge’ perfectly, so I’m counting it as my first read on The Journey. How nice when your reading synchronises with your challenges all by itself.

Hatoum’s novella is part of the Canongate myths series and seems to promise to tell the story of Eldorado. Picture me imagining explorers dashing through cities of gold and humming the ‘Where is Carmen Miranda’ theme tune. What the book actually does is spin a sort of unrelated story around the Brazilian legend of The Enchanted City. The afterword explains that the myth of Eldorado may just be the Spanish conquistadors interpretation of the Enchanted City, as the myth (like many myths, legend and fairytales) has many versions and interpretations.

When I say ‘Orphans of Eldorado’ talks around this myth, I mean it goes way around until the story of the Enchanted City is way in the distance. It’s only very late on in the book that the narrator, Arminto Cordovil, reaches anything that approaches a hidden or, enchanted city. The rest of the book is spent following Arminto’s fall in fortunes, as he pursues a mysterious girl from the local convent and neglects the rubber business his father left him. References to the Enchanted City of myth, submerged beneath the sea appear sporadically through Arminto’s tale, but the real focus is on his desperate search for the mysterious girl Dinaura who may, or may not have run away to the Enchanted City.

The writing is full of description of every day life, but has almost a dead pan, emotionless tone and a rigorous pace that marches you ever onward to the next common place detail:

‘Talita looked after the garden and cleaned the stone centrepiece of the fountain. It was in the shape of my mothers head; Amando had had it made after she died. From a very young age, I used to look at the young face, the grey stone eyes which seemed to question me. I was on my knees in front of the head when I smelled the waft of scent from the Bonplant perfumery. Florita informed me that the bath was full. After the bath she served lunch: beans with pumpkin and maxixe, grilled fish and farofa with turtle eggs.’

I feel rather ungenerous saying this, but ‘Orphans of Eldorado’ is a book which uses description and pace to disguise more basic problems with his novella. It has been a long time since I finished a novel so devoid of any kind of forward movement, either in terms of plot, character, or emotion. Although things happen in this novel, for example Arminto sleeps with Dinaura; later he spends some time negotiating the sale of his house, the focus of this novella is on Arminto’s rather indulgent, leisurely examination of his own life. Arminto is a character of stasis, who does very little as events happen around him. In short: he is rather dull and no wonder Dinaura ran away after one night with him.

If I’m being fair I’d say this aspect of his character is probably deliberate, as the novella is preceded by part of a Cavafy poem called 'The City' that talks about a son’s inability to escape from the city he was born in:

‘You will not find new lands, you will not find other seas.

The city will follow you. You will roam the same streets. And you will grow old in the same neighbourhood.’

Clearly Arminto’s troubled relationship with his father, who dies part way through the novel links back to the poem, although I was never really clear how Arminto’s father’s influence from beyond the grave was really keeping his son from developing. I get the feeling Arminto places the blame for his misfortune on his father’s oppressive personality, when really, as the reader can see, it’s his own lassitude and obsession that destroys his fortune. It’s possible that the poem links to Arminto through its description of the sons inability to escape the inheritance of his birth city and Hatoum is contrasting Arminto to the son of the poem by having him make no real attempt to escape. Frustrated ambition is a typical, tragic story, but Hatoum could be subverting this by creating a character whose lack of ambition and failure to realise that frustrates his life. He could be deliberately creating a character readers are not supposed to support.

I’ve no problem with authors making characters unlikeable, but their unpleasantness must at least be interesting. ‘Orphans of Eldorado’ was not the most exciting reading experience I’ve ever had. When I started reading I just let the words flash past me in a colourful whirl and reading the book that way, for the isolated images and the rhythms of language is wonderful. But half way through I started wondering when my questions about the deliberately obscured elements of the novel would be answered, which is when I started to notice that not much was happening. I was just bumming around a couple of islands with Arminto’s haze of angst, romantic idealism and laziness, waiting for his father’s lawyer to slap him and bring him to his senses (never happened unfortunately). Once I noticed these things and added them to the feeling that Dinaura was operating as the biggest manic pixie girl in the world (she rarely speaks, but she gets her clothes off a few times before she disappears with excessive mystery) I got bored. There are potentially salacious revelations quite late on. I did not care and I am always interested in the sexy gossip bits of a book. I shouldn’t be able to get bored in the middle of a novella that is 130 pages. If that happens, something has gone wrong.

Maybe the best way to approach this book is to just breeze through it without looking for plot, or answers. Maybe if I’d just stayed focused on the attraction of Arminto’s surroundings or the pleasing contrast of the intense imagery and the soothing rhythms of the prose I’d have enjoyed ‘Orphans of Eldorado’ more.

Living for the (extended) weekend

Four day weekends are the best! I’ve:

Had lunch and drinks
Watched the new Dr Who episode
Seen Red Riding Hood and Limitless (more on these later)
Had drinks again
Been to the zoo
Bought and eaten Easter chocolate
Finished 'The Latte Rebellion' and 'A Concise Chinese to English Dictionary for Lovers' (more on those later)
Not done any of those tasks that really needed doing, like clearing out my wardrobes *sigh*

Having four days off has also given me time to finish some reviews, although there are lots more that need doing.

I feel like I’ve lost my reviewing forward motion. The books pile up and the reviews don’t get done. As we go into summer it seems so important to be outside in the sunshine if I’m not at work, or out with friends and family and the evenings are fuller than in the winter, when I’m happily hibernating inside with my laptop (I do not like this thing called rain). I’m trying to work out new reviewing spaces that mean I can do it all. I think for now I’m going to try writing in my lunch hour (as clearly that whole exercise in my lunch hour thing isn’t coming off) and will see how that goes. I’m going to try not to stress about it, but try to and make keeping up with what everyone else is doing more of a priority.

So tell me Britishers, if you had four days off what did you do? Everyone else who just had a regular weekend off, what did you get up to? Are you getting a three day work week this week?

'Journey Into the Past' - Stefan Zweig

The blurb on the Pushkin Press version of ‘Journey into the Past’ by Stefan Zweig makes this novel sound like a simple, yet passionate, romantic affair. Torn apart by WWI two lovers reunite to find themselves much changed. ‘Confronted with an uncertain future, and still haunted by the past, they discover whether their love has survived hardships, betrayals, and the lapse of time.’ the blurb says, which seems to settle what the book is really about. However, in ‘Journey into the Past’ Zweig seems to deliberately impose complications on his narrative that allow the reader to frame his narrative in a completely different way.

