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Reading Wednesday
Mar. 19th, 2025 07:28 am Just finished: May Our Joy Endure by Kev Lambert. I loved this. Maybe less close to my heart than Querelle de Robervale, but no less brilliant and ambitious. I have a lot of Big Thoughts that I'm still sorting out about it, so y'all should read it and discuss it.
One of the main things I appreciated about it was its portrayal of violence (something also done brilliantly, but radically different, in Querelle.) Whose suffering you feel, whose you do not. It's always just slightly out of view, oblique; Céline causes misery and destruction, not intentionally—in fact, her intent is quite the opposite—but as an engine of a greater system, and that suffering is hidden until it bubbles up. A young woman screams at her in the street, but because of who she is, their relative positions, she's unable to understand why she's being screamed at. It's only when the violence comes home, literally, that she's forced into confronting the part she plays.
There are two parts near the end that stick with me involving death; one of an aquarium full of exotic fish, the other of flowers. The first is unintentional, set in motion inadvertently by multiple characters; the second plays with the idea of intent and responsibility. Both hit like a gut punch, but do so to make you aware of what is pictured and not pictured on the page. Humans suffer greatly, but you barely see it; instead, you mourn for fish. It's so masterfully done.
Currently reading: Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich. This is beautiful, a sprawling family saga with fraught, complicated relationships shown over time. There's quite a lot of residential school horror here, unsurprisingly; the contrast between a child forced to go and a child hidden from the authorities, and who these two people become as adults. The voices are just so good; it's all in first-person, from different characters, and you can hear them speaking.
Demon Engine by Marten Norr. Ha ha it's another ARC, you don't get to read it yet and I do. :) This is trans seapunk fantasy—think The Scar by China Miéville, to which it owes a substantial part of its DNA. The world is flooded and people live on seasteads or ships, travelling over flooded cities. They employ dredgers, who can summon demons from the ocean/a parallel dimension/who knows to do their bidding, and cleavers, who can bind the demons to objects or, as we quickly see, people. Cleavers, however, tend to also attract ghosts, known as remora, and are generally considered even more disreputable than the disreputable characters you normally find at sea. A Navy ship, the Steadfast, is sent to find the oldest demon, known as the Harbinger, and return it to the Monarch. To do this, they enlist Sally, a cleaver haunted by the 200 or so remora of the people he killed in a daring prison break. If you know me, this is obviously every single one of my special interests and it's extremely good.
One of the main things I appreciated about it was its portrayal of violence (something also done brilliantly, but radically different, in Querelle.) Whose suffering you feel, whose you do not. It's always just slightly out of view, oblique; Céline causes misery and destruction, not intentionally—in fact, her intent is quite the opposite—but as an engine of a greater system, and that suffering is hidden until it bubbles up. A young woman screams at her in the street, but because of who she is, their relative positions, she's unable to understand why she's being screamed at. It's only when the violence comes home, literally, that she's forced into confronting the part she plays.
There are two parts near the end that stick with me involving death; one of an aquarium full of exotic fish, the other of flowers. The first is unintentional, set in motion inadvertently by multiple characters; the second plays with the idea of intent and responsibility. Both hit like a gut punch, but do so to make you aware of what is pictured and not pictured on the page. Humans suffer greatly, but you barely see it; instead, you mourn for fish. It's so masterfully done.
Currently reading: Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich. This is beautiful, a sprawling family saga with fraught, complicated relationships shown over time. There's quite a lot of residential school horror here, unsurprisingly; the contrast between a child forced to go and a child hidden from the authorities, and who these two people become as adults. The voices are just so good; it's all in first-person, from different characters, and you can hear them speaking.
Demon Engine by Marten Norr. Ha ha it's another ARC, you don't get to read it yet and I do. :) This is trans seapunk fantasy—think The Scar by China Miéville, to which it owes a substantial part of its DNA. The world is flooded and people live on seasteads or ships, travelling over flooded cities. They employ dredgers, who can summon demons from the ocean/a parallel dimension/who knows to do their bidding, and cleavers, who can bind the demons to objects or, as we quickly see, people. Cleavers, however, tend to also attract ghosts, known as remora, and are generally considered even more disreputable than the disreputable characters you normally find at sea. A Navy ship, the Steadfast, is sent to find the oldest demon, known as the Harbinger, and return it to the Monarch. To do this, they enlist Sally, a cleaver haunted by the 200 or so remora of the people he killed in a daring prison break. If you know me, this is obviously every single one of my special interests and it's extremely good.
