2024/050: Olive Kitteridge — Elizabeth Strout

...spring arriving once again; foolish, foolish spring, breaking open its tiny buds, and what she couldn’t stand was how -— for many years, really -— she had been made happy by such a thing. [loc. 3799]

A 'novel in stories', which is apparently the term for something Impressionistically vague, the protagonist glimpsed in the background of what appear to be other people's tales. A couple of the stories do focus on retired school teacher Olive and her kind-hearted, long-suffering husband Henry, the town pharmacist: others feature grown adults who were taught by Olive years ago, a nightclub pianist who plays a song for the couple, their son Christopher, a neighbour's difficulties, a chaste love affair, a woman falling into the sea...

I think Olive is supposed to be unlikeable: she is brusque, moody, judgemental, difficult, disappointed. I warmed to her, and (or?) perhaps identified with her. I liked the understatedness of the prose, the way that all the awful things are matter-of-fact and low-key, the way that Olive's inner state is never labelled or analysed. This is a masterclass in 'show, don't tell'. On the surface everything is fine: on the surface.

I shall be reading more by Elizabeth Strout. Though possibly not if I am feeling low.

Fulfils the ‘lowercase letters on the spine’ rubric of the 52 books in 2024 challenge.

2024/049: Running Close to the Wind — Alexandra Rowland

"Intelligence knows," Avra said airily, "that 'sane' doesn't exist. Nobody is sane. Nobody has ever been sane. Sane is fake. Sane is ..." He waved at his own face. "One of those things you wear to a masked ball."
"... A mask?"
"Yes, thank you, one of those. Behind everybody's sanity mask is someone who is unalloyed batshit in one way or another." [loc. 5067]

Ex-spy Avra Helvaçi is possessed of unusually good luck, a bunch of secret papers from the Shipbuilders' Guild, and a long-lasting fixation on dashing nonbinary pirate captain Teveri az-Ḥaffār. Reunited, the two join forces to become (a) really rich and (b) not dead, with a mutual hope of (c) persuading the gorgeous Brother Julian that vows of celibacy are really boring.

This is a hilarious and heartfelt novel, which I suspect some people will find highly irritating. I loved it and look forward to buying it for all my friends, especially those who are fans of a recent, much-lamented TV show about queer pirates.

Fulfils the ‘Published in a Year of the Dragon’ rubric of the 52 books in 2024 challenge.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance review copy: full honest review closer to UK publication date, which is 13 JUN 2024.

2024/048: The Silence Factory — Bridget Collins

"Poor Echo. I wonder sometimes what it would feel like, to be condemned to say what you never wanted to say, while the most important thing of all is beyond your reach." There was a pause that felt as though something unspoken was hanging in the air like invisible fruit, left unplucked. [loc. 1665]

Bridget Collins' third novel for adults, following The Binding (which I loved) and The Betrayals (which I liked), is The Silence Factory, which I'm still considering. It's a novel about the luxury of silence, about power and powerlessness: it features queer romance, dual narratives, abusive relationships, social class and ... spiders, again. (Perhaps the most fantastical aspect of the plot is that nobody in Collins' version of 19th-century England seems to suffer from arachnophobia.)

Part of the book is formed by the 1820s diaries of Sophia, wife to scientifically-minded and ambitious James Ashmore. James has brought her to the Greek island of Kratos, following the trace of a dead scholar's letters about marvellous spiders, the pseudonephila. While her husband becomes increasingly focussed on his work, Sophia befriends a local woman named Hira, and is drawn into the island's secrets.

The larger part of the narrative is the story of Henry Latimer, recently widowed (his wife died in childbirth) and working for his father-in-law, an audiologist. When Sir Edward Ashmore-Percy (great-nephew of James Ashmore) visits the shop in search of a device that will restore the hearing of his deaf daughter Philomel, Henry is struck by the man's charisma: he soon finds himself on a train to Telverton, with a suitcase of auricles and audinets, where he will test Philomel's hearing himself. Telverton is dominated by the silk factory, and Henry has already discovered that Telverton silk has miraculous properties. One side of the fabric confers blessed, luxurious silence. The other side of the silk gives off 'some sort of unpredictable vibration', which has rendered many of the factory workers partially deaf -- or worse. Henry quickly becomes Sir Edward's assistant and confidant, refusing to listen to the warnings of Philomel's governess. All factories have accidents, don't they?

