Hild (Griffith)
Mar. 25th, 2014 09:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnYeah, this book is that good that I just wanted to TALK about it!
5/5. I adored this book. It basically hit all my buttons it possibly could: seventh-century Britain; a carefully researched milieu that felt real; prose that felt real (sorry, Guy Gavriel Kay, I like your books but I cannot take your prose seriously); politics and more politics; three-dimensional characters, all of whom are political beings and none of whom are one-dimensional heroes or villains; consideration of the webs of power with both women and men; a powerful woman protagonist whose power is intertwined and rooted in being female while the fact that she is still in primarily a man's world is not ignored; women friendships; friendships (of all gender-flavors, whee!) complicated by sex and friendships explicitly not complicated by sex; thoughtfulness about religion and how it is complicated by power; a way of looking at the world that shifted from the old religion to Christianity that rang true to me (in particular, the way that Hild thinks is not at all the way that Paulinus, for example, thinks); the twisting relationship between observation/deduction and prophecy/religion; even a number of shiny things! So, you know.
Somehow I got the impression Hild was a YA book, probably because Hild is fairly young in this book (it starts when she's 3 and ends when she's... a late teen?)... It is not a YA book. At all. Neither in scope, nor in what the narrative demands from the reader in terms of engagement and detail, nor in themes (either in actual plot events -- e.g., the part where Hild is in charge of butchering bandits -- or in complexity).
It reminds me a little of C.J. Cherryh, in that it's very careful and dense and political, and if you try to read it without paying careful attention you'll miss something. A lot of things. I'm pretty sure I missed a lot of things, just because sometimes I read chapters when I was tired or cranky, given the number of things I realized I'd missed on a second reread of various chapters. It's rounder than Cherryh, though. (What do I mean by that? I don't know. But there are books/authors I categorize in my head as feeling angular -- John M. Ford comes to mind; Cherryh as well -- and others I categorize as rounder. And this is one of the rounder ones.)
It also reminds me of Hilary Mantel or A.S. Byatt, bearing in mind I have read exactly two chapters of Wolf Hall. But now I'm going to have to read it. Because I have kept saying I didn't want to start Wolf Hall until the last book came out. Except that now that I've read Hild I can't imagine not having read it, or waiting to read it until the last book in the trilogy comes out. It's that kind of book.
There is a concept of gemaecce, a formal lifelong platonic female bond, that is an important cultural/character part of the novel. (Hild's gemaecca, Begu, turns out to be awesome. I didn't like her that much when she was introduced, but by the end of the book I had completely fallen for her.) I had bought into gemaecce being a Thing in real life, butthistleingrey informs me that it is not: in particular, she noted that although the word is real and attested in OE, it usually means (hetero) spouse. (Thanks thistleingrey!) Which, as I replied, reminds me of reading A Wind in the Door and being convinced that farandolae were a totally real part of science. (When I found out they weren't, I also stopped believing in mitochondria. Which meant I was really confused when I took biology in high school.) Please, authors, when you just make stuff up, especially when it's surrounded by things you aren't making up, can we have author's notes where you make this a little clearer? In any case, I love and adore the concept of gemaecce and how it plays into the book, even if it's something that was made up.
There's a lot of background that gets dropped in. Textiles, for example, are a big thing, as one might expect from a book that examines the relations between women and power. I found myself wishing I knew a lot more about weaving and other textile arts. It's amazing to me that there was so much background.
In my own area of expertise (shiny things!) I was mostly very pleased (lost wax casting! Gold and silver working! Garnets! Carnelians!) but had one extremely minor quibble: at one point the narrative refers to a "green garnet." Green garnets do exist, and are gorgeous and I love them (and, uh, own a couple), but I am rather dubious a) that they would have been present in 7th-C Britain (as they come from Russia and, more recently, primarily from Africa); and b) that a green stone of any sort (emerald? I believe green tourmaline is mostly from Africa and South America, so would not have been a thing) would have been referred to as garnet -- I assume she is most likely to be referring, linguistically, to the Latin carbuncle (though maybe I'm wrong about that?), which specifically refers to a red (glowing-coal-like) stone. (Same with the actual word garnet, although as that comes from French I'm assuming it wasn't a word at the time. Today's green garnets are classified thus because of their chemistry.) So, you know. Reader wade in at own risk, I guess. Though if that's the biggest problem I have with your book, that's really... a point in your favor.
Warning for period-era violence, period-era death (in war, childbirth, and otherwise), and incest (between half-siblings).
Anyway. It's the kind of thing that I would super-recommend to many people, and would not recommend at all to others. I don't think my sister, for example, would like it at all (she doesn't really go in for Cherryh or Byatt).