There’s no denying that the first part of ‘Journey into the Past’ when Ludwig first meets his romantic interest is passionate. The romantic phrases used to describe Ludwig’s feelings for the unnamed wife of his employer are ‘sweep you off your feet’ style proclamations that clearly show the extent of his love. The pace of the writing ushers the reader along in a sweep of emotion and the words used to describe the thoughts of the main character Louise resonates with real love.

I do think that if this book was rejacketed like a typical romance novel and Zweig was given a pen name literary critics would be aiming more snark at ‘Journey Into the Past’. Take for example a passage like this:

‘And only then was he overwhelmed by the realization that this woman, the woman he loved, must have loved him in return for a long time, for weeks, months, years, keeping tenderly still, glowing with maternal feeling, until a moment such a this struck through her soul. The incredible nature of the realization was intoxicating. To think that he was loved, loved by the women he had though beyond his reach – heaven opened up, endless and flooded with light. This was the radiant noon of his life.’

Now there’s nothing flawed in this passage. It’s a little overly rapturous, a bit overblown in its sentiments, but that’s just my own subjective assessment and as Ana says, ‘one person’s unintentional comedy is another’s beautiful prose’ . The word choice is full of complexity and the rapid pace fits the fervent emotional tone, but this is definitely the kind of language that is typically absolutely slated if it appears in romantic genre fiction.

Last year ‘The Post Office Girl’ by Stefan Zweig made my list of top ten adult books in 2010 and it’s a book I’ve added to my mental list of books I must re-read...sometime. I’m sure if I examined ‘The Post Office Girl’ again I’d find similarly enthusiastic declarations of emotion and the same kind of fast pace brought in to suggest high emotion. The difference between the two books is that ‘The Post Office Girl’ uses these devices to enhance the detailed knowledge the reader gains about Christine’s thoughts and inner life, whereas ‘Journey into the Past’ uses them as a supplement for giving the reader a decent amount of detail about the characters who are supposedly madly in love. There is a difference between stylistic brevity and a hollowness in your text. If you listen you may hear a faint ringing sound from inside the characters and histories of ‘Journey into the Past’.

And if this book is viewed as a straightforward story of romance battling circumstances and losing that hollowness of creation extends throughout the whole novel. The object of Ludwig’s affections is impossibly idealised in his thoughts and never granted a first name. Her own identity is non-existent. It’s hard not to view this kind of incomplete love interest, who is really supposed to be a main character, as an artistic failing if the book is intended to be read as a story that seeks to explain how love really manifests. To view ‘Journey into the Past’ as a novel that mourns romantic feeling that has been unfortunately frustrated seems a little odd, as the relationship presented in its pages (at least in the second half of the book, after Ludwig has been isolated in Mexico by the sudden arrival of war and returns after nine years) is so far away from a realistic, or desirable love affair.

I question whether this book intends to celebrate, mourn, or even speak of real romance. In my opinion ‘Journey into the Past’ is a novel that critiques the idealisation of love and Ludwig’s desperate attempts to gain what was denied him by circumstances. Coming from an author who wrote such a perceptive novel about young woman’s experiences I find Ludwig’s love interests lack of personality highly suspicious, almost as if Zweig intends to make a deliberate point about Ludwig’s character and limited perspective by giving so little substance to the woman he desires.

During the initial affair descriptions make it seem as if both partners are actively participating in the affair, as ‘The two of them spent he ten days until his departure in a constant state of wild, ecstatic frenzy.’ Although this woman will not go all the way and sleep with Ludwig before he goes to Mexico, her refusal seems quite natural for the context. She is a married woman after all and women of her generation might be quite conflicted about sex. But when Ludwig returns to meet his lover after many years she is described as taking an extremely inactive part in rekindling the affair. In fact her reaction to Ludwig’s renewed affections is one of reluctance, or almost of fear. This is especially apparent when she and Ludwig arrive at a hotel where he believes they will finally, happily consummate their relationship:

‘Her lips moved, trying to say something – perhaps the same words she had said ten years ago, that distressed, “Not now! Not here.”
But then she saw his gaze turning to her, anxious, disturbed, nervous. And she bowed her head in silent consent, and followed him, with small and daunted steps, to the entrance.’ .

Her reaction to Ludwig’s proposal that they go away together is not exactly active. What she actually says is ‘I could never have denied you anything’ which to me speaks of an attachment built on an unhealthy, obsessive link, rather than a cherished relationship reawakening. It seems as if by portraying her reluctance alongside Ludwig’s interpretation of her actions Zweig hopes to highlight the flaws in this relationship.

The conclusion I draw is that ‘Journey into the Past’ is a novel about the dangers of nostalgia, as some other reviews point out. I’d put more of an emphasis on the danger part of that phrase, to bring into sharp focus the tone of fear and violence that pervades the couple’s return to their relationship. To be compelled by old ties is unhealthy in this novel. It leaves causes Ludwig to disregard the real woman he has in front of him and to compel her to actions she really doesn’t want to take. The woman appears to fear what is to come, but cannot resist going with Ludwig. It might be a stretch, but the appearance of a nationalist parade just as they enter the town they’ve travelled to could be representative of the dangerous nature of looking to the past, as the desperation to recapture the honour of old Germany after WWI contributes to people’s nationalistic enthusiasm for Hitler’s party. The glimpse of the march certainly adds to the malevolent feel of the couple’s arrival at the hotel:

‘And again and again, from troop to troop, the drumbeat hammered out, its monotony doubly inflaming feelings, keeping the marchers’ backs straight, their eyes hard, forging war and vengeance by their invisible presence here in a peaceful square, under sky with soft clouds sweetly passing over it.’

I read ‘Journey into the Past’ as a novel primarily invested in critiquing flaws in people’s perception of their lives, specifically commenting on the idea of an idealised female love interest, rather than a story of reciprocated love that is thwarted by circumstances. Unfortunately Zweig’s critique still involves presenting a woman through the male, idealising gaze, which makes her a rather dull character to read. I’ll take Zweig’s attempt at critiquing the male gaze, but I’d rather I was given this woman’s own perspective so I could see her actively refute her idealisation. It’s always satisfying to hear a woman speak for herself.

'Ship Breaker' - Paolo Bacigalupi

I feel like I lost myself in ‘The Windup Girl’. Despite not being keen on the way the rape scenes were written, I felt suddenly invested in Paolo Bacigalupi’s writing career after just that one book. ‘Ship Breaker’, is Bacigalupi’s YA debut and as Bacigalupi said in a recent interview, it’s a book that takes less risks than ‘The Windup Girl’. There were times when I thought I sensed the risks he might have taken in ‘Ship Breaker’ and I do sometimes still wistfully wonder where those alternate paths might have led ‘Ship Breaker’, but Bacigalupi’s second novel is still so...oh I don’t know, invigorating that it’s only made me feel more curious about watching his writing career unfold.

