Review: Harriet Hume: A London Fantasy, by Rebecca West

Review: Harriet Hume: A London Fantasy, by Rebecca West

a review by Rich Horton

Harriet Hume was Rebecca West's third novel (of seven published in her lifetime.) It's a deliriously beautiful book, as strange as almost anything I've read, on one hand a character study of a corrupt man and an innocent woman, but not really like that at all. It seems to stand out of time -- it was published in 1929 and its action spans a couple of decades that aren't easily placed in our history. Its lovely prose also stands out of time in a sense. It is realistic in telling but fantastical as well, with mind-reading and ghosts and imaginary countries; and an almost phantasmagorical portrayal of London, and an oddly transcendent ending. It's a wonderful and mysterious book, and not for everyone, as a look at what reviews one can find will confirm. But I loved it.

Rebecca West was the pseudonym used by Cecily Isabel Fairfield for her professional life -- which is to say pretty much her entire life. She was an actor (she took the name "Rebecca West" from the heroine of Henrik Ibsen's play Rosmersholm), a journalist, novelist, travel writer, political activist. She was knighted ("damed"?) in 1959, and as far as I can tell, though technically she was Dame Cecily Fairfield she was called Dame Rebecca West. She was born in London in 1892, and died there in 1983. 

Her father was an Anglo-Irishman who had spent time in Australia and the US (he served as a stretcher bearer in the Confederate Army.) He was a respected journalist, but apparently terrible with money, and he abandoned his wife and three daughters in 1900, and died in 1906. Her mother (an accomplished pianist) moved with Cecily and her two elder sisters to Edinburgh. It was apparently a stimulating intellectual and political environment to grow up in. Her eldest sister became a doctor and barrister, and a niece was also a writer. Cecily and her sister Lettie were part of the women's suffrage movement. Cecily, as Rebecca West by then, became a journalist and literary critic (despite quitting school at age 15). She also entered into an affair with H. G. Wells (despite publishing a negative review of one of his novels) which lasted a decade and produced her only child, Anthony West. She published her first novel in 1918, and was married to Henry Andrews from 1930 until his death in 1968. She was very much a woman of the left, but also a staunch anti-Communist (a political combination I respect greatly.) She wrote several novels and many works of non-fiction, and is now best known for her massive study of Yugoslavia, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. 

My copy of the novel is from The Dial Press in 1982, a US reprint of the 1980 Virago edition. (The Dial Press, for a time, reprinted a selection of the Virago Modern Classics for the US audience.) The book was first published by Hutchinson in the UK in 1929, and by Doubleday, Doran in the US that same year. Curiously, the US edition was originally subtitled "A London Phantasy". 

Harriet Hume opens with Harriet and her lover Arnold Condorex running down the stairs from her bedroom (where they had been making love) into the garden of Blennerhassett House, where Harriet has a couple of rooms. Harriet discovers that she can read Arnold's thoughts, first as he imagines the names of their future children. There is a nice interlude, walking in the garden, Harriet reading the newspaper in her special way (pages spread on the floor in deference to her poor eyesight), and Harriet telling a lovely fantastical story about the three trees in her garden -- which she claims are the three Dudley sisters immortalized in Joshua Reynolds' famous painting "The Three Graces Decorating a Statue of Hymen". (I should note that there are errors in Harriet's description -- whether these are purposeful errors illustrating Harriet's character, or mistakes by West, I'm not sure, though I suspect the former. At any rate, the painting is actually called "Three Ladies Adorning a Term of Hymen", and the ladies depicted are the Montgomery sisters, not the Dudleys. Hymen is, significantly, the god of marriage.) Harriet's tale suggests that the three ladies had, as infants, become literally attached to a garland (as shown in the painting) which seems to have been the source of their beauty -- which left them at marriage as they could no longer carry the garland. But, later in life, they reclaimed their garlands, left their husbands and came to the very garden Harriet and Arnold are in, and turned into trees. Harriet and Arnold's conversation continues, at intervals delightful, and then foreboding, for it becomes only too clear that Arnold, born into a lower class, resents his rivals whom he believes were born with unfair advantages, craves above all political advancement, and doesn't appreciate Harriet's music at all (though he does appreciate her body!) And Harriet reads his thoughts concerning a plan to throw her over and instead marry a plain woman in order that this woman's father can help his career.

