This is one of the books I read in one sitting (well, almost), finish, and immediately start reading again to enjoy the benefits of omniscience. Twice. I know it has flaws: I don't care: I really do like it. (And the flaws I think it has are not identical to those mentioned by others). On the other hand, on both rereadings there was one section that I really did want to skip.
I have immense problems talking about this book to someone who hasn't read it because there is so much to say that hinges on knowing what happens. Anyway, underlined quotations are from that review.
The one question that I did have to wrestle with is, Does this book have to be SF? That is, could it happen without the interplanetary stuff and the aliens? It depends where you think the focus of the novel lies. If it's the crisis of faith (this is called understatement) then I suspect that missionaries have suffered similarly since someone first had the idea that those strangers over the river would be happier if they were shown the error of their religious ways. Although Sandoz is not a missionary in the traditional sense, everything he does is imbued with his faith: it is why he is.
I started off trying to imagine how this novel would work as a historical piece on, for example, the Jesuit missions to Native Americans. They did that same sort of thing: the Jesuits would beg their way onto a ship (on occasion funding their own expedition) and go and talk to the natives. How sound their conversion techniques were is apparently still under discussion. There's a vehement little book in the local library which accuses the Society of Jesus of presenting a very biased view of Christian faith in order to score as many converts as possible (in India, for example, they imported elements of Buddhism wholesale in order to convince the natives that it was really one and the same thing). Anyway, a lot of them met grisly ends, for much the same reason as things go wrong in The Sparrow: lack of comprehension of an alien society.
On the other hand, a first-contact-with-natives novel wouldn't bring out the same sense of a truly alien society, of reaching out over vast distances to something miraculous, or the idea of 'God's other children'. Or the sense of separation from everything safe and normal. Yes, it would be quite a different novel without the science fiction: I don't think it would be anything quite as special, although Russell can certainly write brilliantly. Her characters have wit and humour, exhibit grace under pressure, and lose their tempers in a hardly-sweet-at-all fashion.
By the bye, all through my first reading, I was haunted by a sense of resemblance to Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond novels: that same sense of face being maintained at all costs, that same elegance of thought and act … then I got to the end and found an acknowledgement to Dunnett in the bibliography (and what sort of novel has a bibliography, for heavens' sake?!)
It is essential to the plot that the expedition sneaks off: that 'backyard spaceship' is the only way the mission could happen. We're looking at a fragmented society where a major mission would take years to plan: in addition, the mission needs to be mounted by the Society of Jesus rather than a secular organisation, otherwise the first contact would be quite differently, and more soberly, managed and there would be little chance of things going (initially) so well, or (later) so catastrophically wrong. There's no way that any nation would meekly hand over a spaceship to a religious organisation: think of the outrage from the secular parts of that society, and the outright hostility from other religious groups.
And there's also the point that a large part of the problems in the later timestream (the novel consists of two strands: the Jesuits nursing Sandoz back to health and trying to find out what really happened, in 2060, and flashbacks to the mission and the events leading up to it, beginning in 2019) are caused by the publication of the mission's existence. It's a sort of betrayal: the man who originally sorts out their form of travel then goes public with the news, even as his company is helping to bring back Sandoz. Inevitably, the story at that stage is one-sided: Sandoz becomes a 'global villain'.
And, of course, there are precautions that would be taken by a 'proper' mission that are simply skipped by our intrepid band. Speaking of whom, yes, they are ridiculously nice (with one possible exception). On the other hand, that is precisely why Sandoz is friends with them all. They are the people to whom he is closest: his surrogate family.
My Significant Other read this novel before me: he pointed out that the chance of aliens being humanoid and human-like is actually pretty low. Yes, I responded, still halfway through the book, but they have to be similar enough that their differences come as a shock. And anyway I bet there's a good reason for them being that similar …
There is.
There are a couple of other flaws, to my mind. For one thing, there is a point at which Sandoz should have died, but didn't. I find I can't explain the others without giving away part of the plot … they are both to do with 'X should have realised / noticed / told someone …'
Several people have wondered why The Sparrow won the James Tiptree Award: I found this explanation somewhere on the Web. It was written before the actual award was made: I don't know if the decision was ever discussed in more detail.
"So, if the Tiptree Award is given each year for the writer who deals most effectively with an exploration or expansion of gender roles, why did Russell win? Granted, she wrote a compelling, original novel, but what about gender roles and sex? Or, maybe the question should be phrased differently. What about no sex?
I don't know for sure why this award went to Russell - and we may not know until the award ceremony next month - but this is my guess. Russell didn't explore gay or lesbian issues or do much new in the way of stripping away sexual stereotypes. But what she did was bring to light a discussion of celibacy which, considering the relentlessly bisexual recent trends in science fiction, is award-winning indeed."