Nailer works light crew in the ship-breaking yards (the blurb says these are located on beaches along the Gulf Coast of this sci-fi, dystopian reimagining of American, but my limited geographical knowledge didn’t equip me to find this out from the text). He’s small enough to crawl into the old, fossil fuel run ships that sit and rust near the beach. He and his crew spend all day under the beating sun, or in the depths of the ships, breaking out the copper wire for their hard, exploitative boss Bapi. Nailer dreams of finding his own pot of ship breaker wealth, like the rich gangster boss Lucky Strike who controls the beaches trade, but he knows he’s just as likely to end up like Jackson Boy, a boy who got lost inside a ships tunnels and died.

Members of each light crew are tattooed in the same way and are supposed to be bonded like a family. Nailer often refers to members being ‘crew’ like we might refer to a member of family being blood. Bacigalupi uses that idea of being crew to examine two of my favourite ideas to see in literature – what makes a family and where the limits of loyalty lie.

In the opening chapters of ‘Ship Breaker’ Nailer falls into a hidden deposit of oil in an old ship and one of his crew, Sloth must decide whether to let him drown, so he won’t alert everyone else to the oil that she hopes to smuggle out to sell herself. She decides to leave him to drown, abandoning the code of crew co-operation. When Nailer does escape in a dramatic scene where he dives down and explodes out of a hatch in a shower of oil Sloth is kicked down the beach, with her crew tattoos slashed because a boss won’t keep a crew member who betrays them. As members of her former crew naturally ostracise her for violating crew code, she has little hope for the future. In this one episode Bacigalupi powerfully shows the idea of an artificially created group who members must develop bonds of trust and believe in those bonds in order to survive. However, as much as Nailer and the others may try to convince themselves that crew bonds are strong Sloth’s behaviour shows just how easily these ties can be broken if one person has an advantage over the other.

After almost drowning in his very own Lucky Strike Nailer goes home to his abusive, crystal sliding father, Richard Lopez. One small, nice touch is that Nailer’s father is most commonly referred to by his full name, which distinguishes him from other characters. The contrast between his full name and others partial names gives every mention of him a dread weight that emphasises how others respect and fear him. Nailer is terrified of his father’s unpredictable moods, with good reason as Lopez has a disturbing level of strength and repeatedly shows that he will harm his son for profit or fun, because of the clouding influence of drugs. While Nailer’s relationship with his father is extremely toxic, Nailer is unable to completely break the connection, because he has good memories from before his mother died and his father started crystal sliding. So, when a gigantic World Killer storm hits the beach while his father is passed on in a shack right in the middle of the storm’s path, Nailer convinces a neighbour to save him.

Of course, this is Bacigalupi writing so Lopez doesn’t take his unlikely survival as a sign to give up the crystal and booze. Lopez twists back and forth between knocking Nailer on his head because of his cunning and praising his cleverness for much of the book. Nailer has to try to understand the direction his father’s mood swings will take whenever they meet and while blood and memories keep Nailer from trying to slit his father’s throat their relationship can never be positive. He is always looking elsewhere for some kind of support structure he can trust. That’s why he invests so much value in ideas of crew holding people to him, even as he’s realistically aware that any kind of bond can be easily broken.

Nailer’s strike comes eventually. An expensive hydrogen clipper runs aground in an isolated part of the island during the storm. Only Nailer and a girl named Pima, know about the wrecked ship. She is the one member of his crew that he tentatively trusts because of their bond outside of the crew (Pima’s mother is like surrogate family to Nailer and she’s the one who lifted Richard Lopez out of the shack during the storm). The two agree to find a way to hide any moveable goods, before the crews on the beach find it and they begin investigating it, only to find Nita the young owner of the ship still alive on board. Nailer must try to forge new bonds of trust with her if he has any hope of collecting the reward she says she’s worth, but Nita is full of secrets and will take any chance to escape. When Nailer’s dad’s freaky dangerous crew surprises them and claims Nita along with the ship it becomes even more important that Nailer and Nita begin to work together to evade Nailer’s dad and Nita’s enemies. With a half-man (a genetic breed between man and dog) named Tool (Tool!) whose character creation has plenty to say about the creation of loyalty the two work their way to the drowned cities to find Nita’s allies.

It is hopeless to try to write a review of reasonable length that fits in everything so great about ‘Ship Breaker’. Maybe I’ll have time to come back and talk about other elements later (but you might have noticed I’ve been a bit blog world inconsistent this year). For now let me quickly tell you five things I really love about this book and then link you to some more people with persuasive lists about this book:

1.) Tool – Bacigalupi’s creation of half-men is such a fabulous sci-fi idea and reminds me a bit of a centaurs from fantasy (except obviously with a scientific explanation). It’s Tool that really makes this idea pop into life though, because the reader gets to see the true complexity of the life of a half-man (who is essentially supposed to be genetically encoded with a bond-servant’s type of loyalty). I am so excited that Tool may be back in Bacigalupi’s next book set in the drowned cities.

2.) Themes – Bacigalupi explores some of my favourite themes. I’ve already mentioned his ideas about family and loyalty, but he also explores chance, fate, genetic personality, environmental destruction and extreme organ donation. He’s hitting a lot my idea sweet spots.

3.) It's an adventure – The plot hurtles you along and is really exciting. Peril, escape, jumping trains – cool as.

4.) Diversity and originality in diversity – Characters from India. African American characters. Prominent female characters (although this is undeniably Nailer’s story). Poorer characters. Illiterate characters. All these characters operating outside of easy stereotypes. Girls and women doing physical jobs. Male characters who are not dumbasses towards women.

5.) No one dies today! - It’s undeniable that my heart felt a lot more whole at the end of this novel than it did at the end of ‘The Windup Girl’. I happily cheered Sarwat Chadda on for killing someone in his first book and cutting out just a little piece of my heart. I’m fine with writers who kill their characters with slicing key strokes. It’s just that sometimes it is heartening when people who deserve to escape make it out of danger okay.

More Lists

Maggie Stefvater: 10 Reasons to Read ‘Ship Breaker’

Vulpes Libres: 10 more reasons to read ‘Ship Breaker’

Other Reviews

The Booksmugglers

Stainless Steel Droppings

PS. I want to come back and talk a bit more about something Bacigalupi said in his recent interview if I have time.