There are no happy endings here, though the conclusion of Henry's story is undeservedly hopeful. I found it hard to like him, though his situation was pitiable: he's spineless, indecisive and blinkered. Sophia and her story were much more engaging, but she too was under the influence of a selfish, privileged man. James was monstrous in his disregard for his wife: Sir Edward's motivation, in his dealings with Henry, was opaque to me. Collins' writing is luscious and Gothic, and she writes powerfully about the gift of silence, and the ways in which women can be silenced, as well as the horrors of industry and the evils to which knowledge can be bent. I think this is a well-written, fascinating and complex book. I am not at all sure that I liked it.

Warnings for ableism, miscarriage, drowning, cruelty to animals, poverty, torture, emotional abuse, capitalism, spiders.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance review copy, in exchange for this full honest review. UK Publication Date is 09 MAY 2024.

Fulfils the ‘picked without reading the blurb’ rubric of the 52 books in 2024 challenge: the author's name was sufficient incentive for me to request this from Netgalley.

2024/047: All the Hollow of the Sky — Kit Whitfield

Farriers wrestled with the unkenned all their lives; they ran alongside the People from childhood, sometimes befriending, sometimes negotiating, sometimes fighting, but whatever course they took, it could be guided by the iron rule that mortal folks must be protected from the People. [loc. 543]

This novel is (mostly) a prequel to In the Heart of Hidden Things, and it is considerably darker in tone. Though it features the three generations of fairy smiths -- Jedediah, Matthew and John -- much of the novel deals with events a generation or two before, beginning Jedediah's grandfather Clem being befriended by a fae who he names Ab. Like many fae, Ab is very powerful and wants to help: but its definition of helpfulness is inhuman, and Clem's daughters (he has no sons) are 'gifted' with fae magic in their cradles. Agnes is inconveniently strong; Constance is inconveniently beautiful; Mabel has the voice of a bird, and understands that the dawn chorus is a litany of abuse and threat.

Lacking a son, Clem marries his daughter Constance to the scion of another smithing clan, Caleb Mackem, known as Corbie. The marriage is not a successful one. Corbie is an insecure and abusive husband, and later father: Jedediah grows up braced against sudden violence and mockery. Corbie wins fame for being the Sarsen Shepherd, the man who brought the Sarsen Wolves to heel (via a chalk figure designed by Jedediah). Finally, Ab is captured and imprisoned in a hollow tree, and Corbie vanishes around the time of his son's wedding to calm, beautiful Louise. Jedediah, relieved, does not make much effort to locate his father: he's more than ready for a quiet life. But, after many years, Ab is freed ...

Whitfield's writing is a delight: steady Matthew, neurodiverse John, stoic Jedediah, and John's delightful teenaged sister Molly are vivid characters written with compassion and wit, and the other characters they encounter are splendidly described. These include a giant spidery fae which calls itself No One, and a pig named Left Lop which declaims in alliterative verse like an Anglo-Saxon. (‘You’re willing, wisewoman? You truly want me? Shield and shelter me, shrewdest of shes! Left-Lop would like it,’ it added, rather shyly, ‘if you’ll lend me your love. Just a little.’) And as the complex story is slowly revealed, it becomes obvious that kindness, loyalty and common sense (not to mention John's curiously other perceptions: 'there was something about today that was not quite itself, and John couldn't stop paying attention') will be the Smiths' salvation.

I found some scenes in this novel quite harrowing, but there was enough humour and light-heartedness to leaven the darkness. Kit Whitfield has a lovely line in metaphors (a spider is a 'boiling scrape of legginess') and an eye for an arresting image (the roiling cloud of feathers and eyes that is Ab; a mouth 'fringed with a flexing display of fingers and toes'). The intricacies of familial relationships, feuds as well as unity, are detailed with tolerance and affection, and John's ways of looking at the world are evocative and rather enticing. I hope for more Gyrford books, with their pre-industrial English setting and the constant presence of the 'kind friends'.