The novel continues with four further long chapters, each a few years apart, depicting a few more encounters between Arnold and Harriet. At each meeting Arnold is changed -- coarser, fatter, older -- but Harriet seems ever the same. We see Arnold's personal life -- he does not marry the plain woman but instead a very beautiful, and quite unintelligent, woman whose father also can help Arnold's progress. We see his political advancement -- his schemes come initially to fruition (one based hilariously on his discovery that the city of Mondh in Mangostan doesn't exist -- instead it was a typo for an ordinary city called Pondh -- but Arnold uses the fictional city as a lever in his maneuvering of Britain's foreign policy.) Arnold's plotting involves betrayal of his political allies, and eventually financial corruption. At each meeting with Harriet she uses her telepathic powers to learn of his perfidy, and to urge him to abandon it. Arnold's own perception of Harriet is revealed too -- he uses the words "slut", "jade", "wench", "trollop" and such with an affectionate tone betrayed by their meaning. And by the end he, now the First Baron Mondh, faces complete ruin, as his finances are in tatters and his political corruption exposed. And he makes one final trip to Harriet's place ...

I was enchanted -- the mundane tale of political corruption married to a sadly aborted romance mixed with a fantastical view of London, with comic interludes, and with an at once spooky and ethereal element all married beautifully. And the prose -- mannered in the best way, arch, surprising, with the flavor of the 19th century and the 1920s elegantly joined. Some examples, though as with most of the best prose, reading in context (and rhythm) is best:

"Of all women he had ever known she was the most ethereal. Loving her was like swathing oneself with a long scarf of spirit."

"Just then Harriet, smiling like a doll, raised her hand to her head and withdrew the sole pin that held in place her Grecian knot; and the sleek serpents of her hair slipped down over her shoulders and covered her bosom, their curled heads lying in her lap."

"She had passed beyond the trench of sooty shadow cast by the house on the silver pavement, and was in full moonlight when she turned, so that the tail of her gown, dropping beneath her cloak, shone like an angel's robe, and the hands which covered her trembling mouth seemed luminous, and the tears in her eyes might have been taken by experts for diamonds."

Review: Break, Blow, Burn, & Make, by E. Lily Yu

Review: Break, Blow, Burn, & Make, by E. Lily Yu

a review by Rich Horton

E. Lily Yu is one of the finest writers to appear in the past 15 years or so. She has published a few dozen short stories, in a variety of genres, with fantasy and SF the predominant modes; and one novel, On Fragile Waves (2021); plus a collection, Jewel Box (2023). Her new book is subtitled "A Writer's Thoughts on Creation", and it is about writing -- craft, ambition, purpose, inspiration, beauty. But in writing about creating outstanding books, it is also about living, about discipline, about being a better person. It is, I will add, very ardently a Christian woman's book -- though its message can be applied by one in any faith or philosophical tradition.

Critical to the book's message is discussion of how readers respond -- or how we hope they respond -- to books. Not by star ratings, nor by performative liking, but, to quote: "We honor books when we discuss them in this way: as art, as gifts, as potential acts of love, rather than as mass-produced factory products." This speaks to me as a reader and critic, but also to writers -- if readers will discuss books as art, as acts of love, the writer must aim for art, and must write with love, at least for their creation. "... wisdom, courage, character, and judgment are critical to both writing and living ..." This highlights another running theme -- the act of writing as part of a whole life, at least for the writer (and not everyone is a writer -- which is no judgment but just an acknowledgement that we all have different talents.) And thus a writer should respect their art as much as they respect their life. 