Readathon - The Finale

I read for about half an hour and then went to sleep so I could get up early today. Alright 9am probably isn't early for most of you, but my Sundays usually include sleeping until 12. I finished 'Demonglass' just now and all I can say is that Rachel Hawkins is evil, but if there was ever a way to get me to pre-order your next book (and make me want to weep a little) the cliffhanger extraordinary is probably the sharpest tool you have.

I just wanted to reflect a little on my readathon experience before going off to do a last bit of cheering for those still awake.

This year I totally focused on my reading, probably because we had such nice weather here. I didn't want to be on the computer a lot. Peta I didn't burn btw and if you saw me you'd understand why that's so surprising - whitest white girl ever (sorry that you got burnt!). That meant I didn't do a lot of mini-challenges, or online joining in (though I cheered for what turned into a couple of late night hours instead of the one I pledged) and I had some technical browser issues which kept me off the readathon site. At the same time I still felt really connected to the challenge. Knowing other people were taking part in the readathon, all around the world gave me the warm fuzzies even if I didn't do a lot of interacting with people during the 24 hours. My experience was, I imagine, kind of like running a marathon. You're surrounded by tons of runners, but focused on your own race and maybe you smile at people along the way but mostly you run. I kind of liked it this way and I think from now on (assuming I can take part in both) I'll keep the spring readathon really reading focused, with late night hours saved for cheering and during the autumn one maybe I'll sign up to cheer for more hours, as the cold will keep me in the house anyway.

Also I wasn't really focused on making it to the 24 hour mark. That was never a goal this year, I just wanted to have fun. Next spring readathon I think I'd like to pull an Amanda and go away for readathon, to try and make it a bit more of an endurance test. There's nothing worse than coming off readathon after I've stayed up all night and grumping at everyone in my house, so I tend to like to get some decent sleep in if I'm at home.

Overall I just had a lot of fun this year :) I enjoyed seeing what everyone had been up to while I cheered (I really liked the book origami challenge, so fab) and my books were kind of perfect - engaging, reasonably fast reads and really well written. Fantasy kind of rocks for readathon.

Thanks so much to the organisers - they always run such a fun event and put soooo much work in behind the scenes. I kind of think they deserve their own seperate readathon where they can just chill and read while other bring them exotic drinks. Great readathon organisers!

Right that's it for me and April readathon. Off to cheer a little bit and then...well I'll be doing some more reading in the garden. I know, I know, I'm a reading glutton, but it's too nice a day to spend inside doing anything else.

Readathon - Hour 12

I've just finished about an hour and a half of cheering and am just popping in for a quick update (like lightening quick):

So far I've finished 1 book ('The World More Full of Weeping')which was excellent and I got to read it in my garden in the sunshine - super cool. I'm about 100 pages away from the end of 'Demonglass' which is still snarky and fun, but quite a bit darker than the last book. I'm still not sure about the love triangle angle - we shall see. I also spent a bit of time cheerleading. Now I am feeling like it might be a good time for sleep, but we'll see, I might last one more hour.

Tomorrow the plan is to wake up earlyish and finish 'Hex Hall', then start 'Fury of the Phoenix'. I hope y'all are having a great readathon and I'll probably see you in the final hour tomorrow before everyone collapses :)

Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon - Hour One

It's readathon day! I’m schedule posting this so that I don’t make the fatal readathon mistake of getting on the internet right at the beginning. Assuming it is as sunny as it is while I write this I will be spending time reading in our garden. Ahhhhhh, sunshine you have returned.

As you might remember from previous readathons I am a slooow reader, but I get demotivated if I just read one book throughout readathon. My plan to combat this in 2011 was originally to read short, short books only, but then I looked at all the really short books in our house and most of them are very literary, very intense. So I’m going to keep a few stash book in my readathon pile:

'The World More Full of Weeping’ - Robert J Wiersema

‘Next World’ – Mattias Politycki

‘Journey into the Past’ – Stefan Zweig

and then see how I feel about reading them in the moment.

Mostly I just want to have a lot of fun reading this readathon (which means staying away from the computer and not stressing out about trying to reach that 24 hour goal). So it’s very possible that I’ll be reading a less intense book as my main readathon choice, maybe:

‘Demonglass’ – Rachel Hawkins

‘How to Ditch Your Fairy’ – Justine Larbalestier

‘Nemesis’ – Lyndsey Davis

‘Fury of the Phoneix’ – Cindy Pon: Yes, my pre-order arrived after a minor mix up with Amazon and I am so freaking excited. Dear publishing world I would be even more excited if the cover had not been so heinously messed with. Please do not read my purchase as a vindication of your incredibly off putting white washing re-covering tactics.

Finally I have a fantasy short story collection that I’d really like to start:

‘Dreaming Again’ – Edited by Jack Dann

In other reading news I just finished Y S Lee’s second ‘Agency’ novel, ‘The Body at the Tower’ which is full of spies, romance, blackmail, cross dressing and clock towers. It was AMAZING. I meant to save it for readathon, but I cracked and started it last week. I must now wait until August for ‘The Traitor in the Tunnel’, but I am very excited (imagine my excitement like a sparkly marshmallow cloud full of button nosed puppies) to hear that there may potentially be a fourth book in the series. I need more Mary and James than a trilogy can possibly provide.

Happy readathon to everyone taking part, especially those of you personally knew Dewey and remember her on this day and happy general weekendness to everyone else. See you during my cheerleading time in about 11 hours.

'The Eagle'

Oh ‘The Eagle’! How can I be so in love with a film and at the same time have some major quibbles with it at the same time? Today I’m going to focus on the positive squishy feelings. I’ll try to get some critical thinking going about the aspects of this film that bother me next week after readathon.

I grant myself permission to be a little bit sappy now. I saw ‘The Eagle’ a couple weekends ago. It made me go awwwww quite a bit in my head, which is strange because it is film that most would call super manly, as it is full of men and violence. So why the awwws from this lady? Am I intent on feminising glorious manly displays of maleness with awwws? Lemme explain why I felt like this film was handing me a big, warm bowl of soup in the midst of all the violence.

