This Spring has been about re-reading some old favourites. I ended March on ‘Native Tongue’, by Suzette Haden Elgin. It’s long been one of my favourite books. I started April with a reread of the sequel, ‘The Judas Rose.’ This is a complicated book with many points of view, continuing the story of Nazareth Chornyak, a linguist and quiet revolutionary. This was a re-read, and an enjoyable one, although the science behind the colonisation of worlds seems vague compared to the huge detail given to the linguistics that are the backbone of this series. Understandable, but a little jarring nonetheless.
It still surprises me that I’m finding previously unknown sequels to much loved books. This third book in the Native Tongue series has been out there for over thirty years, and I only found out about it relatively recently. A re-read of the first two books prompted me to buy book 3.
It surprised me, although the first two books were light on science and heavy on the linguistics, this book took a giant leap out of the realm of any science that I’m comfortable with, and landed squarely in the land of weird, where humans can sustain themselves with song and without any need for physical food. The women of the Lines find themselves responsible for spreading this knowledge through a scattered humanity that have been abandoned by the Aliens of the first two books. Again, there are many jumps in point of view, and the story stretches across centuries of history, encompassing a period of Earth history where male humans almost become extinct. This feels more like a collection of novellas than an actual novel, but it is held together by the philosophy of Nazareth Chornyak, which runs throughout the book.
The next read was a library book. ‘The Women of Troy’ by Pat Barker. I haven’t read ‘Silence of the Girls’ yet, but am familiar enough with the characters and the story that it didn’t hurt. This is the continuing tale of Briseis, a prize of war and widow of Achilles, who is pregnant with his child and under the protection of her new husband. The book follows her attempts to protect and save the Trojan women who are prisoners and slaves of the Greek army that are trapped near Troy by unfavourable winds. Entwined with their story is the tale of Pyrrhus, the teenage son of Achilles, who is clumsily finding his way in the world, hindered somewhat by his lack of social skills and his reputation as a killer of babies, women and old men. In the background, the kings and heroes of legend go about their business …
I’ve been saving N K Jemisin’s ‘Great Cities’ books until the third book in the trilogy came out, but recently found out that she decided that it would be a duology. All that time, and these lovely books have been sitting patiently on the shelf … Anyway, time to tuck in to ‘The City We Became’. This is a love song to New York, in all its messy glory. True love sees all, and accepts all, and this book loves the grit and grind and endless variety of the city. Fair warning, I’ve only spent two or three days in New York, and by the time it came to leave, I would have happily bought a ‘I hate NY’ t shirt. I don’t do hot, I certainly don’t do humid, and I’m not very good with noisy. If it hadn’t been my husband’s idea of a dream holiday to celebrate a big birthday, I wouldn’t have been there. But still, Jemisin’s book has drawn me in, and helped me to see the charm of the place. So, the plot … New York is a baby city, in the throes of being born, but there’s an Enemy out there that wants to kill the emerging city before it comes into its strength. To be born, it needs a human avatar to guide and protect it. Strike that, it needs six human avatars, one for each borough, and one for the city itself. This is the tale of those avatars, and the city they need to become. Great characters, a nice sideways plot, and worldbuilding that drew me into the book. A little slow in places maybe, but I don’t need every book to get where it’s going at a galloping pace.
And so to Book 2 of ‘Great Cities’. I loved ‘The World We Make’. Possibly even more than I loved book 1. I enjoyed the age diverse cast of characters, it’s good to see older women kicking alien multiverse ass. I enjoyed the shy courtship of NYC and Manhattan, I loved the slow realisation of SI that she’s a bad guy … and her refusal to give up on her monstrous friend. I COULD put it down, but only on the understanding that I’d be picking it up again very soon.
And so, having indulged myself with some of the very best sf of the last fifty years, I went to the library to find something that would be good for my soul. I couldn’t find any sf / fantasy or horror by women, so I decided to improve my mind and finally get round to reading Virginia Woolf’s ‘Mrs Dalloway’. It’s a book that I’ve always meant to read, and time is ticking, so … ‘Mrs Dalloway’ is coming up to it’s century birthday … a couple of weeks from now. I didn’t realise this when I picked it up from the library, but I guess there’ll be some love for this book over the next month or so. I went in blind, I had no idea what the book was about. The nearest comparison my mind could come up with was Adam Roberts, whose books inspire a similar delirious state. You want to know what it’s about? It’s literally head hopping. You know, that thing that a writer should never do. The baseline is a day in the life of Mrs Dalloway, and is set in the book’s ‘present day’ of the early 1920s. The narrative moves via the internal thoughts and emotions of a sprawling cast of vaguely connected characters, as Mrs Dalloway prepares for a party that evening. It is a brilliant book. I closed it with exactly the same thought that I had after reading Shirley Jackson’s ‘We Have Always Lived In The Castle’ – WHY DID NOBODY MAKE ME READ THIS BOOK FORTY YEARS AGO?
My final book for April was Linda Sherlock’s ‘Shampoo and Set’. I’ve known Linda for a few years now, I met her at a writing group when she was first playing with the idea of writing a book about her mother’s long, long career as a hairdresser. The book came out four years ago, and I finally got my hands on a signed copy when Linda was reading at an event at Chorley Theatre. This is a story about a family, a place, a business. Linda’s mother, Margaret, worked hard to get an apprenticeship as a hairdresser in mid 20th century Ireland. Once trained, she moved to Chorley in Lancashire, married, set up shop as a hairdresser, and then spent the next seventy or so years cutting, setting, perming and colouring hair, eventually becoming something of a local celebrity. The book is told through Linda’s eyes, and we learn a lot about both Linda and Margaret, with honourable mentions to Margaret’s husband and her son. It’s an interesting look behind the scenes at the long career of a determined and hard working businesswoman.
So, that was April, two library books, two unread books from the shelves, two brand new books, and one re-read. Not bad stats. I suspect that May will be all re-reads, because this month I’m REALLY going to indulge myself. Guess which series I’m planning to enjoy all over again?