Yu writes interestingly about the goals of the reader and the writer. Here she properly rejects the notion that reading is itself productive of virtue -- particularly the idea that by reading we increase our ability to empathize. This notion always seemed suspect to me -- a way for us readers to pat ourselves on the back. And it has been debunked by research. In addition, she addresses the notion that a story should explicitly illustrate correct morals -- as for instance the not uncommon demand that it be clear that bad characters are punished and good characters rewarded. Yu reminds us that bad people can still love great art, and moreover that books can lie. Finally -- it is important for readers to put in the effort to understand a book -- the ability to accept multiple meanings, to discern truth, and to recognize allusions are all important, and do not come without work. "... a reader can recognize falsity in a book only when that reader can recognize falsity in herself and others ..." 

The middle of the book is the part most directly concerned with writing -- vocation and craft. Yu argues first for a writer to be  a vessel for truth -- and that truth comes when "the artist dies to self, burns, and becomes transparent". Writing should not be self-expression -- but expression of the real. "Self-expression is opacity". This observation was new to me but it resonates, and suggests to me something I object to in much contemporary poetry (and much recent fiction.)

One chapter is devoted to craft. And here I can only cheer! Likely it has always been so, but in recent years I have been disheartened to see many books -- often highly praised -- that stumble, that seem unwilling to care about prose and structure. Yu mentions understanding of language, and the benefits of knowing multiple languages. The necessity of precision, and the beauty that can result from not just a correct word but the right word used in the right place. The importance of rhythm to prose. Subtlety in portrayal of character, and in subtext. The importance of revision.

The third section is the most aspirational. It is in some sense a call to writers, a call to artists. It is intensely Christian in its language and references, and also very personal to this author's own experience. It deals too with the place of artists in the world, and the pressures they face. It urges attention to the natural world. It urges writers not to tailor their work to the demands -- political, artistic, moral -- of the public but to tell the truth their work requires. I found this inspiring, and I hope nonreligious readers will not be put off it, for I think the burden of the book will come through to any sympathetic reader.

The book is also a tribute to some of the authors who have inspired E. Lily Yu. Quotes and references abound to the likes of James Baldwin, Annie Dillard, G. K. Chesterton, George MacDonald, Madeleine L'Engle, and many more. A list of important books comes early -- Possession; Little, Big; Middlemarch, The Man Who Was Thursday, and more. I confess that discussing books I adore is a doorway to my heart! Break, Blow, Burn & Make is beautifully written, boldly argued, blessedly inspiring. 

I will leave with a few memorable sentences

"Language is the narrow rope bridge with which we traverse the vast abysses between two people, or two cultures, or two times."

"Mischief results when people mistake data for knowledge, knowledge for wisdom, and, more and more often, feelings for truth."

"If an artwork is incandescent, then sufficient craft, love, and proper source and orientation are already present in the work. If it sets us on fire, we are partly responding to those things, but we are also responding to the exaltation and expansion of the artist's spirit in response to that demand for courage."

"To read in the way I have suggested here is nothing more and nothing less than to live with open eyes and ears, attuned to both the sharp edge of the present and the thick layers of the past."

"I have no answers to the questions I ask, nor proof of anything, or the questions would not be worth asking."

Old Bestseller Review: Reluctant Millionaire, by Maysie Greig

Old Bestseller Review: Reluctant Millionaire, by Maysie Greig

by Rich Horton

This wasn't a true bestseller, but its author was a very prolific successful writer of romance novels and thriller. Maysie Coucher Greig (1901-1971) was born in Sydney, Australia. Her father's name is confusingly given in Wikipedia as Robert Greig Smith -- I don't know if that's a mistake or if Greig later adopted her father's middle name as her last name. She began writing for newspapers in Australia at the age of 18, and soon moved to England, continuing that profession. She moved again in 1923, to the US, and began writing novels. In addition to "Maysie Greig", she published as by Ann Barclay, Mary Douglas Warren, and Jennifer Ames. She moved back to England in the early '30s, staying until 1948, after which she returned to Australia. She returned to London in 1966. She married four times -- twice to American, once to an Australian, and last to an Hungarian. She had one son, by Maxwell Murray, the Australian. The book at hand, Reluctant Millionaire, was published in 1945, and copyrighted under her married name at that time, Maysie Greig Murray.