The religious aspects are fascinating: there are several echoes of Christ and his betrayal, and more fundamental stuff about sacrifice. Sandoz is celibate: he has, in a sense, sacrificed the sexual part of himself ad majorem Dei gloriam - for the greater glory of God. However, he is not the only person who has sacrificed something: those on Rakhat have also had to give up parts of themselves, though for quite different (and, in a sense, even more fundamental) reasons. Sandoz' crisis of faith is really the only sensible reaction to what has happened to him: there is a sense of a cruel Miltonian God, in a sort of Garden-of-Eden scenario, blessing and then punishing. I'm not that qualified to discuss the theological implications – and there are a great deal, ranging from 'so who is made in God's image then?' to 'Does Sandoz have any impact on the spiritual life of those on Rakhat?' – but a heck of a lot of Biblical quotations kept springing to mind. (Gardens – now there's a thing …)
As a non-Christian I found the theology fascinating and not a little frightening: the things Sandoz does, and lives through, because of his faith. While it is distinctly a religious novel, it can certainly be read without needing to believe in God. All that matters is that we accept that Sandoz believes. (And so do the rest: all of them have pretty strong faith, or at least religion, which is probably why they are all so very nice to one another most of the time).
This is also a novel about language and how it defines a society. My notes (which I can't expand without giving things away, but I do want to raise these points somehow) go thus:
No word for 'I' (but neither have the Japanese): the thing with the hands and how it is described: to have a word for 'poaching' implies that there can be a legitimate use: the difference between being able to read a language and understanding it when it is spoken.
Just in case you all had the idea that this was a serious, philosophical book: it's also great fun. Sandoz and his colleagues assign arbitrary names to the fauna of Rakhat, with the result that Anne, having a conversation, is distracted by 'the howling of Dominicans in the forest'.
Saturday, February 01, 1997
Wednesday, January 01, 1997
Fevre Dream -- George R R Martin
At the 1995 Worldcon, George R. R. Martin – who pursues the dual paths of editor and author – said that, rather than stick to one genre, he preferred to write one or two novels which would explore that genre, and then move on. A Game of Thrones, his latest novel, is epic fantasy; he has also written space opera and heroic fantasy. Fevre Dream is Martin's slant on the vampire myth; the story of a Mississippi riverboat, its owner and its captain. Abner Marsh’s career as a steamboatman seems to be over; the harsh winter of 1855 has destroyed all his boats, and his hopes with them. On an April night in the Planters’ Hotel, the mysterious Joshua York makes Marsh an offer he can’t refuse – a brand-new sidewheeler, bigger and faster and more beautiful than any other boat on the river. All that York asks in return is that his friends can travel free of charge. It sounds simple enough, and although Marsh is suspicious of such largesse, the deal seems straightforward.
Only when the Fevre Dream is cruising the waterways of the Mississippi and her tributaries does Marsh begin to realise that the situation isn’t as rosy as he had thought. Joshua’s friends are an odd crowd; they only appear after dark. There are dark rumours of what York does alone, on shore, at the dead of night – and uglier whisperings of a curse upon the Fevre Dream. And eventually Joshua himself "fesses up"; he leaves the boat during those unscheduled midnight stops at deserted timber mills and riverside houses to hunt vampires. Vampires like himself.
Only gradually does Marsh come to accept this; he’s a practical man, and vampires are the stuff of old stories to scare children. An encounter with York’s enemy, Julian – who believes that human beings are prey – leaves Marsh convinced that vampires are real: finally he begins to understand Joshua York's dilemma. York is trapped by his wish to make peace with Julian’s people, rather than destroying them; some of those whom he has already converted to his cause speak of him as a messiah-figure amongst vampires – the 'pale king'. Caught up in a battle that he cannot comprehend, Marsh’s pragmatism and knowledge of the river are tried to the utmost.
This is not a novel which concerns itself with blood and night alone; Martin uses the vampire metaphor to explore issues of power, sacrifice and degeneration; Marsh and York’s journey into the ‘heart of darkness’ owes more to Conrad than to Anne Rice. Images of stagnation and decline – a weed-jammed bend of the river cut off by changes in the Mississippi’s course, a filthy bar in New Orleans – are contrasted with the gleaming mirrors and marble floors of the Fevre Dream, just as Marsh’s essential honesty and honour offset the treacherous, amoral Sour Billy, Julian’s human henchman.
Martin’s interpretation of the vampire myth is subtly conveyed, and more convincing – scientifically and emotionally – than many. While he doesn’t dwell on the act of vampirism, neither does he gloss over the everyday violence and danger of life on the river – exploding engines, bar brawls and the casual slaughter of slaves. As a historical novel, it has a convincing sense of place and time; as a horror novel, its sense of brooding menace and powerlessness is remarkably effective
Only when the Fevre Dream is cruising the waterways of the Mississippi and her tributaries does Marsh begin to realise that the situation isn’t as rosy as he had thought. Joshua’s friends are an odd crowd; they only appear after dark. There are dark rumours of what York does alone, on shore, at the dead of night – and uglier whisperings of a curse upon the Fevre Dream. And eventually Joshua himself "fesses up"; he leaves the boat during those unscheduled midnight stops at deserted timber mills and riverside houses to hunt vampires. Vampires like himself.