2024/046: The First Fossil Hunters — Adrienne Mayor

Something real must have continued to confirm the most remarkable features about griffins: They had four legs but also a beak; they were found in deserts near gold. What kind of physical evidence might have verified their existence for so many people over so many centuries? [p. 34]

Adrienne Mayor, 'a historian of ancient science and a classical folklorist', uses her knowledge of classical literature and of paleontology to argue that the ancient Greeks interpreted fossils that weathered out of the ground as the bones of heroes, giants and monsters. She begins with the suggestion that the myth of the griffin -- a creature with four legs, but also a beak -- is derived from ancient discoveries of intact Protoceratops and Psittacosaurus skeletons, observed by nomads and miners in the steppes of Central Asia. She cites Pliny, Pausanius and Ctesias, all of whom wrote about griffins and described them as 'four-legged birds': there are even mentions of them laying eggs, and nests of eggs have been found in the region.

Her other main thesis is that bones discovered in the Mediterranean area (largely more recent, Pliocene megafauna such as mastodons, cave bears and rhinoceri) were identified either as the remains of giants from the Gigantomachy or as the bones of legendary heroes such as Theseus and Heracles. She notes dryly that 'this vigorous early traffic in celebrity relics helps explain how the term “heroes’ bones” came to mean any large prehistoric skeleton that came to light in later Roman times' [p. 113] and discusses the various bones that were described by classical authors as being displayed at temples, viewed at certain places (which turn out to be key sites for fossils) and revered as remains of a time when men and beasts were larger than their contemporary counterparts.

There are some intriguing references to ancient 'tombs' where gigantic fossil bones were found buried with Bronze Age weaponry or stone tools: perhaps an indication that humans in earlier times also revered the bones, and gave them ritual burial? And I was utterly delighted to discover the story of Tjanefer's sea urchin, a fossil with an inscription in hieroglyphics recording the name of the man who found it. Mayor's hypothesis that the Hesione vase shows a fossil skull weathering out of a cliff is so credible as to seem obvious.

The discussion of whether the Greeks understood, or accepted the possibility of, evolution is interesting, if occasionally dry; the footnotes, appendices and bibliography very thorough. I'd argue that the book's title is something of a misnomer: it's not so much about fossil hunters as fossil interpreters. But I found it fascinating, and I have no regrets about buying it at full, non-fiction-ebook, price.

Fulfils the ‘posture’ rubric of the Annual Non-Fiction Reading Challenge. Mayor discusses the postures in which Psittacosaurus skeletons are found, and how they can be interpreted as gold-guarding griffins.

2024/045: To Shape a Dragon's Breath — Monaquill Blackgoose

I was going to make sure that the Anglish understood that we had never gone anywhere. That despite their best efforts, we were still living here among them on the lands where we’d always lived. I was going to show them just how many of us there were. [loc. 6012]

Anequs is fifteen, two years a woman, when she discovers a dragon egg -- the first her people, the Naquisit, have seen for many years. When the egg hatches, in Masquisit's meeting-house and surrounded by the people of the island, the hatchling Kasaqua chooses Anequs to be its person -- its Nampeshiweisit. (If the unfamiliar names and words in that summary have put you off, this is not the book for you.) Anequs quickly learns that the Anglish colonisers have Rules about dragons: they must be registered, and properly trained, because a dragon's breath can reduce any material into its component atoms. Anequs and Kasaqua have to go to Kuiper’s Academy of Natural Philosophy and Skiltakraft in Varmarden, run by the formidable Frau Kuiper: almost all of the other students are male, and there is only one other Naquisit at the Academy.

This is a world in which history happened rather differently. Christianity doesn't exist (despite which -- and I realise this is a minor vexation -- the year is 1842: on what calendar?) and science and culture seem to have their roots in northern, rather than southern, Europe. The Anglish are not English, but a Viking-flavoured hegemony of colonisers. Their religion features Fyra, Joden, Enki and Rune: their interests are conquest and exploration. (There's a map, but it's not very readable on the Kindle.) The Naquisit -- nicknamed 'nackies', a name that they use among themselves and which doesn't seem to have any negative connotation -- mostly inhabit coastal islands, sharing resources communally. Anequs misses her brother Niquiat, who's working in a fish cannery on the mainland, but he sends back enough money that they can buy kerosene and calico 'to share with our neighbours'. Niqiuat also has some ideas about bringing the Naquisit into the modern world, and Anequs is determined to learn all she can about the Anglish.