My edition is the first American edition. It's a wartime printing, so has a smaller profile and thinner pages than usual, to conserve paper. The publisher was Triangle Books. based in Philadelphia. The novel has a stamp from the "American Lending Library", and must have been sold used after its primary lending period, as it's also inscribed "Ruth Baggett, 1948". The novel was reprinted many times, including a Dell paperback in 1945, a Romance Book Club edition in 1956 in the UK as by Greig's pseudonym "Jennifer Ames", and in further paperback editions in both countries at least into the 1970s -- a pretty good run.

This novel essentially concerns four people in London, who end up in a sort of love triangle. The time seems to be pretty much the time of writing, during the war. Simon Bruce is a research chemist, apparently quite good but not at all well off. He lives in a shabby boarding house. Another resident is Prudence Hollywell. She works in a wartime factory, and she is terribly in love with Simon, who hardly notices her. Then Simon inherits a fortune from his American godfather. But he is really just bothered by the money -- it interferes with his  simple life.

Roenna Ashton is a stunningly beautiful young woman living with her American father Welsley. Welsley is separated from Roenna's mother, due to her disapproval of his means of making money -- he's a gambler who spends his life on ocean liners, swindling the rich travelers. Roenna has no idea of this, and since her early teens she has lived with him, in relative luxury, on ships and at resorts, assuming that her father's money is just the natural way of things. But the war has ruined him -- there is no ocean travel, and his money is all but gone. He and Roenna live in a really shabby place, and are about to be kicked out. But Welsley sees a story about Simon, who has told the newspapers he'd just as soon give his fortune to a relative. Welsley sees an opportunity, and tells Roenna that he actually was related to Simon's godfather. Roenna is sent to tell this story to Simon -- her father correctly assumes that messenger as beautiful as his daughter might help the story go down better.

And so things go even better than Mr. Ashton might have hoped. Simon falls head over heels for Roenna. Of course when Prue Hollywell finds out, she is suspicious, and quickly guesses that the Ashtons are up to no good. (She assumes, naturally, that Roenna is in on the whole scheme.) Also involved is Rafe, an American aviator whose father was Welsley's partner. Rafe is also in love with Roenna, but out of loyalty tries to help her by keeping Simon from learning the truth. Meanwhile the Ashtons convince Simon to move to a far nicer place, with enough rooms to accommodate them as well. All the while Prue is dueling with Rafe, as she learns more and more about Welsley's past, while Rafe tries to dissuade her from interfering.

There is a twist or two on the way, but of course we know all will come right in the end. But Greig keeps us guessing just how it will come out. It's really a decently executed novel. The plot hums along nicely. The characters are thin, but pleasant enough. The prose is smooth, with some nice turns of phrase, and some effective comic set pieces. The depiction of wartime England seems pretty well done. It's not an enduring classic, but it's easy to see why Greig was popular -- and I'd say she would plausibly stand as one of the more accomplished popular writers of her time -- not the writer that say, Georgette Heyer was, but a decent one.

Resurrected Review: Balance of Trade, by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

Steve Miller died unexpectedly this past February. He and his wife, Sharon Lee, collaborated on a great many novels and short stories, the vast majority of which were set in their Liaden universe. This series began in 1988 with Agent of Change, and the most recent book, Ribbon Dance, came out this past June. I read them regularly back in the '90s and 2000s, but wasn't able to keep up after awhile. But I found them quite enjoyable. I thought it might be worthwhile to resurrect a review I did back in 2004.

Resurrected Review: Balance of Trade, by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

by Rich Horton

Balance of Trade is Sharon Lee and Steve Miller's latest Liaden novel (in 2004). It appeared originally from Melisa and Richard Michaels's Embiid Publishing in electronic form in 2003; and in print from Meisha Merlin in 2004. It is basically unrelated to the previous Liaden novels, which all concerned Clan Korval, famous for pilots. This book is expanded from an earlier Absolute Magnitude novella of the same title. It seems to be set some while prior to the Korval books.