Only gradually does Marsh come to accept this; he’s a practical man, and vampires are the stuff of old stories to scare children. An encounter with York’s enemy, Julian – who believes that human beings are prey – leaves Marsh convinced that vampires are real: finally he begins to understand Joshua York's dilemma. York is trapped by his wish to make peace with Julian’s people, rather than destroying them; some of those whom he has already converted to his cause speak of him as a messiah-figure amongst vampires – the 'pale king'. Caught up in a battle that he cannot comprehend, Marsh’s pragmatism and knowledge of the river are tried to the utmost.
This is not a novel which concerns itself with blood and night alone; Martin uses the vampire metaphor to explore issues of power, sacrifice and degeneration; Marsh and York’s journey into the ‘heart of darkness’ owes more to Conrad than to Anne Rice. Images of stagnation and decline – a weed-jammed bend of the river cut off by changes in the Mississippi’s course, a filthy bar in New Orleans – are contrasted with the gleaming mirrors and marble floors of the Fevre Dream, just as Marsh’s essential honesty and honour offset the treacherous, amoral Sour Billy, Julian’s human henchman.
Martin’s interpretation of the vampire myth is subtly conveyed, and more convincing – scientifically and emotionally – than many. While he doesn’t dwell on the act of vampirism, neither does he gloss over the everyday violence and danger of life on the river – exploding engines, bar brawls and the casual slaughter of slaves. As a historical novel, it has a convincing sense of place and time; as a horror novel, its sense of brooding menace and powerlessness is remarkably effective
Sunday, December 01, 1996
Midshipman's Hope -- David Feintuch
The cover of Midshipman's Hope - the first in ‘The Seafort Saga' - lauds it as reading 'like a collaboration between Heinlein and C. S. Forester'. This is a remarkably accurate assessment.
Nick Seafort is a well-behaved, law-abiding - and regulation-quoting - midshipman on the USS Hibernia, out of Earth on a seventeen-month voyage to the colony of Hope Nation. Naval officers have to start young, to reduce their risk of contracting melanoma; thus, as in days of old, the midshipmen are teenagers, and Nick, the senior midshipman, has his hands full trying to keep them under control. It would, of course, be unthinkable for him to join in with their foolery. His career is too important to throw away.
The Navy of 2195 is remarkably like the British Navy of three centuries before; the same rule-bound life aboard, the same mild contempt for civilians, and the same respect for the traditions of the service. Of course there are differences; the grand, Heinleinian scale of the interstellar 'ocean', Nick's familiarity with Amanda (a young, female colonist travelling alone) - but, if anything, this Navy is more God- and regulation-fearing than Nelson's.
Tragedy strikes just when it's too late to turn back to Earth, and Nick unwillingly finds himself in command of the ship - a position that he's the first to admit he is unsuited for. Nevertheless, the rules cannot be broken. Nick must do his best to hold the crew together, cope with an onboard computer whose increasing paranoia makes Clarke's HAL look positively benevolent, and maintain the trust of the colonists - oh, and win the heart of the fair Amanda, of course.
This is a rite-of-passage novel, from Nick's fisticuffs with the quarrelsome Vax who subsequently respects him, to his acceptance that he can never be as perfect as his father would have wished, and his realisation that sometimes rules have to broken and that he needs the courage of his convictions. Another four novels in 'The Seafort Saga' have already been published in the US; it'll be interesting to see if, by the end of the last, Nick Seafort has grown up. Meanwhile, the scenery is interesting, the alien is suitably incomprehensible, and while Feintuch's characters tend towards the two-dimensional, there are flashes of wit and some thoughtful exchanges.
Nick Seafort is a well-behaved, law-abiding - and regulation-quoting - midshipman on the USS Hibernia, out of Earth on a seventeen-month voyage to the colony of Hope Nation. Naval officers have to start young, to reduce their risk of contracting melanoma; thus, as in days of old, the midshipmen are teenagers, and Nick, the senior midshipman, has his hands full trying to keep them under control. It would, of course, be unthinkable for him to join in with their foolery. His career is too important to throw away.
The Navy of 2195 is remarkably like the British Navy of three centuries before; the same rule-bound life aboard, the same mild contempt for civilians, and the same respect for the traditions of the service. Of course there are differences; the grand, Heinleinian scale of the interstellar 'ocean', Nick's familiarity with Amanda (a young, female colonist travelling alone) - but, if anything, this Navy is more God- and regulation-fearing than Nelson's.
Tragedy strikes just when it's too late to turn back to Earth, and Nick unwillingly finds himself in command of the ship - a position that he's the first to admit he is unsuited for. Nevertheless, the rules cannot be broken. Nick must do his best to hold the crew together, cope with an onboard computer whose increasing paranoia makes Clarke's HAL look positively benevolent, and maintain the trust of the colonists - oh, and win the heart of the fair Amanda, of course.
This is a rite-of-passage novel, from Nick's fisticuffs with the quarrelsome Vax who subsequently respects him, to his acceptance that he can never be as perfect as his father would have wished, and his realisation that sometimes rules have to broken and that he needs the courage of his convictions. Another four novels in 'The Seafort Saga' have already been published in the US; it'll be interesting to see if, by the end of the last, Nick Seafort has grown up. Meanwhile, the scenery is interesting, the alien is suitably incomprehensible, and while Feintuch's characters tend towards the two-dimensional, there are flashes of wit and some thoughtful exchanges.