I need to go back and read Bede again!
5/5. I adored this book. It basically hit all my buttons it possibly could: seventh-century Britain; a carefully researched milieu that felt real; prose that felt real (sorry, Guy Gavriel Kay, I like your books but I cannot take your prose seriously); politics and more politics; three-dimensional characters, all of whom are political beings and none of whom are one-dimensional heroes or villains; consideration of the webs of power with both women and men; a powerful woman protagonist whose power is intertwined and rooted in being female while the fact that she is still in primarily a man's world is not ignored; women friendships; friendships (of all gender-flavors, whee!) complicated by sex and friendships explicitly not complicated by sex; thoughtfulness about religion and how it is complicated by power; a way of looking at the world that shifted from the old religion to Christianity that rang true to me (in particular, the way that Hild thinks is not at all the way that Paulinus, for example, thinks); the twisting relationship between observation/deduction and prophecy/religion; even a number of shiny things! So, you know.
Somehow I got the impression Hild was a YA book, probably because Hild is fairly young in this book (it starts when she's 3 and ends when she's... a late teen?)... It is not a YA book. At all. Neither in scope, nor in what the narrative demands from the reader in terms of engagement and detail, nor in themes (either in actual plot events -- e.g., the part where Hild is in charge of butchering bandits -- or in complexity).
It reminds me a little of C.J. Cherryh, in that it's very careful and dense and political, and if you try to read it without paying careful attention you'll miss something. A lot of things. I'm pretty sure I missed a lot of things, just because sometimes I read chapters when I was tired or cranky, given the number of things I realized I'd missed on a second reread of various chapters. It's rounder than Cherryh, though. (What do I mean by that? I don't know. But there are books/authors I categorize in my head as feeling angular -- John M. Ford comes to mind; Cherryh as well -- and others I categorize as rounder. And this is one of the rounder ones.)
It also reminds me of Hilary Mantel or A.S. Byatt, bearing in mind I have read exactly two chapters of Wolf Hall. But now I'm going to have to read it. Because I have kept saying I didn't want to start Wolf Hall until the last book came out. Except that now that I've read Hild I can't imagine not having read it, or waiting to read it until the last book in the trilogy comes out. It's that kind of book.
There is a concept of gemaecce, a formal lifelong platonic female bond, that is an important cultural/character part of the novel. (Hild's gemaecca, Begu, turns out to be awesome. I didn't like her that much when she was introduced, but by the end of the book I had completely fallen for her.) I had bought into gemaecce being a Thing in real life, but
thistleingrey informs me that it is not: in particular, she noted that although the word is real and attested in OE, it usually means (hetero) spouse. (Thanks thistleingrey!) Which, as I replied, reminds me of reading A Wind in the Door and being convinced that farandolae were a totally real part of science. (When I found out they weren't, I also stopped believing in mitochondria. Which meant I was really confused when I took biology in high school.) Please, authors, when you just make stuff up, especially when it's surrounded by things you aren't making up, can we have author's notes where you make this a little clearer? In any case, I love and adore the concept of gemaecce and how it plays into the book, even if it's something that was made up.There's a lot of background that gets dropped in. Textiles, for example, are a big thing, as one might expect from a book that examines the relations between women and power. I found myself wishing I knew a lot more about weaving and other textile arts. It's amazing to me that there was so much background.
In my own area of expertise (shiny things!) I was mostly very pleased (lost wax casting! Gold and silver working! Garnets! Carnelians!) but had one extremely minor quibble: at one point the narrative refers to a "green garnet." Green garnets do exist, and are gorgeous and I love them (and, uh, own a couple), but I am rather dubious a) that they would have been present in 7th-C Britain (as they come from Russia and, more recently, primarily from Africa); and b) that a green stone of any sort (emerald? I believe green tourmaline is mostly from Africa and South America, so would not have been a thing) would have been referred to as garnet -- I assume she is most likely to be referring, linguistically, to the Latin carbuncle (though maybe I'm wrong about that?), which specifically refers to a red (glowing-coal-like) stone. (Same with the actual word garnet, although as that comes from French I'm assuming it wasn't a word at the time. Today's green garnets are classified thus because of their chemistry.) So, you know. Reader wade in at own risk, I guess. Though if that's the biggest problem I have with your book, that's really... a point in your favor.
Warning for period-era violence, period-era death (in war, childbirth, and otherwise), and incest (between half-siblings).
Anyway. It's the kind of thing that I would super-recommend to many people, and would not recommend at all to others. I don't think my sister, for example, would like it at all (she doesn't really go in for Cherryh or Byatt).
I need to go back and read Bede again!