This is, apparently, a YA novel (it's shortlisted for the Lodestar Award for Best YA Book), so it's unsurprising that a great deal of the novel deals with Anequs' attempts to fit in at Kuiper's Academy. She befriends a Black maid, Liberty, despite Liberty's protests that it is not the done thing; she also befriends the autistic Sander, and Theod, the other Naquisit at the Academy. She stands up to bullies -- some of whom are teachers -- and studies hard, and even manages to get along with her snobbish roommate Marta. She forms not one but two romantic relationships (bisexual and polyamorous!). And she learns skiltakraft, which is basically chemistry, and finds ways to connect it to her own experience.

I would have liked more of Kasaqua, especially her development and personality: she's no Temeraire. I did occasionally find Anequs a bit humourless, though one can hardly blame her in such an atmosphere of racism, social unrest and prejudice. But I enjoyed this alternate history a great deal, and I'm very much looking forward to the next in the series.

Fulfils the ‘featuring indigenous culture’ rubric of the 52 books in 2024 challenge.

Fulfils the ‘a fantasy by a non-Caucasian author’ rubric of the Something Bookish Reading Challenge.

2024/044: All the White Spaces — Ally Wilkes

...my brothers would never see Antarctica. Never know a clear day on the South Atlantic, or the jewelled ice of the floes. Their dreams had come to nothing, but I was the last Morgan sibling, and I knew where I’d find them. I knew where I had to go. [p. 8]

Jonathan Morgan stows away on the Fortitude to join the (fictional) 1920 British Coats Land Expedition, bound for Antarctica. Morgan's elder brothers Rufus and Francis both died in the Great War, before they could join explorer James Randall's expedition: Jonathan is still young enough to believe in heroism and desperate to prove himself as much of a man as his brothers. He is helped by Harry Cooper, an old friend of the family, but is of course discovered, some days into the voyage south. Expedition leader James 'Australis' Randall decides to let him stay, and Jonathan (having proved his worth by saving a crew member from going overboard) shares the peril of the crew as disaster strikes and they're stranded on the ice, with the southern winter closing in. The men are whispering about ghosts, about half-heard familiar voices, about vivid hallucinations of the War. And Jonathan begins to believe that he's glimpsed the ghost of his brother Francis.

This is an alternate history: instead of Shackleton's heroic efforts to save the Endurance expedition, Wilkes gives us Randall, damaged and flawed, unwilling to admit that he could ever make the wrong call when it comes to polar exploration. All the White Spaces explores ideas of masculinity: Randall, bluff and tough; Tarlington, the expedition's scientist, a former conscientious objector who's ostracised by the rest of the crew; Harry Cooper, who continually behaves as though Jonathan is a girl disguised as a boy; and Jonathan himself, self-made into the man he always knew he was, desperate to belong to 'the place I’d won by the fire, in that circle of men'.

Wilkes writes beautifully of Antarctica's stark beauty ('Tiny cracks marbled the furthest ice, thin and dark as the veins on an old woman’s hand. Everything else was glittering, sharp—dead white.') and imbues the crackling aurora australis, flickering red and green overhead, with dread. The aurora seems to herald visitations by something that Jonathan calls 'the nightwatchman'; blizzards come out of nowhere; a previous, German, expedition has vanished without trace. If All the White Spaces was a simple horror novel, it would be an accomplished example of its kind. The interactions between Jonathan, Cooper, Tarlington and Randall add a dimension that I found compelling and fascinating. Looking forward to reading Wilkes' second novel, Where the Dead Wait, which seems to riff off the Franklin expedition...

"We’ve dropped down a ... hole in the cloth of the world. Been sucked into one of the white spaces on the map.”

Fulfils the ‘grieving characters’ rubric of the 52 books in 2024 challenge: Jonathan and Harry are grieving the Morgan brothers, Randall is grieving his son, many of the crew have lost friends and relations to the War.