Jethri Gobelyn is a young Terran, working on his family's trading spaceship. His rather distant mother, the captain, seems to resent him, perhaps because of memories of his dead father. She plans to send him to another not very attractive ship. Jethri is fascinated by the Liadens, and has begun to learn their language. He is also a promising trader. But he gets snookered by a con artist pretending to be dealing for a Liaden family, using a forged card. Jethri confronts the Liaden trader in question, and somehow manages to get himself apprenticed to Master Trader Norn ven'Deelin.

The rest of the novel turns on Jethri's learning of Liaden customs and rules, and his ability to develop his already growing trading skills in a Liaden environment. He is controversial to more traditional Liadens, who have no truck with Terrans. In addition, his father's dealing with "Old Tech" -- dangerous ancient technology now proscribed -- threaten to get him in trouble. And he meets some new cousins, twin girls, one of who is a powerful dramliza (sort of a wizard) -- also controversial to more traditional Liadens. Meanwhile, the rest of his family back on his home spaceship is threatened by renegade elements who may also be interested in Old Tech.

It's a pretty enjoyable novel. Perhaps it is just a bit too long, though I did enjoy myself the whole way. Perhaps there is not quite enough real conflict. I felt like there was a bigger story just waiting to get started. Still, it's a fun read, a fast read, perhaps best suited to readers already familiar with Liad (though perhaps not, as it is quite independent of the earlier stories). I can't help but feel that sequels are in the offing. [And, indeed, two more novels about Jethri Gobelyn have since appeared, Trade Secret in 2013 and Fair Trade in 2022.)

Review: The Poppy War, by R. F. Kuang

Review: The Poppy War, by R. F. Kuang

by Rich Horton

The Poppy War was R. F. Kuang's first novel, from 2018. It was very successful, winning the Compton F. Crook Award for Best SF/F First Novel, and being shortlisted for the Nebula and World Fantasy awards. Kuang won the Astounding Award for Best New Writer in 2020. This novel and its two sequels are transparently set in a version of China, in a period roughly corresponding to 1930-1950. I am told that the main character is based on Mao Zedong, though I was not really able to recognize this in The Poppy War. (I am sure this becomes clearer in the sequels, The Dragon Republic and The Burning God.) 

The main viewpoint character is Rin, a war orphan living in Tikany, in a remote province of the Nikan Empire. She is essentially a slave of her adoptive parents, the Fangs, who are dealers in opium. But she decides to study for the exam -- in which a high finish will allow her to attend the university. Her goal is the academy in the capitol city, Sinegard, for which tuition is free -- and which trains students to be officers in the Empress's army. 

Naturally, Rin succeeds, and makes her way to Sinegard. There she struggles to fit in -- she is looked down on as a lower class provincial -- most of the other students are from wealthy aristocratic families. She does make one good friend -- Kitai, a brilliant student but less of a fighter. And she makes an enemy: Nezha, a handsome boy from a very highly placed family, and a legitimately talented martial artist. Rin proves an excellent student, of course, and she also attracts the attention of the enigmatic Jiang, the master of Lore. It turns out that Jiang's teachings concern learning to make contact with the Pantheon of gods -- who can grant "shamans" great power, at a great cost. And Rin also encounters Jiang's previous student (he takes students rarely) -- Altan Tensen, a recent graduate, who has become famous as perhaps the greatest martial artist the academy has seen in a long time. Tensen is a Speerly -- the last Speerly (or is he?), the only survivor of the brutal massacre of the inhabitants of that island during the previous Poppy War against Mugen. 

If the above has the flavor of cliché -- well, it really is a very familiar story: brilliant poor child comes to a (magic) school and is pretty much the bestest student of all, overcomes the jealousy and scorn of her higher class fellow students, studies with a powerful teacher, etc. etc etc. And while this was well enough done, and in particular Rin's lessons with Jiang were intriguing, I did find it a bit disappointing on the whole.

But then war intervenes, before Rin's class can even graduate. The Mugens invade again, and the entire faculty and class of the academy are thrust into action, in defense of Sinegard. This is a desperate affair, as the government and most of the populace are evacuated, and the loss of the city seems certain. But Rin discovers how to access her particular power, through the Speerly's Phoenix god, and Jiang too -- very reluctantly -- takes magical action, and, at an awful cost, the invaders are repelled. 