‘The Eagle’ is essentially a quest narrative and a buddy movie. Esca, the Brigante slave (played by the now delicious Jamie Bell) and the decorated, but injured Marcus Flavius Aquila (played by the delectable ‘I never thought I’d fancy him quite so much’ Channing Tatum) must ride across inhospitable, unconquered Northern Britain to retrieve an eagle standard. This standard was ripped from Marcus’ father’s legion (the Ninth) during a bloody, battle many years ago in which Marcus’ father died. Marcus sets out to retrieve the standard because despite his exemplary courage in a major battle, now that he is wounded he has no further opportunity to wipe out what others see as his father’s failure. Marcus saves Esca’s his life in an arena fight. Marcus’ uncle buys Esca as a slave for his nephew and although Marcus tells Esca he can run without anyone stopping him, Esca still feels he owes a bond of debt to the Roman whose values he despises.

A few things about this film touched me deep in my heart.

First, the realisation of Marcus’ struggle to restore his family’s honour is given a lot of space and is the driving force of the whole film. Unlike some films that focus around quests and battles ‘The Eagle’ doesn’t just state the motivation for its main character’s actions at the start of the film, consider the emotional side of the story dealt with and move on to a quest filled with battle sequence after battle sequence. Instead it often reiterates Marcus’ relationship with his father and family honour. It reminds the watcher of the importance of father son relationships in general by having Esca talk about his own dead father. By often returning to the emotional motivations behind the quest ‘The Eagle’ encourages the viewer to remain focused on the characters, allowing them to develop deeper connections with them than perhaps their acting performances would encourage (I loved watching Channing Tatum, but I think his pretty probably keeps me from paying attention to the flaws other reviewers have noticed in his performance – I am kind of shallow like that when it comes to visual media).

I have a soft spot for films that deal with family relationships, whether the family is present on the screen or not, but I do think ‘The Eagle’ handles this theme with tenderness. The flashbacks to Marcus’ blurry memories of his father handing him a wooden eagle are effective in connecting the viewer with a real relationship he had with a now dead character. A scene where Marcus goes to join the Ninth and spends time in front of his family tablet, performing rituals to the gods in the hope that they will help him to restore his family honour is simple but touching. And the first time I really thought hard about the way that Roman’s glorious expansion was based on the destruction of Britain’s tribes came when Esca talked about his royal father being killed by Romans. This theme was really well presented and utilised to make me care about the quest plot that pushes the film forward.

The next element that made me melt just a little was Esca and Marcus’ on screen partnership. Quite a few reviewers are casually calling ‘The Eagle’ a bromance film, which implies that it is a bit silly and overly touchy feely (at least that’s the vibe I get when people use the term). I will toss in my two pennies and say if someone wasn’t deliberately subverting masculine norms of closeness in this film’s production I would be very surprised. Near the beginning of the film Esca has to hold Marcus to a table during surgery and there is a moment of very intense eye connection that would not have looked out of place in a film like Twilight (which is, as I think cleolinda said much more elegantly, all about the eye sex). One line from the film that passes between Tatum and Bell – ‘I thought I had lost you’. There is a scene where Esca puts his hand on Marcus’ face while they are parting, because Marcus is injured and Esca is being made to leave. This scene takes place underneath a waterfall, the fantasy romantic setting of the millenium. The emotion in that gesture goes well beyond traditional representations of male friends who part, knowing that one of them may soon be dead.

All these moments of connection could alternatively be viewed as an attempt to inject some much needed emotional realism into the portrayal of male friendships, that have been formed during extreme circumstances. Come on, you almost die around someone a couple of times, you kill together, your relationship is going to be full of powerful emotion. Why must any sense of deep feeling towards male friends be glossed over by so many films about male comradeship? We need films to present a range of ways it might feel to be in situations that could be fatal with your male friends, rather than constantly pushing this ‘stoic and nerved up’ version. That’s one way it might feel, it’s not the only way. Ends soapbox moment. I’m not fussed about asserting that one of these interpretations is FACT. I like both interpretations very much. I’m just really glad these scenes are in ‘The Eagle’, because they provide a level of male connection we don’t very often see on screen.

Actually I think the film does a great job overall, of subtly exploring concepts that are traditionally linked with how masculine a man is, such as honour, strength and mastery of the self. One of my favourite aspects of this film is that it achieves this exploration without tipping characters the audience is supposed to validate, like Marcus, into an obsessive state where they try to prove how masculine they are while the audience continues validates their erratic behaviour. Marcus wants to regain his family’s honour and his quest to do so seems unnecessarily foolhardy, but Marcus doesn’t generally appears unhealthily driven by the need to regain honour (and by proxy masculinity). His quest is founded not in desperation for himself and his image, but in true belief that his father does not deserve to be remembered so badly. He wants to prove himself and by extension prove his whole family’s honour deserves to be restored, but he doesn’t need to do so because he feels something is lacking in him and his family, more because he wants people to recognise what is really, already great about him and his family. Does that make sense? Maybe I’ve talked myself in circles there.

When Marcus does appear to transverse the boundaries of reasonable behaviour in his drive to complete his quest the film depicts his actions as rough, or angry, not as positive actions that are justified because of his cause. He holds a knife to a man’s throat to gain information, he kills a child Esca had let live and that he mistrusts Esca (wh will later save his life) on this quest, but all this behaviour is ‘punished’ when Marcus’ is forced to be a slave himself. The way I read his eventual redemptive recapture of the eagle is that Marcus earns his reward by understanding a life of oppression, bonding with his slave as an equal and allowing Esca to convince him that he shouldn’t kill another British child. I’m not sure that this idealistic approach to ideas about the reversal of oppression is very through, but I do like that his bad behaviour on this quest results in consequences and censure, rather than defensive justification.

Finally, I’ll have a bit of a nationalistic moment and say how much I bloody love British cinema right now, especially Film 4 projects. The dulled natural palette that ‘The Eagle’ features helps to create the right vaguely threatening atmosphere for this film and the composition of the shots make beautiful use of ideas about space. Never change sort of arty, but still commercial British cinema. Never change.

'A Mercy' - Toni Morrison

The narrative structure of ‘A Mercy’ by Toni Morrison is a complex affair. In the context of current literary culture it isn’t experimental, but it is different from a simple linear narrative, told by one narrator. The first chapter of the novel is told by Florens a slave on a mission for her mistress, in a style which approaches stream of conscious writing. Her first person narrative chapters progress in a linear fashion, as she travels to find her blacksmith lover who can save her mistress from small pox.

This narrative is interrupted at significant points by third person chapters showing the stories of five other people at the estate where Florens lives. There’s Jacob a Dutch farmer/trader who now lives in America and has never owned a slave until Florens is given to him to repay a debt. Rebekka, who answered Jacob’s advert for a wife. Lina a native girl, whose tribe was killed by small pox. Sorrow a red haired, black toothed orphan who was found floating in boys clothing from wreck of a ship. Finally come Willard and Scully, slaves of a neighbour whose sentences keep getting extended. Each character gets one chapter to themselves and these chapters focus on a particular characters history, as well as their life with Florens.