Exquisite Corpse -- Poppy Z Brite
There is something particularly nauseating about the idea of eating something that's still alive. Isn't there? If the thought doesn't bother you, then you may find this book unexceptionable.
'Imagine meeting Nilsen & Dahmer in a bar, being invited home for coffee ...' No, thanks. Brite's previous novels, Lost Souls (1992) and Drawing Blood (1993) were investigations of human horror redeemed by their exploration of the supernatural: Exquisite Corpse, however, remains firmly rooted in the mundane – if ‘mundane’ is the right word for the Grand Guignol concoction of serial murder, necrophilia, cannibalism & sadistic sex that Brite presents this time round.
Within the first few pages of the novel, we are presented with Andrew, the imprisoned serial killer, musing on the aesthetics of slaughter:
"I killed most of the twenty-three by cutting ... because I appreciated the beautiful objects that their bodies were, the bright ribbons of blood coursing over the velvet of their skin, the feel of their muscles parting like soft butter."
After a dramatic escape – which, featuring a more sympathetic and likable protagonist, might be heroic – Andrew makes his way from the bars of Soho to sultry New Orleans, a favourite setting of Brite’s. There he encounters Jay, who hunts the bars and streets of the city rather like the vampires of Lost Souls. It is a meeting of souls: as Brite, rather slyly, puts it, “Jay had never had a live friend before, and he wasn’t sure what to do with one.” The two talk for hours, exploring the shared horrors of their natures: what is important, however, is that neither of them feel that they are monsters. As Andrew puts it, “I emerged from the womb with no morals, and no one has been able to instil any in me since. ... I had done nothing wrong. I had spent my life feeling like a species of one. Monster, mutation, Nietzschean superman – I could perceive no difference."
The ‘extraordinary love’ of Jay and Andrew is balanced by the relationship between Luke and Tran. Tran is a young Vietnamese boy whose family have just discovered that he’s gay and thrown him out. Luke, his former lover, is HIV-positive and divides his time between vitriolic radio broadcasts on WHIV (a pirate radio station run by and for HIV-positive men) and frantically trying to finish the novel that he realises will be his last. Luke’s tirades are directed at the rampantly homophobic right wing politicians of the Deep South, and the ‘breeders’ who bring more and more children into the world, and regard homosexuals as an aberration and a threat. Tran still loves Luke; "I'd like him to have a good life ... but all I can wish him now is a decent death". Lost in New Orleans, without obvious roots, he is easy prey for Andrew and Jay, whose mutual regard can only be consummated with the sharing of a victim.
It’s not as straightforward as that, of course. Brite weaves together the two parallel love stories (Luke and Tran’s mainly in the form of flashbacks) into a helix, which spirals towards a denouement which is not as pointless as one might expect. Brite continues the theme, found in both her previous novels, of love as redemption; it is clear from early in the novel, however, that there can be no happy endings.
This is a shocking novel, and also a flawed one. Brite could do more to contrast the helpless rage felt by Luke at his disease, with the feelings of Jay and David’s equally helpless victims; both are consequences of a casual approach to pleasure. And, while at least one character grows and changes during the novel, a great deal of blood is spilt before he can prove himself. No one has a decent death. The nastiness is not pointless: but one might ask whether it’s desirable to be able empathise with someone who can lovingly describe the taste and texture of human flesh, “lightly fried in butter”. And the butchery – although far from casual – pervades the novel; the overall effect is deadening, like watching a Tarantino film.
Brite’s style is humourless (for which, in this context, one should be thankful), and her characters tend towards a poetic profundity which is faintly nauseating: Andrew describes AIDS, for example, as “this malady borne on the fluids of love”, and waxes lyrical about the sensations which he experiences on seeing the first drop of blood on a victim’s skin. The French playwright Antonin Artaud defined the notion of the ‘theatre of cruelty’ – theatre that disturbs the spectator, frees unconscious repressions and allows the spectator to see himself as he really is. Artaud stressed that, on the level of performance, ‘it is not the cruelty we can exercise upon each other by hacking at each other’s bodies ... but the much more terrible and necessary cruelty which things can exercise against us.’ Brite’s ‘novel of cruelty’ focusses on the cruelty which people exercise upon one another – and upon the ‘monsters’ who derive pleasure from such cruelty.
It is unpleasantly easy to understand the killers’ motivation; Jay and David are shown as human beings, not just ciphers of cruelty. It is when their victim’s point of view is shown that the reader is jolted into revulsion. If Brite is trying to shock, she succeeds; if she is attempting an exploration of the dark side of human nature, she treats it too superficially to be taken seriously.