But of course, Mugen does not give up, and soon Rin, now assigned to the Cike, a special division of the army usually reserved for missions of assassination, ends up in the coastal city of Khurdalain, again trying to fend off the Mugens, who have far superior numbers. Her leader now is Altan Tensen, who turns out to be a brilliant tactician and a hard man to work for, and a man who is also struggling with the breadth and danger of his powers, and with an associated opium addiction (the poppy helps people get to the mental state to access the Pantheon.) Rin herself is struggling to access her powers consistently, and in a controllable fashion. But she, and Altan, and their fellows in the Cike, are severely tested by both rivalries with the rest of the Army, and with the Mugen invasion, which culminated with atrocities in both Khurdulain and the major city of Golyn Niis. In the end they resolve desperately to risk freeing the shamans who have gone mad and are imprisoned under a mountain. This leads to a terrible final resolution, in which Rin must confront the risks of using her own access to the gods, especially the Phoenix, and also the moral costs of answering the Mugen atrocities with further atrocities. This is by far the best part of the book -- the moral questions are powerful, the depiction of the horrors of war (particularly the aftermath of this world's version of the Rape of Nanjing) are truly wrenching, and the story really begins to sing -- or perhaps I should say keen. The climax is horrifying, though also a bit anticlimactic -- and the book ends somewhat weakly, in part because it is setting up for the sequel.

In summary -- I think this is a promising first novel, and a remarkable book to have been written by a teenager, but it's not quite a finished product. The prose is inconsistent, and another editing pass would have helped greatly. The pacing is irregular, and I feel that the first half or more of the book should have been significantly cut -- there is important information there, but also some routine and not terribly involving busy work. The characters are a bit thin -- even Altan and Rin, the major characters, don't really convince. But it certainly suggests a writer worth watching -- and I can report that for instance her 2022 novel, Babel, which won the Nebula Award, is far better written, and more original as well.

Old Bestseller Review: Miss Granby's Secret; or, The Bastard of Pinsk, by Eleanor Farjeon

Review: Miss Granby's Secret; or, The Bastard of Pinsk, by Eleanor Farjeon

a review by Rich Horton

This is the latest in the Furrowed Middlebrow series of reprints of worthwhile books by British women authors of roughly the the first half of the 20th Century, curated by Scott Thompson (of the excellent Furrowed Middlebrow blog) and published by Dean Street Press. The series was interrupted by the unexpected death of Dean Street's publisher, Rupert Heath, in 2023; but Rupert's sister Victoria Eade has taken over, and a new Furrowed Middlebrow book has at last appeared.

Eleanor Farjeon (1881-1965) was a very popular children's author with a career stretching from the turn of the century to about 1959, and including children's stories, biographies, poetry, at least one libretto for an opera by her composer brother Harry Farjeon, memoirs, and a few novels for adults. Scott Thompason chose for reprint the novel at hand, Miss Granby's Secret; or, The Bastard of Pinsk. Though it was reasonably well-received on its release in 1940, it seemed to have been all but forgotten and had been out of print for years. (Scott suggests that her other adult novels are less successful.) Her best known children's novels seem to be a pair about a troubadour: Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard (1921) and Martin Pippin in the Daisy Field (1937). She is also remembered for writing the lyrics to the hymn "Morning Has Broken", and there is a children's book award named for her. For all that, I had only a vague memory of encountering her name, and I'd never read any of her books.