However, although these chapters all focus on different characters they also carry a thread of linear timeline that draws all these chapters into one story of forward progress. This is a different linear timeline than the one that Florens’ storyline follows and it beginnings just before Florens is bought by Sir, then continues to just after Florens returns from her mission to fetch the blacksmith.

At the beginning of ‘A Mercy’ I did not think I was going to get what I wanted from this novella (I know, I am so demanding). When I turn to Morrison I expect and almost crave a particular kind of reading experience, one that presents itself as tangibly complex after just a quick glance at the text. I expect a meeting with a novel written in a style that is as multi-faceted as the complex subject matter it is bound to contain. I want a novel that makes a point of embracing stylised writing if that makes sense. The opening chapter narrated by Florens, which begins

‘Don’t be afraid. My telling can’t hurt you in spite of what I have done and I promise to lie quietly in the dark – weeping perhaps or occasionally seeing the blood once more – but I will never again unfold my limbs to rise up and bare teeth. I explain. You can think what I tell you a confession, if you like, but one full of curiosities familiar only in dreams and during those moments when a dog’s profile plays in the steam of a kettle.’

sounded like the familiar deliberately obscured and intricate style that fills some of her other novels, such as ‘Beloved’ and ‘Jazz’. However, the majority of the writing in ‘A Mercy’ felt open, cheerful and breezily constructed. The novella’s prose style is straightforward and the tone of the writing is an uncomplicated, accessible one that I’m familiar with seeing in many historical novels:

‘In short, 1682 and Virginia was a mess. Who could keep up with the pitched battles for God, king and land? Even with the relative safety of his skin, solitary travelling required prudence. He knew he might ride for hours with no company but geese flying over inland waterways and suddenly, from behind felled trees a starving deserter with a pistol might emerge, or in a hollow a family of runaways might cower, or an armed felon might threaten. Carrying several kinds of specie and a single knife, he was a juicy target.’

That kind of tone isn’t bad, I really enjoy it when I find it in other books, but it’s not what I expect to find when I go to Morisson’s novels and my reading mood was not set to happily receive this kind of writing without quibbles about its own expectations. I spent a chapter being grouchy before ‘A Mercy’ won me over.

As you can see from the quote above the story is not only accessible, but dynamic. In that passage the man, Jacob, is just riding across the land thinking to himself, yet Morrison instils the action and adventure proper for his circumstances into his solitary riding and transforms the act for the reader. The narrative feels very active, even when it is focused on a character who is describing remembrances or domestic chores, because Morrison’s word choices are so descriptive, for example in Lina’s third person chapter the narrator describes how ‘It was some time afterward while branch-sweeping Sir’s dirt floor, being careful to avoid the hen nesting in the corner, lonely, angry and hurting, that she decided to fortify herself by piecing together scraps of what her mother had taught her before dying in agony.’ . The reader gets a detailed picture of the scene currently being described, but also of another image, of a mother whose dying state is made specific and real by the addition of the phrase ‘in agony’. And Lina’s internal state is described precisely, giving the reader a strong idea of how she feels, ‘lonely, hurt and angry’ which are all distinct states. The word ‘fortify’ identifies exactly how she wants to make herself feel and the idea of her memories being ‘scraps’ provides an evocative physical image that crystallises how the reader views what she has to work with.

There’s also something seductively strong about the wording Morrison uses throughout the novel. Sir is ‘a hurricane of activity labouring to bring nature under his control’ who is ‘forever unprepared for violent, mocking changes in weather and for the fact that common predators neither knew nor cared to whom their prey belonged.’. Rebekka knows ‘the pall of childlessness coupled with bouts of loneliness’ and wonders ‘Was happiness Satan’s allure, his tantalizing deceit? Was her devotion so frail it was merely bait? Her stubborn self-sufficiency outright blasphemy?’. You might say Morrison often uses a ten pence word where a penny one will do, but the cumulative effect of so much lush wordery is a novella that feels somehow sumptuous, while also slightly dangerous with the potential to become seedy and depraved at any minute.

And just by examining the sustain more complex word choice of the novella it becomes apparent that perhaps cogs and wheels are turning in this apparently simple writing style. Perhaps its apparent easy to read nature is actually under pinned by a helluva lot of work.

So much is contained in such a small book and I haven’t even talked about the themes, relationships or symbols contain in ‘A Mercy’, or even the amount of different facets of this historical period that she manages to fit inside those 169 pages. Don’t you just envy Morrison scholar’s who can spend hours pouring over her stories and the themes that connect her books? One for the re-read pile I think.

Goal Results: First Quarter

I decided that this year I’d post how I was doing on various reading related goals (ho, ho, goals have numbers attached, these are really just unspecific notions) every quarter, just to keep myself on track:

Read more translated fiction: 4 books – I have already read more translated fiction this year than I read during 2010. If I could read 4 a quarter until the end of the year I’d feel like I was making translated fiction a part of my regular reading diet.

Keep male/female author ratio close (as in read more books by male authors): 10/12 – Right now I’m reading just slightly less male authors than female, but the ratio is much better than in 2010. I did have to make a big effort to increase the amount of male authors I was reading in March, but now I find that a lot of the books I want to read are by male authors. Must be careful not to tip back into days gone by when I would read so many more books by male than female authors.

Read more books containing GLBTQ characters with large roles: 8 – I found working towards this goal so easy this quarter, thanks to the fact that I was on the Indie Lit GLBTQ panel in January. I also seem to have a big stockpile of books that feature gay and lesbian main characters, so I don’t think the book buying ban is going to slow down this goal.

Read more books by authors of another race: 4 – Working towards this goal has not gone so well and in April I’m going to make an effort to work towards it. Part of the problem was that I wanted to read more adult fiction this quarter (and still do), but we have very few adult books by Asian, or African authors in the house and my book acquiring ban is on. I think the solution is to make sure that all my YA selections are by authors of a different race from me (which means I will almost certainly be reading ‘Slice of Cherry’ and the second ‘Agency’ mystery this month).

Read more non-fiction: 0 – Yeah I’m still sucking at that. I can’t concentrate on non-fiction in my lunch at work and most of my reading in the week is done in that hour.