There’s a passage when Luke is recalling the reviews of his first novel, Faith in Poison, which might describe the way Poppy Brite expects Exquisite Corpse to be received: "The praise was lavish but slightly shell-shocked, as if Lucas Ransom had begun by massaging the reader's brain stem, then delivered a quick sharp blow to the back of the neck. The disparagement was similar, but with an aggrieved tone, as if the novel had deeply and personally offended the revilers. Lucas was pleased by both reactions. He had no use for middle ground." There is no middle ground for this novel. It is, in places, profoundly unpleasant: I am not a particularly squeamish reader, but there were parts of Exquisite Corpse that I regret ever having read. Reading objectively, it might be an intriguing novel – but I am not sure that I would want to be able to be objective about such a book.
'Imagine meeting Nilsen & Dahmer in a bar, being invited home for coffee ...' No, thanks. Brite's previous novels, Lost Souls (1992) and Drawing Blood (1993) were investigations of human horror redeemed by their exploration of the supernatural: Exquisite Corpse, however, remains firmly rooted in the mundane – if ‘mundane’ is the right word for the Grand Guignol concoction of serial murder, necrophilia, cannibalism & sadistic sex that Brite presents this time round.
Within the first few pages of the novel, we are presented with Andrew, the imprisoned serial killer, musing on the aesthetics of slaughter:
"I killed most of the twenty-three by cutting ... because I appreciated the beautiful objects that their bodies were, the bright ribbons of blood coursing over the velvet of their skin, the feel of their muscles parting like soft butter."
After a dramatic escape – which, featuring a more sympathetic and likable protagonist, might be heroic – Andrew makes his way from the bars of Soho to sultry New Orleans, a favourite setting of Brite’s. There he encounters Jay, who hunts the bars and streets of the city rather like the vampires of Lost Souls. It is a meeting of souls: as Brite, rather slyly, puts it, “Jay had never had a live friend before, and he wasn’t sure what to do with one.” The two talk for hours, exploring the shared horrors of their natures: what is important, however, is that neither of them feel that they are monsters. As Andrew puts it, “I emerged from the womb with no morals, and no one has been able to instil any in me since. ... I had done nothing wrong. I had spent my life feeling like a species of one. Monster, mutation, Nietzschean superman – I could perceive no difference."
The ‘extraordinary love’ of Jay and Andrew is balanced by the relationship between Luke and Tran. Tran is a young Vietnamese boy whose family have just discovered that he’s gay and thrown him out. Luke, his former lover, is HIV-positive and divides his time between vitriolic radio broadcasts on WHIV (a pirate radio station run by and for HIV-positive men) and frantically trying to finish the novel that he realises will be his last. Luke’s tirades are directed at the rampantly homophobic right wing politicians of the Deep South, and the ‘breeders’ who bring more and more children into the world, and regard homosexuals as an aberration and a threat. Tran still loves Luke; "I'd like him to have a good life ... but all I can wish him now is a decent death". Lost in New Orleans, without obvious roots, he is easy prey for Andrew and Jay, whose mutual regard can only be consummated with the sharing of a victim.
It’s not as straightforward as that, of course. Brite weaves together the two parallel love stories (Luke and Tran’s mainly in the form of flashbacks) into a helix, which spirals towards a denouement which is not as pointless as one might expect. Brite continues the theme, found in both her previous novels, of love as redemption; it is clear from early in the novel, however, that there can be no happy endings.
This is a shocking novel, and also a flawed one. Brite could do more to contrast the helpless rage felt by Luke at his disease, with the feelings of Jay and David’s equally helpless victims; both are consequences of a casual approach to pleasure. And, while at least one character grows and changes during the novel, a great deal of blood is spilt before he can prove himself. No one has a decent death. The nastiness is not pointless: but one might ask whether it’s desirable to be able empathise with someone who can lovingly describe the taste and texture of human flesh, “lightly fried in butter”. And the butchery – although far from casual – pervades the novel; the overall effect is deadening, like watching a Tarantino film.
Brite’s style is humourless (for which, in this context, one should be thankful), and her characters tend towards a poetic profundity which is faintly nauseating: Andrew describes AIDS, for example, as “this malady borne on the fluids of love”, and waxes lyrical about the sensations which he experiences on seeing the first drop of blood on a victim’s skin. The French playwright Antonin Artaud defined the notion of the ‘theatre of cruelty’ – theatre that disturbs the spectator, frees unconscious repressions and allows the spectator to see himself as he really is. Artaud stressed that, on the level of performance, ‘it is not the cruelty we can exercise upon each other by hacking at each other’s bodies ... but the much more terrible and necessary cruelty which things can exercise against us.’ Brite’s ‘novel of cruelty’ focusses on the cruelty which people exercise upon one another – and upon the ‘monsters’ who derive pleasure from such cruelty.
It is unpleasantly easy to understand the killers’ motivation; Jay and David are shown as human beings, not just ciphers of cruelty. It is when their victim’s point of view is shown that the reader is jolted into revulsion. If Brite is trying to shock, she succeeds; if she is attempting an exploration of the dark side of human nature, she treats it too superficially to be taken seriously.