This novel is curiously structured, as, essentially, a novel within a novel. Pamela Lang, the narrator of the frame, is the great-niece of Adelaide Granby, who had been a very popular writer of salacious romances over the latter half of the 19th Century. Aunt Addie, as Pamela calls her, is dying, in 1912, at the age of 79. She has written 49 novels and confesses that she wanted to write a 50th, but didn't get to finish it. Pamela is bequeathed her papers (and some money -- Miss Granby's novels have made her very wealthy and, as a spinster, she is very generous with bequests to a variety of people.) With the help of some letters and Miss Granby's diary, she learns that at the age of 16, Adelaide had fallen in love with a boy of about her age who was helping her with penmanship and her father with his book catalogue. Her father intends her to marry someone of a more appropriate class -- but Addie rebels, and continues dallying with the boy, Stanislaw, until her father catches them in flagrante delicto, as it were. Stanislaw is banished, but Addie refuses to marry anyone, and stays faithful to Stanislaw her entire life; turning her romantic energies to her novels.

Another thing found in Aunt Addie's papers is her first novel -- written when she was 16, not long after her love affair. Naturally, Pamela reads it, and this novel is reproduced in full in this book. It's the story of three beautiful daughters of a wicked great uncle, triplets, who have been raised in seclusion. At the age of 16 they notice a handsome young man riding by their great uncle's estate on a magnificent horse, and they attract his attention. As such things go, one day he falls from his horse and they must bring him in to their house and nurse him. Naturally, they all three fall in love with him, and he with each of them. But things are complicated by their dragonish governess, whose back story we learn -- a career as a courtesan to many men, beginning with the triplets' wicked great uncle. And of course their handsome visitor -- named Stanislaw -- turns out to have a mysterious past, and a beautiful sister who has herself been compromised, leaving her with a young child. And then enter the three boorish men their uncle has decided will be their husbands -- in order to get him out of debt ... 

It's rather intricately plotted, involving hints of incest, polyamory, hidden marriages, bastards, sinister servants, and more. It's also preceded by a set of definitions, revealing that the author, Adelaide Granby, didn't really know the meaning of terms like bastard and lecher, nor did she have any hint of the facts of life.

All this is funny for a while, but I confess it drags a bit over time. The novel does resolve, in an absurd but satisfying enough fashion. Pamela Lang, in 1912, decides it is too silly for publication -- Aunt Addie's desired Golden Jubilee novel will, after all, never see print. Fast forward a couple of decades -- Pamela, a young Fabian in 1912, has taken advantage of the new opportunities open to women and become a dentist. Some chance encounters remind her of Aunt Addie's past -- especially the revelation of the real identity of her lover Stanislaw, and the discovery of a lost part of her Aunt's diary. And in the end we learn just a bit more of her Aunt's romantic past, and of what really happened between her and Stanislaw. All this ties in with Pamela's life choices, and with those of some of the women she encounters -- her own maid, and a nurse (one of Addie's bequestees) who cares for Addie's old lover as he is dying -- and the story, rather movingly, becomes a sort of meditation on the changing fortunes of women over the previous several decades.

It's not a wholly successful novel, to my mind. The conceit is wonderful, and the eventual working out is effective, but the novel within a novel wears out its welcome and some of the jokes become a bit over-labored. Still, it's a fine book, and it's pleasant to see it back in print. 

Review: Invisible Things, by Mat Johnson

Review: Invisible Things, by Mat Johnson

by Rich Horton

Invisible Things is a 2022 novel from Mat Johnson. It was published by the One World imprint of Random House, and as far as I can tell marketed to the mainstream. But it's a true quill SF novel, though certainly one directly addressing contemporary social issues, with a sharp satirical slant -- so one that I would think does appeal to non SF readers. (Johnson's first novel, Pym (2011) is also SF, an odd sequel of sorts to Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym.) The question is -- did the SF world notice this novel? And will SF readers read it the same way?

I don't recall a lot of coverage of Invisible Things in SF sources, but I could easily have missed it. Will SF readers like it? I think they should, and many will, but it does raise thoughts about SF reading protocols and SF readers' expectation. The book is about a trip to Jupiter's moon Europa, and an impossible city that is found there: a domed city (or county), with what must be artificial gravity (and other super high tech), in which live a million or so people in an environment and social system strongly resembling a contemporary American city. This poses questions: who made the city? how is it maintained? where do the residents come from? why does it exist? SF readers, I think, will want answers to all those questions -- and the book does provide some answers, but not all of them. SF readers may also have plot expectations that will mostly (though not entirely) be frustrated. Having said that, I was reminded, to one degree or another, of some of Philip K. Dick's novels (particularly Time Out of Joint) and even of Frederik Pohl's great novella "The Gold at the Starbow's End" -- so this does fit a template of some successful SF. And there is no question that Johnson knows SF, and takes it seriously, and while the book can't be called rigorously "hard" SF, it is as plausible as it needs to be, giving just the right level of detail. I should add, lest the following seem labored, that above all this novel is funny -- funny with a determined satirical point, but funny it is.