Read more sci-fi: 6 – And I’m loving it! Sci-fi at it’s best can just make you think so hard and be so much fun to explore. In terms of male/female author ratio within sci-fi I’m at 3/3.

Read more literary fiction: 8 – My definition of literary fiction is a bit unspecified and doesn’t really seem to fit with a lot of other peoples (which seems to focus on lit fiction as fiction about political matters, but at the same time would exclude books like ‘The Dispossessed’ and ‘Shipbreaker’ which are both highly political). I know what I call lit fiction when I see it and this is the number I’ve come up with, the specific titles being: ‘Journey by Night’ – Antal Szerb, ‘The Summer Book’ – Tove Jansson, ‘Krakow Melts’ – Daniel Allen Cox, ‘Annabel’ – Kathleen Winter, ‘The Birthday Boys’ – Beryl Bainbridge, ‘Dimanche and Other Stories’ – Irene Nemirovsky, ‘Branwell’ – Douglas A Martin, ‘A Mercy’ – Toni Morrison.

Stop buying books for 3 months after Januray 13th 2011 (now extended until June): Book buying ban still intact – And oh my life how it needs to be. I might have mentioned that I’m saving for a flat deposit and it’s going ok, but I really can’t afford books, especially when I have so many lying around waiting for me. I’ve also kept up the clothes buying ban (although I can’t see that lasting too much longer as the weather is getting nicer and I’m not going to fit a lot of my summer clothes this year) and haven’t bought jewellery, or cds, or dvds throughout this whole nearly three month period (although I did put Vampire Diaries season 2 on pre-order). But there are some expensive events coming up. I feel a little stressed about money right now, but I’m sure it will all be fine – deep breaths.

I just wanted to mention a couple of other things I’ve put in place over the last quarter. I started eating more healthily during the work day, so salad, fruit and yoghurt for lunch and no trips to vending machines or Maccy D’s and started putting in lower fat measures at home (there’s no way I could give up carbs at the end of the day, but now the carbs can be wholewheat pasta or new potatoes on the majority of days). I kept that up consistently for 2 months, then had a couple of not so good weeks, but the refreshing thing was because I’d proved I could eat healthily and use will power I didn’t feel like these breakdowns were the end of my good intentions, or showed that I was just destined to be a bad, emotional eater.

The plan for this quarter is to put some regular exercise into this routine as it gets warmer, probably by going walking one lunch time every week to start.

I also set up a regular charity donation plan, which is something that not buying as many books allows me to do (just to be clear this is not me chiding anyone about charity, or trying to start a guilt trip, we all work for our own money, we all make decisions about what to do with it and as long as no one I know is doing something evil like deliberately giving their money to the BNP or betting on animal fights I really have no opinion on how any regular person spends their money - if you pay to see a monkey with a small blade fight a blind rabbit we would have to talk). I picked 3 charities to regularly donate to. With the help of the ‘Good Intentions are not Enough’ blog and charity rater, I could select a decent range of charities and check that my charities were operating in an effective and transparent way, which gives me greater confidence that my money is doing some good. I also picked a fourth charity, but they don’t allow UK residents to set up direct debits s this quarter I’m going to decide how to go about supporting them. And I set aside a (very) small monthly amount for spontaneous charity so I can support internet initiatives and friends, or colleagues. Obviously charity giving is not all about me, but regular giving and charity resources like ‘Good Intentions are Not Enough’ and Charity Rater do make me feel like I'm helping without harming.

So that’s all the goal related stuff I’ve been up to in the last three months. Let’s get motivational – tell me what you’ve been working towards and I will cheer like hell for you in the comments!

'The Iron Witch' - Karen Mahoney

Donna Underwood never takes off her elbow length gloves in public. She was removed from school after an incident between her and another student. Her father is dead and her mother is in a mental institution. People can be cruel and it’s not surprising her peers call Donna ‘the freak’.

And when Donna thinks about her past she doesn’t exactly disagree with those who ostracise her. She wears the gloves to hide magical iron designs that are embedded in her skin. The designs, which give her super strength, healed her arms after they were destroyed by an evil fairy beast. Her father died saving her. Her mother’s madness is the result of a fairy charm. The adults who surround her are alchemists, members of the ancient Order of the Dragon. They expect her to study magic and defeat wood fairies because her parents were great heroes of the order. No, Donna Underwood is not even close to normal.

At the same time Donna’s life sounds like it was relatively quiet before ‘The Iron Witch’ opened. Within the novel Donna finds her regular routine disrupted over and over by the growing power of supernatural forces. Donna avoided her ex-schoolmates and went to lessons with her tutor. She saw Maker, the man who changed her hands and deals with the pains in her hand. She spent time with her one and only friend, Navin, a cute, bike obsessed boy who isn’t exactly popular, but slips ‘under a lot of people’s cool-dar’. Her daily life involved no regular contact with the dangerous fairy world that scared her physically and emotionally.

Then at the beginning of the book Navin encourages Donna to go to a house party with him. She ends up on the roof with the hot, intriguing host, Alexander Grayson. He seems interested in Donna, which Navin is not pleased about. So, when Donna takes a trip out to the secret location of Maker’s laboratory Navin decides to follow her in case she meets Xan (I know, I know, we will get to that later). At the workshop Donna and Navin find chaos and a wood fairy in the bathroom, which forces Donna to reveal her secrets to Navin.

Personally I found the reasoning that made Navin think following Donna was a good idea, tenuous. I also admit that at this point in the book I wondered if I should be winding up my ‘stalker, stalker’ siren, although it doesn’t take long to work out that Navin is not, through the rest of the book, one of those creepy guys who cares by stalking (and isn’t that faint praise, he’s actually a fun, supportive, brave guy). Navin needed to be in a situation where he can uncover Donna’s secrets, so that the book’s action can move forward. The problem for me is that the way this is engineered hinges on actions and reason that seem under realised to me.

As a case study in contrast the books plot required Xan to become involved in the ‘Donna fights fairies’ action, which means he also had to discover her secrets. The way Xan was manoeuvred into a situation where he could find out her secrets felt more natural to me than the way Donna’s secrets were revealed to Navin. A homeless looking guy turns out to be an evil wood fairy that attacks Xan and Donna on their first date (that’s such a Buffy move by the way, evil kicking dirt all over the magical first date, love that kick ass trope) which leads in the end to secrets being revealed on both sides. There are coherent reasons for why Xan and Donna find themselves in this situation together.

