(no subject)

I have a little insomnia. Too many storms in too rapid succession have left me vapid but unable to sleep. I decided to stop my mind's enthusiastic endeavour (it was working very hard to make me think I'm working too hard and have too much to do, neither of which are true) by writing my 2012 projects (the ones remaining, anyhow) on a piece of butcher's paper and sticking them to my door. That was magic.

Except then I started thinking about the projects. So now I'm doing a little bit of reading for a couple of the nearer deadlines. That should do the trick. Wear the brain out, so it can think no longer. Read about the Conte du Graal until quest visions take over my mind and lure it into dreams. It's either that or phone a friend, and I can't think that any friend would be happy with a phonecall at this hour.

(no subject)

Right now, I'm thinking about textual transmission in the Middle Ages.

It used to be something I thought about a lot, but recently, other issues have displaced it. This gave me a space to think about modern technology and its effects on our textual transmission. I'm forever coming across people (including writers, oddly) who haven't read this or that book, but who know about it from a documentary or from youtube or from someone's blog or art and who are delighted to use that knowledge as evidence of learning.

We have always transmitted information about what we read. Talking about books or the characters and stories in books is solid cultural currency. We're doing it differently, now, though, and some of the insights given to me by my grail book (a review of which will appear on BiblioBuffet in due course) are worth considering for how they apply to our changing cultural currency.

I guess what I'm saying is that the balance is shifting between the written and the non-written, between the written-on-paper and the written-on-web, between the heard and the seen. This shift has been happening for a while. In fact, it is what drove me to be a Medievalist in the first place. I wanted to see it in a distant culture in order to understand it in my own.

Angry Robot Time - Chuck Wendig, Blackbirds

I wanted to love Chuck Wendig's Blackbirds so very much. It's a dark novel about a woman who can see how people are going to die and who does not handle that knowledge very gracefully. Her life travels from tough to impossible to tough to impossible, in a dizzying seesaw. This novel is not at the dark end of Angry Robot books: it's at the very dark end.

The book has a great deal going for it. Although the beginning is a tad self-consciously literary, once it gets going the writing is careful and angry and unhappy. The narrative has a good plot arc and much tension of all the right kinds and is, as all the other reviewers say, an excellent book and the tale is well-told and the central character has a strong voice and a strong life. The trouble is that I don't like it. All of its good qualities register as technical reasons why I should like it, but I found it was hard to stay with and uncomfortable to read.

I suspect that the problem is with the narrative voice. It's told from the point of view of Miriam. She's a woman. I say that with doubt, because her language and her thought patterns were too often alien to me. The syntax doesn't feel right. So many metaphors and similes are car metaphors and similes, or the wrong body parts. For much of the novel I felt as if I was reading a man's narrative* in a woman's body and shaped around a woman's life. A whole heap of women may well use that syntax and hold that world view. They're not the women I tend to hang around with, and who reinforce my own tendency to focus on emotions just so and look at streets in a particular way, but all that reflects is the limits of my life. This is why I'm pretty sure my dislike of the book is personal and has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the novel itself. Or with Chuck Wendig's writing.

Not all books are for all readers and this one was not for me. Miriam's voice didn't convince me that she wasn't male - what an odd reason to distrust a novel. The trouble is, though, that a reading experience is based on that trust. And there are no female characters with voices I recognise, to demonstrate to me that this was intentional, that Miriam is just someone who I haven't met yet. All the women are sharp in that same way. It's not a problem for the minor characters, but it means that Blackbirds and I didn't establish a good relationship.

I therefore suggest (very strongly) that you entirely ignore my review and read the first chapter and make your own decision. If you like the voice, then the book's a ripper. Brilliant, even. If you don't, then we shall ponder the matter together over drinks.

Also, even if you don't want to try the book (which you should - my reaction to it was very strongly personal and the whole way through I could see reasons why I ought to love it) you should look at the cover. I adore that cover. I want to steal it for my own and write a novel around it. Or I want the cover art for my wall.




*Just to be fair, I know many men who do not think in these terms. I only know a few who do, to be honest. It's just that I don't know any women who think like this. Or, if I do, they hide it from me (in which case, what is it about me?). And it's so far from my own way of seeing the world that I need to be convinced. And I wasn't. It might all be because of who I know and where I come from, though. Which is why I keep saying it's personal.


PS I forgot to give you the all-important link to the book, with that amazing cover and the release dates. Sorry! http://angryrobotbooks.com/our-authors/chuck-wendig/blackbirds-chuck-wendig/