Already you’re starting to see the world in a certain way, with that overlay people paint where desperation and necessity get gilded over into stories. [loc.75]
A compact, powerful novella about the haves and the have-nots, here depicted as the ogres (ten feet tall, feudal landlords, 'God's chosen' according to the pastor, able to eat meat, and gifted with magical devices) and the humans over whom they rule. Humans have an allergic reaction to meat, praise their landlords fulsomely (while remaining terrified of the ogres and their whims), and live more-or-less medievally. Torquell, already much taller than his father the headman, and with more of a temper than anyone in the village, may be an exception. One day the landlord's son hits Torquell, and Torquell hits back.
The consequences are fairytale-horrific. Torquell flees to the forest and joins a band of outlaws led by one Roben. But the ogres are determined that he must be held accountable for his crimes, and he's hunted and captured. And then he is purchased by Isadora, a wealthy ogress who remains resolutely unmarried, and pursues magic, which she calls science ...
So far, so unexceptional. It gradually becomes clear, though, that this is not a medieval fantasy but a possible future, one in which humans have become 'Economics', genetically tweaked towards a vegetarian diet and a more peaceful psyche. Whence the ogres? Whence indeed...
Ogres is told in the second person: one must always remember that if there's a second-person protagonist, there is a first-person narrator somewhere in the background. I was very pleasantly surprised by the revelation of that first-person narrator's identity here. Ogres is a quick read (just over a hundred pages in the print edition) and well-paced: I like it a lot, though perhaps more in hindsight than while reading and waiting for the story to reveal itself.
No comments:
Post a Comment