The chapter where the two are first attacked by fairies is one of my favourite action scenes in this novel, which has quite a few well paced action sequences. As well as being a cool moment of fighting and escape, this event leads to Donna and Xan’s relationship developing. Lemme say I know I’m probably supposed to be pulling for Navin to be Donna’s love interest, as he’s the ordinary hero and the friend Donna has known all her life, but I’ve got to say my preference at the moment would be for Xan and Donna to work out. Both Xan and Donna have been victims of fairies, which makes it easier for them to reveal their physical and emotional pain to each other. They are vulnerable together in a way that Donna can’t bring herself to be with Navin even after he knows about the fairy world. And that’s not because Navin is a bad guy, it’s because she feels more comfortable talking to someone who has experienced the same kind of paranormal brutality. I feel like Xan and Donna could heal each other and dude the scene where Xan first reveals his own pain to Donna manages to be both touching and hot, without being unrealistically emotionally full on.

Having a guy like Xan around who knows a lot about the world of fairies means that Donna can share things about her life openly. Donna’s involvement with the order means she has to keep herself pretty emotionally isolated. She’s had to cut herself off from a lot of natural emotions, like grief over her mother’s mental illness, to keep going. She also carries around a lot of guilt over her father’s death and the fact that she can’t tell Navin the full truth about her life hurts her, as he opened up to her when his mother died. ‘Iron Witch’s’ narrative allows Donna to go from a closed off girl, who is basically existing, to a girl who has people she can share everything with. While Donna’s journey to uncover secrets about the order and fight the fairy world is what drives the novel’s plot, ‘The Iron Witch’ is a book that allows space for its heroine to undergo an emotional journey as well, even though this does little to push the immediate action plot on. Do I even need to tell you that a combination of fighting and changing emotions is my preferred mix in stories of paranormal adventure? I mean does a character really win if they come out as emotionally dead as they were before they started tricking, kicking and killing?

My favourite thing about Donna’s own emotional journey is that her feelings often realistically fluctuate, especially in relation to the strength in her repaired arms. In one diary excerpt she is buoyed by the knowledge of her physical strength:

‘I turned to the locker, drew back my fist, and punched it as hard as I could.

With an ear-splitting shriek of metal the whole door collapsed inwards, wrecking the locker beyond any hope of repair. There was a collective gasp from the small audience and I was gratified to see Melanie back up a few steps, eyes wide and staring.

…

At that moment all I gave a damn about was that I had won.’

In other parts of the book she’s feeling pain in her arms and is depressed by the constant reminder of her unnaturalness. Again my personal feeling is that the natural state of heroines in paranormals should be a state of ever changing conflict, because they get awesome powers/feeling of strength/to kill the enemy, but they also get consequences and to wash the blood out of their hair on a Friday night. They operate in both these realities at once, hence conflict. Donna exhibits emotions that change, then change back, then change back again. What’s not to like there? By the end of the book she’s not totally different and she still has a lot of stuff to work out emotionally, which I guess just means there will be more interesting emotions in the coming sequel.

I can feel myself getting invested in the three main characters of ‘The Iron Witch’. However, there’s a problem with ‘The Iron Witch’ that stops me from getting fully connected with them. This novel can be kind of explainy.

At the beginning of the novel Mahoney’s writing is quite natural in the way that it releases and conceals information. The reader first meets Donna as they read a first person diary entry where she recounts the battle in the forest that changed her life. Here Donna feeding of information to the reader feels right, because of the framing provided. She’s writing in her diary, re-telling the event to herself, because she’s seen it in a recent nightmare. At the same time the obvious narrative reason behind all this framing (that the reader needs this information to understand the story) is concealed by the urgency and drama of the scene, or more properly the detailed drama of the reported scene actively informs the reader.

In later parts of the book, written in third person, Mahoney doesn’t recreate this subtle, active dissemination of information and often makes Donna give more information than is required. Donna tends to explain why she knows something about a person, which serves as a way for Mahoney to explain things to the reader, for example:

‘If she sometimes came across as a little strict, Donna realized this was probably because her aunt had never had a husband or child of her own; she was not the most natural mother-figure. And of course, Aunt Paige always seemed too busy for a family, what with full-time work and the demands of the Order.’

These type of comments often feel stiffly inserted into the text, because they provide too much information to seem like the natural thoughts of someone who already knows this information. The use of third person narrative is supposed to make these kind of explanatory details feel less out of place. A third person narrator is outside of the immediate thoughts of the main characters and so generally feels less unnatural when explaining details than a first person narrator, who would need to frame their story as a narrative to an outsider to justify explaining details they are already aware of. The use of third person narrator doesn’t make this kind of explanatory detail feel any more naturally included in ‘The Iron Witch’, possibly because the writing in these places is too self-conscious as it strives for an appearance of naturalness. Throwing in signals to the naturalness of these thoughts like ‘And, of course’ only highlight how strange it is that the reader is having such things explained to them.

There are also passages where explanation is info dumped to set out the rules of the world the characters exist in. Take this excerpt for example, a part of the conversation where Donna explains the Order to Navin :

‘ “It has different names depending on the culture, but the most important thing is what it symbolizes. It’s something to do with ‘all being One,’ and it reminds us that the cycle of death and rebirth might be considered a natural thing. Although death is something that alchemy seeks to overcome.” ‘.

This type of explanation is probably the least bothersome because although this information could have been included more subtly, it is information that the reader needs to operate in Donna’s world. Mahoney works to make the conversation sound natural, by having Navin interject questions and sarcasm, instead of allowing Donna to just rattle through what the reader needs to know. It still doesn’t feel like a natural conversation to me, but then I feel like I’ve become very attuned to picking out teaching conversations in fiction over the last year. As the other kinds of over explanation accumulated I felt a wedge wiggling in between me and Donna which is tough to explain. Maybe it occurred because I was constantly pausing to have something explained to me, so I wasn’t being given as much space as I wanted to naturally absorb an understanding of Donna (although I feel like I do know a lot about her life now). Or maybe the explanation interrupts and slows the rhythm of the narrative too much for me to go deeply under the spell of the story. Whatever the cause the novel does feel stilted in many places because of the large amount of explanatory detail.

Finally, every review has mentioned this, but I thought it was fab, so I will end on a repetitive note. ‘The Iron Witch’ contains a background gay couple who run Donna’s order and are just, y’know together, no big, freaking drama, gay characters are represented in some way in this book. I suspect future books in the trilogy may have a gay villain whose villainy is not a result of his sexuality. I am in favour of that.

Thanks for the review copy, signed in purple ink, Karen Mahoney. I look forward to seeing how the next book in the trilogy develops the characters.

Other Reviews

Reading in Color