Elizabeth Hand - Waking the Moon
Oct. 10th, 2007 02:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwynnegaStuff 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.
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.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-10 11:21 pm (UTC)I'm about halfway through Atonement, and wow, what a book...
no subject
Date: 2007-10-11 12:25 am (UTC)