Elizabeth Hand - Waking the Moon

[gwynnega]

Stuff I'm reading at the moment: Best American Short Stories 2007, audiobook of Atonement (and all I can say is "wow" and "gah"), What Maisie Knew and dailylit.com installments of Ulysses and Anna Karenina.

And last weekend I finished reading Elizabeth Hand's Waking the Moon. I had some issues with it but found it an utterly compulsive read, and have already ordered the book that's supposed to be its "prequel," Black Light. To summarize the plot: Sweeney goes to college, meets and falls in love with two charismatic individuals, Angelica and Oliver, who fall for each other. It turns out the college is host to an ancient magical cabal and old boys' club, but Angelica becomes the priestess of a goddess cult. Mayhem ensues.

The book is like Tam Lin--or, at least, the first half of it is--in that both are set at a magic-infested university, and the protagonist is a young girl starting college, experimenting with sex, making important friends, etc. Unlike Tam Lin, however, the protagonist of Waking the Moon pretty much instantly jettisons her classes in favor of spending time with Oliver, drinking, and exploring Washington DC nightlife, which I found disappointing, expecting more of a "university novel." However, I loved all the fascinating lore about archaeology and ancient religions woven into the book.

I've already mentioned in an earlier post my nitpicky problems with anachronisms (i.e., references to magazines that hadn't been published yet). I'm a bit baffled by the book's message, which seems to be: patriarchy sucks, but matriarchy would be even worse (more violent, more chaotic), so what we've got is the best we can hope for. While I do appreciate Hand's seeming critique of the women's spirituality movement, I'm not sure what she's getting at with her characterization of goddess worship as even more bloodthirsty than patriarchal religions and culture.

Some of the fantasy elements of the book worked better than others for me. Hand's use of horror mostly worked well, but some of the fantasy bits (characters walking through doors into abysses, a character being swallowed up by what I can only characterize as the Goddess on the Ceiling) felt cheesily cartoonish, as if they would have worked had there been a tongue-in-cheek quality to them, which there wasn't. As it was, I kept thinking "This book needs better special effects." I suspect less would have been more in this regard--that being more mysterious about the magical elements, rather than spelling them out in detail, would have been more effective.

Hand's prose is gorgeous, and the book is both wildly suspenseful and a novel of ideas. Despite my issues with it, I found it an impressive and entertaining book.

Comments

[katemonkey.livejournal.com]

Waking The Moon is one of my favourite novels, even with the points you bring up.

Black Light is a nice read, but it just seemed to fall a bit flat. Hand does lushly detail all the delights and terrors of the early 70s, all glam rock and Andy Warhol and pill-addled parents, though.

I'd love to hear what you make of it, though.

(Also, if you're ever in the mood, there is a long-disused fanfiction community - thedivine... I've found a few Waking The Moon stories -- all little introspective things as well. No one seems to have the urge to write "Waking The Moon 2: Sweeney's Revenge".

Except for me.

Except I don't. Because I just came up with that title.

But now I do.)

[gwynnega]

I really enjoyed the book, despite my criticisms...

Also, if you're ever in the mood, there is a long-disused fanfiction community

Oh, cool!

No one seems to have the urge to write "Waking The Moon 2: Sweeney's Revenge".

Heeee!

Someone really ought to write a Tam Lin/Waking the Moon crossover fic...

[katemonkey.livejournal.com]

I actually haven't read Tam Lin yet. I know, I need to, but it wasn't in print, and I just...forget.



Also? Waking The Moon was responsible for me getting my degree in "Religious Traditions of the West". And much to my dismay, there were no orgies, long-standing secret societies, or ancient goddesses being awoken.

DAMNIT.

[gwynnega]

Tam Lin is sort of like Waking the Moon with less religion and drugs and more literary references...

Also? Waking The Moon was responsible for me getting my degree in "Religious Traditions of the West".

I can well imagine!

And much to my dismay, there were no orgies, long-standing secret societies, or ancient goddesses being awoken.

Heeee!

[rozk.livejournal.com]

I've always read the book slightly differently - Angelica opts for a version of the goddess that is dark and murderous and is therefore first limited and then destroyed by what she evokes, whereas Oliver after transition becomes the embodiment of a more generous and nurturant version of the goddess. Both are the parents of the boy Dylan - Angelica tries to kill him as the ultimate act of murderous sacrifice and the former Oliver saves him. And Sweeney, who is also in her way an embodiment of the goddess in an entirely human form, gets to perform a sacred marriage with him - Magda Kurtz works a magic that she does not understand by bringing Sweeney into the equation. She has sex with Angelica and loves Oliver and ends up with their child - she is more than she ever realizes because she is about acceptance and not transcendance.

What impresses me about rereading the book is its really positive take on transpeople as vehicles of the divine. (The plain people of Hackney say - well, you would say that, wouldn't you. To which I reply, Damn Right.)

I've just read the novella Illyria and the new novel Generation Loss - Hand is not getting more cheerful with time, but she is still fabulously good.

[gwynnega]

Your reading of the book makes a lot of sense, though it might've been clearer to me if there had been more pages devoted to Oliver after transition and how Oliver came to this view of the goddess (though how to do that and still retain the surprise of Oliver's reappearance...I'm not sure).

I'm very curious to read more of Hand's work.

[herself_nyc]

Wow and gah, yes! How many of the stories have you read? What's leaping out at you?

[gwynnega]

I've only just started (though I already read the Alice Munro and Richard Russo stories when they were originally published). Last night I read the Louis Auchincloss and really liked it (I've never read anything by him before). I also liked what Stephen King wrote about "writing for the bottom shelf."

I'm about halfway through Atonement, and wow, what a book...

[herself_nyc]

Atonement was such an edge-of-the-seat read, yes.