The story primarily follows two viewpoint characters. One is Nalini Jackson, a Black post-doc in Applied Sociology, who is accompanying the crew of the Delany, a spaceship exploring the Jupiter system. Her goal is to study the relational dynamics of the crew, to see how they are affected by a long trip in confined quarters. But her job (already fraught) is upended when they discover the anomalous city on Europa, and then are suddenly transported to the city, called New Roanoake, with apparently no choice but to stay there for the rest of their lives. The other main character is Chase Eubanks, a limousine driver in New Mexico, who has become part of the Allies of Alien Abductees after his wife mysteriously disappeared a few years before. He works for a rich old man who suddenly takes an interest in his alien abduction obsession -- and Chase learns that NASA has investigated the disappearance of the Delany crew with unmanned spacecraft, and has managed to get detailed photographs of the interior of the dome on Europa -- and one of the residents of the city is Chase's lost wife, Ada Hibiscus Sanchez. Soon Harry, Chase, a UN representative, and an Admiral working for NASA are on their way to Europa, in a ship called the Ursula, planning to learn more about this mysterious city, and to rescue the astronauts, and hopefully also some of the presumably abducted residents. 

In New Roanoake, Nalini and her fellows are struggling to adapt to their fates. Nalini is planning to use her sociological skills to analyze the society of New Roanoake, which seems only too closely to mirror contemporary American society, with its class and racial issues, and also with a lot of the same technology (and the same chain restaurants!) The other Black member of the crew, Dwayne Causwell, has joined a revolutionary party, the Party of the People. The captain of the Delany, Bob Seaford, has insinuated himself into the power structure of the city, which is dominated by the Founders' Party, which seems primarily focused on retain the privileges of people born in the city instead of abducted from Earth -- or "collected" as the locals prefer to call it -- including the descendants of Virginia Dare and other people presumably abducted from the original Lost Colony, Roanoake. Nalini's sometime lover, Ahmed, is just going along to get along, finding a job working for a TV station. And Ada Sanchez, now calling herself Hibiscus, is making ends meet as a typical lower class resident.

The arrival of the Ursula threatens to wholly upset New Roanoake. Admiral Ethel Dodson announces her intention to set up a facility to manufacture more spaceships to take the residents of the city home. The UN representative talks about exchanging technology with the city -- especially the tech involved in maintaining it. And Chase -- Chase just wants to find Ada (Hibiscus.) But we soon realize that there are very strange things going on -- Invisible Things, which it is taboo to mention, that occasionally snatch people and either disappear them or prominently mess with them. The resolution turns on the collision of the plans and desires of a whole range of people: Chase's desire to be with Hibiscus, Hibiscus' relative happiness with New Roanoake, Bob and his fellows in the Founders' Party desire to hold on to power and privilege by any means, Dwayne's need to see justice in the city, Nalini and Ethel's desire to go home to Earth, and the various conflicting and sometimes contradictory urges of the entire population of New Roanoake. Not to mention whatever unknowable desires the Invisible Things may or may not have.

As I said above, this book is very very funny. It is so in a satirical way, and no character is spared the knife. And, yes, the satire is in service of pointed commentary on our society, on voting rights, economic privilege, other class divisions, media, and human nature. The main characters -- Chase and Nalini -- are depicted deeply and convincingly. Most of the rest are a bit flatter, and give the impression of existing to make a point more than to be real -- but that's a feature of a lot of satire. And some of these characters are a delight -- such as Deputy Vice Party Chairman Brett Cole, generally only to be addressed by his full title.

Recommended.