There’s a passage when Luke is recalling the reviews of his first novel, Faith in Poison, which might describe the way Poppy Brite expects Exquisite Corpse to be received: "The praise was lavish but slightly shell-shocked, as if Lucas Ransom had begun by massaging the reader's brain stem, then delivered a quick sharp blow to the back of the neck. The disparagement was similar, but with an aggrieved tone, as if the novel had deeply and personally offended the revilers. Lucas was pleased by both reactions. He had no use for middle ground." There is no middle ground for this novel. It is, in places, profoundly unpleasant: I am not a particularly squeamish reader, but there were parts of Exquisite Corpse that I regret ever having read. Reading objectively, it might be an intriguing novel – but I am not sure that I would want to be able to be objective about such a book.
Tuesday, September 10, 1996
Reigning Cats and Dogs -- Tanith Lee
A man is flycycling home from a rendezvous with his mistress when a huge black dog's head appears among the clouds. Another projected advertisement, he thinks; then the fiery gaze meets his, and he begins to fall …
The City of Reigning Cats and Dogs is never named, but it has recognisable parallels to Dickensian London; the elite quote Hamlet, Egyptian monuments stand on the Embankment, and a 'great domed cathedral' rises above the slums of Black Church. Most of all, though, this is the City of Dreadful Night: 'And all about a city hummed and sighed, and he did not know it or its name, nor any name for the blackness of the sky and air, which were night'.
Grace is a whore with the gift of healing, who imparts an incomprehensible sense of well-being to her clients. Saul Anger, abused and sold as a child, has risen to head the Brotherhood, a shadowy group of men whose desire is to cleanse the city of sin and corruption. Something sinister has come to the City; it is dog-headed, with glowing eyes, and it kills by perverting time - so that a child may become an impossibly aged crone, and an old man's corpse resembles that of an aborted foetus. Saul fears that the Brotherhood have created this monster, but he does not know how to combat it. It is Balthazar the Jew, to whom two mudlarks have brought a jade statue from the river, who tells Grace of the ritual that must be completed.
Tanith Lee's recent work has tended towards an almost impenetrable Gothic mode, full of blood and stained glass. Reigning Cats and Dogs is lighter and less intense than, for example, Dark Dance. Lee's wit, and her talent for visual description, are at their best here; images of cats and dogs recur throughout the novel, and there are a variety of neatly-turned metaphors for corruption and for the juxtaposition of science and squalor. Grace is a typical Lee heroine - 'helpless and broken, adrift on the sea of night' - and Saul's damaged personality echoes that of other male leads in Lee's novels; their appearances, and the pointed contrast between the two, makes them almost archetypal.
The elements of Egyptian mythology, although fundamental to the plot, are played down in favour of the evocation of a dark and terrible city, surreally Gothic without losing all human perspective. Farce, tragedy, eroticism, and a London that might have been.
The City of Reigning Cats and Dogs is never named, but it has recognisable parallels to Dickensian London; the elite quote Hamlet, Egyptian monuments stand on the Embankment, and a 'great domed cathedral' rises above the slums of Black Church. Most of all, though, this is the City of Dreadful Night: 'And all about a city hummed and sighed, and he did not know it or its name, nor any name for the blackness of the sky and air, which were night'.
Grace is a whore with the gift of healing, who imparts an incomprehensible sense of well-being to her clients. Saul Anger, abused and sold as a child, has risen to head the Brotherhood, a shadowy group of men whose desire is to cleanse the city of sin and corruption. Something sinister has come to the City; it is dog-headed, with glowing eyes, and it kills by perverting time - so that a child may become an impossibly aged crone, and an old man's corpse resembles that of an aborted foetus. Saul fears that the Brotherhood have created this monster, but he does not know how to combat it. It is Balthazar the Jew, to whom two mudlarks have brought a jade statue from the river, who tells Grace of the ritual that must be completed.
Tanith Lee's recent work has tended towards an almost impenetrable Gothic mode, full of blood and stained glass. Reigning Cats and Dogs is lighter and less intense than, for example, Dark Dance. Lee's wit, and her talent for visual description, are at their best here; images of cats and dogs recur throughout the novel, and there are a variety of neatly-turned metaphors for corruption and for the juxtaposition of science and squalor. Grace is a typical Lee heroine - 'helpless and broken, adrift on the sea of night' - and Saul's damaged personality echoes that of other male leads in Lee's novels; their appearances, and the pointed contrast between the two, makes them almost archetypal.
The elements of Egyptian mythology, although fundamental to the plot, are played down in favour of the evocation of a dark and terrible city, surreally Gothic without losing all human perspective. Farce, tragedy, eroticism, and a London that might have been.
Sunday, September 01, 1996
Bloodlines -- Marion Veevers
Bloodlines explores the myth of Lady Macbeth, and the curse of 'the Scottish play'. The lives of three women intertwine: the actress Abigail West (who's playing Lady Macbeth opposite her husband); Jennet, a country girl in Shakespeare's time, who is being tried for witchcraft; and, earliest of all, Gruoch - the original Lady Macbeth.
Gruoch is perhaps the most interesting of the three; married - or sold - to a old man while still a child, she falls irrevocably in love with Macbeth when he kills her husband and carries her off. Despite the romance, though, this isn't a sanitised Hollywood vision of the eleventh century; it's dark, and dirty, and there are enemies at every side. Gruoch may love her rescuer, but she is not blind to his nature - Macbeth is a warrior and a murderer, who will do whatever's necessary to further his ambitions.
