Tag: Susanna Clarke

Review – The Wood at Midwinter

Posted December 10, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

The Wood at Midwinter

by Susanna Clarke

Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 64
Rating: two-stars

Synopsis:
‘A church is a sort of wood. A wood is a sort of church. They’re the same thing really.’

Nineteen-year-old Merowdis Scot is an unusual girl. She can talk to animals and trees—and she is only ever happy when she is walking in the woods.

One snowy afternoon, out with her dogs and Apple the pig, Merowdis encounters a blackbird and a fox. As darkness falls, a strange figure enters in their midst—and the path of her life is changed forever.

Featuring gorgeous illustrations truly worthy of the magic of this story and an afterword by Susanna Clarke explaining how she came to write it, this is a mesmerizing, must-have addition to any fantasy reader's bookshelf.

In the afterword to The Wood at Midwinter, Susanna Clarke mentions that she sees this as part of the world of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, and I agree that it probably would have made a fun footnote there. And as a physical volume it’s quite attractive, with a pretty cover, lovely illustrations, etc.

However, there’s basically nothing here but heavily Christian vibes and some pretty descriptions of the wood in winter. The main character, Merowdis, is a saint (because we’re told that everybody says so), and in this story she gets granted a vision of her future, which is to raise a bear-cub as her own. She’s positioned as a sort of Virgin Mary type figure, but to redeem the relationship between humans and animals, and… mostly it just comes across as very churchy, and mostly just vibes.

It’s still an attractive little volume, but I wasn’t in love with the story (inasfar as there was any). I found the afterword, in which she discusses her writing process and some of her influences, almost more interesting than the story!

Rating: 2/5

Tags: book reviews, books, SF/F, Susanna Clarke

Review – Piranesi

Posted September 29, 2020 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Piranesi, Susanna Clarke

I didn’t read anything about Piranesi before starting it, though I was vaguely aware of some reviews and reactions from friends. I’m one of the people who found Clarke’s previous novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, really fascinating — for all that it’s 1,000+ pages long, I ate it up in great big chunks. I wondered if the magic could be repeated, especially in a novel as slim as Piranesi. I’d say it has, and even that I like the worldbuilding of Piranesi even more.

That said, if you didn’t like Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, there’s a chance Piranesi will be more for you: though I said the magic is repeated, I mean the magical captivating quality that had me riveted to Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. Piranesi is rather different in tone and scope, at a quarter of the length. For one thing, it has a relatively cramped cast, made up essentially of four characters, one of whom only appears once, and one of whom doesn’t appear until quite late on. The other people mentioned are all dead, and only tangentially important. Well, unless you consider the House a fifth character.

The House is the most fascinating thing, and I could happily have spent at least another fifty pages visiting the Statues, travelling to far-off Vestibules, and watching the Tides. The whole idea of it, this strange house with the sea in the lower levels and thousands of rooms filled with mysterious Statues — argh, I really loved that part! Piranesi himself (it’s the name used for one of the characters, as well as the title) is rather delightful in his innocent inquiry and his love of the house.

I’m trying not to be spoilery, but this bit talks about the ending: without saying too much about what exactly happens, I found the ending rather sad, because of the change to Piranesi. There was such joy in his exploration of the House, it was really awful to think of that joy being shattered by his discovery of his past. In a way he keeps it, but in another way everything has changed. It makes sense as an ending, and the whole book comes together pretty well… but ouch.

Overall, though, I loved it — and just as with Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, I practically inhaled it.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, SF/F, Susanna Clarke

Top Ten Tuesday: Favourite Book Quotes

Posted September 29, 2020 by Nicky in General / 14 Comments

This week’s theme via That Artsy Reader Girl is “favourite book quotes” — which I’m pretty sure I’ve done before. So instead, I’ll put a tiny spin on it and pick out my favourite quotes from the last ten books I’ve read. I just skipped ones which aren’t very quotable… or which didn’t have Goodreads quotes yet, if I couldn’t immediately think of something.

Piranesi, by Susanna Clarke. “Perhaps that is what it is like being with other people. Perhaps even people you like and admire immensely can make you see the world in ways you would rather not.”
Invisible Women, by Caroline Criado-Perez. “It’s not always easy to convince someone a need exists, if they don’t have that need themselves.”
The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, by Dorothy L. Sayers. “Books… are like lobster shells, we surround ourselves with ’em, then we grow out of ’em and leave ’em behind, as evidence of our earlier stages of development.”
Utopia for Realists, by Rutger Brenman. “You can’t pull yourself up by your bootstraps if you have no boots.”
Nine Coaches Waiting, by Mary Stewart. “There was one thing that stood like stone among the music and moonfroth of the evening’s gaieties. It was stupid, it was terrifying, it was wonderful, but it had happened and I could do nothing about it. For better or worse, I was head over ears in love.”
Driftwood, by Marie Brennan. “Paggarat was less doomed than they wagered, not because of how long it lasted but because of how it went out. Because of Aun and Esr, smiling at each other until the end of the world.”
The Grace of Kings, by Ken Liu. “Do you see how much power you have when you act without fear?”
The Priory of the Orange Tree, by Samantha Shannon. “I do not sleep because I am not only afraid of the monsters at my door, but also of the monsters my own mind can conjure. The ones that live within.”
The Last Smile in Sunder City, by Luke Arnold. “I like books. They’re quiet, dignified and absolute. A man might falter but his words, once written, will hold.”
The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, by Becky Chamber. “We cannot blame ourselves for the wars our parents start. Sometimes the very best thing we can do is walk away.”