Revelator (Gregory)

[cahn]

4/5 - A lush, gorgeously written folk-horror book written in two time periods (in alternating chapters) which follow Stella, the main character. The first time period is the 1930's, where Stella is a child being left with her grandmother Motty, and she gradually becomes more and more immersed in her family's cult of the God of the Mountain. The second time period is Stella in the 50's or 60's, as a grown woman who has left her family behind, after what appear to be some traumatic experiences, and is now a successful professional bootlegger.

This is one of those books where I feel like I don't want to say any more about it for fear of ruining the book. It is a horror book, so be warned that there's some rather disturbing imagery, but in the end I felt it all came across less as horrific than as elegiac, perhaps, or tragic. I also thought Gregory did a masterful job of pushing through just enough information that I was able to see about half the plot coming (the half that he intended me to see), and had no idea about the other half, which I just really really admire. And the number of things that didn't quite make sense that made sense after I read the whole book was... really neat.

I also really adored Gregory's construction of the cult of the God of the Mountain, the way that the additional "scriptures" are understood, and how the members of it blithely consider everything they do as totally consistent with mainstream Christianity (it is... not really consistent with mainstream Christianity). scioscribe made a comment on rachelmanija's post (scroll down the tag, I wanted to give it to you without spoilers) about how it was sort of an amendment/addition to Christianity, and I realized that a lot of what felt so real to me is that it rang very true to my experience with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. (Members of my church will insist to you until the cows come home that they are absolutely Christians, which is true in the sense that we believe in Christ and the Bible [as far as it is translated correctly], but there's um a lot... more there, and a lot of assertions that it all makes total sense and is all totally Biblically/religiously justified, with a similar feel to Gregory's characters' assertions.) I was utterly unsurprised, looking up Gregory's bio, that he had lived in SLC for a while.

The ending is ambiguous, but could be read as hopeful depending on your viewpoint. (I read it as hopeful). But I really want to know what happens next now!!

Gosh, this was such a good book!

Comments

[cenozoicsynapsid]

Haha, no worries about the Abner stories. They're short and an interesting read in some ways, even if they're not actually all that good.

I never had the John the Balladeer stories in a bound book. https://www.freesfonline.net/authors/Manly%20Wade_Wellman.html has a whole lot of them. If you've never read one, try "Nine Yards of Other Cloth", which has a twist ending I think you'll enjoy.

I've always been interested in religion, and I think I had a Mark Twain phase as well--- Twain tears into the Book of Mormon terribly in "Roughing It", which might have made me wonder if it was the way he said it was. ("The book is a curiosity to me, it is such a pretentious affair, and yet so “slow,” so sleepy; such an insipid mess of inspiration. It is chloroform in print. If Joseph Smith composed this book, the act was a miracle—keeping awake while he did it was, at any rate.") Nowadays, I know some current and some former LDS people quite well and have learned a bit more about church doctrines and folklore than I ever thought I would know. One thing is that I was pronouncing all the names wrong. Knowing some Hebrew and some Latin, I had some natural guesses about the stress and vowel sounds. I think I sat down and laughed for five minutes straight the first time I heard a Mormon say "Urim and Thummim" out loud.

[cahn]

Ahhhh thank you, I will look at that!

Hmm, perhaps I shouldn't ask you if you agree with Twain ;)

One thing is that I was pronouncing all the names wrong. Knowing some Hebrew and some Latin, I had some natural guesses about the stress and vowel sounds. I think I sat down and laughed for five minutes straight the first time I heard a Mormon say "Urim and Thummim" out loud.

*blinks*
On the other side of this, it had never occurred to me before today that of course there is another way to pronounce "Urim and Thummim," since it was a term taken from the Hebrew Bible! Oh wow. I know something about (choir) Latin pronunciation but only a very very little about Hebrew pronunciation, but even that was enough that I had a pretty good guess, even before I looked it up on google, why you were laughing so hard.