Jennet's locked in a cell and tortured until she confesses to witchcraft - her plan to curse the King and his heirs. In vain she protests that the curse is not hers - simply words that her mother told her, which she has never understood. Again and again she protests that her handsome lover is not the Devil, despite his graces and his poetic words. She has dreamt, though, that he will live forever; but recounting her dream to her tormentors will not help her case. Already they are building Jennet’s pyre, and she remembers her own mother being burnt at the stake.
Abby's life seems idyllic at first, but as she plunges herself into the role of Lady Macbeth her behaviour begins to change - enough to make her husband suspect that she is suffering from mental illness again. Abby adores her husband, but she can't make him understand that she's not going mad; that the confusion, and the hallucinations, come from the past and not from her own mind.
There are parallels between the womens' situations: each loves a man who is beginning to mistrust her, but for whom she would do anything; each is threatened by the unwanted attentions of another man; and each has nightmares and 'waking dreams' of a high staircase, which must be climbed - even though what waits at the top is an unknown, but horrific, sight.
The 'curse' is there from the beginning, although none of the three women understand its meaning or its power until the climax of the novel. The usual, half-joking explanation for the 'curse' on Macbeth is that Shakespeare's witches recite a real spell ('eye of newt and toe of frog'). Bloodlines suggests a more plausible reason; a curse - or, more accurately, a prediction - handed down from mother to daughter, and concealed in the words of Lady Macbeth herself, rather than in the 'demented rantings' of the witches. the curse won't be broken until someone understands what really happened, almost a thousand years ago.
Bloodlines can be read at several levels. It's a gripping thriller; the three women's narratives are twined together without chapter breaks, and the nature of the curse - and its resolution - are revealed only gradually. In some ways it's a romance: Bloodlines could be compared to the novels of Barbara Erskine (who is perhaps the best-known author of this sort of historical fiction, which blends past and present), but Veevers focusses on the darker emotions, and the historical context in which the action takes place. And, while it's definitely a work of fiction, the underlying theories regarding the origins of the play are by no means lightweight. A good read, with an element of intellectual enquiry that's reminiscent of Josephine Tey's Daughter of Time.
Gruoch is perhaps the most interesting of the three; married - or sold - to a old man while still a child, she falls irrevocably in love with Macbeth when he kills her husband and carries her off. Despite the romance, though, this isn't a sanitised Hollywood vision of the eleventh century; it's dark, and dirty, and there are enemies at every side. Gruoch may love her rescuer, but she is not blind to his nature - Macbeth is a warrior and a murderer, who will do whatever's necessary to further his ambitions.
Jennet's locked in a cell and tortured until she confesses to witchcraft - her plan to curse the King and his heirs. In vain she protests that the curse is not hers - simply words that her mother told her, which she has never understood. Again and again she protests that her handsome lover is not the Devil, despite his graces and his poetic words. She has dreamt, though, that he will live forever; but recounting her dream to her tormentors will not help her case. Already they are building Jennet’s pyre, and she remembers her own mother being burnt at the stake.
Abby's life seems idyllic at first, but as she plunges herself into the role of Lady Macbeth her behaviour begins to change - enough to make her husband suspect that she is suffering from mental illness again. Abby adores her husband, but she can't make him understand that she's not going mad; that the confusion, and the hallucinations, come from the past and not from her own mind.
There are parallels between the womens' situations: each loves a man who is beginning to mistrust her, but for whom she would do anything; each is threatened by the unwanted attentions of another man; and each has nightmares and 'waking dreams' of a high staircase, which must be climbed - even though what waits at the top is an unknown, but horrific, sight.
The 'curse' is there from the beginning, although none of the three women understand its meaning or its power until the climax of the novel. The usual, half-joking explanation for the 'curse' on Macbeth is that Shakespeare's witches recite a real spell ('eye of newt and toe of frog'). Bloodlines suggests a more plausible reason; a curse - or, more accurately, a prediction - handed down from mother to daughter, and concealed in the words of Lady Macbeth herself, rather than in the 'demented rantings' of the witches. the curse won't be broken until someone understands what really happened, almost a thousand years ago.
Bloodlines can be read at several levels. It's a gripping thriller; the three women's narratives are twined together without chapter breaks, and the nature of the curse - and its resolution - are revealed only gradually. In some ways it's a romance: Bloodlines could be compared to the novels of Barbara Erskine (who is perhaps the best-known author of this sort of historical fiction, which blends past and present), but Veevers focusses on the darker emotions, and the historical context in which the action takes place. And, while it's definitely a work of fiction, the underlying theories regarding the origins of the play are by no means lightweight. A good read, with an element of intellectual enquiry that's reminiscent of Josephine Tey's Daughter of Time.
The World on Blood -- Jonathan Nasaw
"Hi, my name is Nick, and I'm a recovering vampire." Blood is the drug - it heightens one's sense of reality, and it's 'the most powerful aphrodisiac imaginable'. - and the members of VA ("What's the V stand for?" "Very." "Very Anonymous?" "Very") are following the twelve-point plan to beat their addiction. This, I should add, is California.
Nick made his money writing vampire novels; he hasn't written any fiction for twenty years, since one of his boyfriends introduced him to the Real Thing. The aristocratic, cosmopolitan and immensely rich Whistler would be quite enough for Nick to deal with. He is even more mistrustful of Selene, Whistler's closest friend, who is High Priestess of a Wiccan coven which enjoys an almost symbiotic relationship with the Californian vampire community. None of Rice's sexless eroticism for Nasaw; his vampires are more than happy to trade bodily fluids with the witches. (And yes, of course there are female vampires; The World on Blood is neither conservative nor coy when it comes to sex, as so often it does).
Back in the Seventies everything seemed so much simpler. But contemporary California is a festering pit of therapy groups, and vampirism is just another problem to recognise, confront and overcome. The members of VA are a motley crew: the abused punk girl January, Deadhead lawyer Augie, and members of enough minority groups to satisfy even the most politically-correct reader. Every week VA meet and share their experiences of living without blood. It is all most worthy.
Then two things happen; they move their meeting place to a non-denominational church (thus encountering Betty, the lonely female minister); and Bev, who works in a blood bank, brings in the latest 'suspect' - beautiful Filipina Lourdes, who's been caught stealing a bag of blood in her first week on the night shift. Lourdes pouts prettily and tells them she doesn't want to give up blood; the rest of VA inform her cheerfully that of course she does ... Fortunately, one member of the group is similarly minded, and offers Lourdes the perfect excuse for not working day shifts.
So far, so good. The second half of the novel, however, moves away from the bright, brash, subversive romp, and towards a more conventional interpretation of the Californian ideal. Vampires playing at happy families?
Assessing their relationships and motivations? It could never happen in New Orleans ...
Nasaw has some interesting variations on the vampire myth. In The World On Blood, vampirism is inherited rather than transmitted, and vampires can reproduce Blood is a drug rather than a sole means of sustenance. (On the other hand, there are very few references to food.) The blood-drinking itself is oddly sanitised; the traditional rending and tearing has been replaced, at least in everyday life, by steel syringes and brandy glasses. It's clear that Nasaw knows his subject; there's a neat little précis of the vampire myth, and the novel is scattered with genre references - Lourdes, for example, discovered the joys of blood after reading Interview with the Vampire.
Despite the bloodletting and the orgiastic sex, there's something uncomfortably cosy about The World on Blood. It'd make a great soap: the characters are constantly coming to terms with themselves, and confronting one another in a variety of social tableaux.
Nick made his money writing vampire novels; he hasn't written any fiction for twenty years, since one of his boyfriends introduced him to the Real Thing. The aristocratic, cosmopolitan and immensely rich Whistler would be quite enough for Nick to deal with. He is even more mistrustful of Selene, Whistler's closest friend, who is High Priestess of a Wiccan coven which enjoys an almost symbiotic relationship with the Californian vampire community. None of Rice's sexless eroticism for Nasaw; his vampires are more than happy to trade bodily fluids with the witches. (And yes, of course there are female vampires; The World on Blood is neither conservative nor coy when it comes to sex, as so often it does).
Back in the Seventies everything seemed so much simpler. But contemporary California is a festering pit of therapy groups, and vampirism is just another problem to recognise, confront and overcome. The members of VA are a motley crew: the abused punk girl January, Deadhead lawyer Augie, and members of enough minority groups to satisfy even the most politically-correct reader. Every week VA meet and share their experiences of living without blood. It is all most worthy.
Then two things happen; they move their meeting place to a non-denominational church (thus encountering Betty, the lonely female minister); and Bev, who works in a blood bank, brings in the latest 'suspect' - beautiful Filipina Lourdes, who's been caught stealing a bag of blood in her first week on the night shift. Lourdes pouts prettily and tells them she doesn't want to give up blood; the rest of VA inform her cheerfully that of course she does ... Fortunately, one member of the group is similarly minded, and offers Lourdes the perfect excuse for not working day shifts.
So far, so good. The second half of the novel, however, moves away from the bright, brash, subversive romp, and towards a more conventional interpretation of the Californian ideal. Vampires playing at happy families?
Assessing their relationships and motivations? It could never happen in New Orleans ...
Nasaw has some interesting variations on the vampire myth. In The World On Blood, vampirism is inherited rather than transmitted, and vampires can reproduce Blood is a drug rather than a sole means of sustenance. (On the other hand, there are very few references to food.) The blood-drinking itself is oddly sanitised; the traditional rending and tearing has been replaced, at least in everyday life, by steel syringes and brandy glasses. It's clear that Nasaw knows his subject; there's a neat little précis of the vampire myth, and the novel is scattered with genre references - Lourdes, for example, discovered the joys of blood after reading Interview with the Vampire.
Despite the bloodletting and the orgiastic sex, there's something uncomfortably cosy about The World on Blood. It'd make a great soap: the characters are constantly coming to terms with themselves, and confronting one another in a variety of social tableaux.
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