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sophia_sol) wrote2020-12-14 08:00 pm
sophia_sol) wrote2020-12-14 08:00 pm
The Angel of the Crows, by Katherine Addison
When this book was first announced, I was both excited and skeptical. Katherine Addison's previous book, The Goblin Emperor, is one of my top comfort-reads and a book I find an endless delight. (as evidenced by the fact that I've read it 5 times in the 6 years since it was published) So I was excited about the possibility of another Addison book! But on the other hand it's a Sherlock Holmes fanfic, featuring the Jack the Ripper murders, and I am a) a bit burned out on Sherlock Homes, and b) not interested in Jack the Ripper. But I figured I would give the book a try anyway, because I trusted Katherine Addison.
And unfortunately I found myself really disappointed in the book, and for unexpected reasons! (And now I'm feeling a lot more trepidatious about the Goblin Emperor sequel coming out next year...)
Usually when I write reviews of books I try to be fair, and acknowledge that books that don't work for me often do have their right readers out there even if I'm not one. But this book has enough stuff going on that I'm uncomfortable with that I don't think I can do that, even though it DOES have some genuinely good aspects too.
Things The Angel of the Crows is Weird about include, but are not limited to:
- gender
- asexuality
- colonialism
- angels
- sex workers
- antisemitism
- and more!
The thing is. I think the author was genuinely trying to write an inclusive book? But she doesn't seem to have had the wherewithal to succeed at that.
So she does things like imply that asexual people cannot consent to sex ever, and spotlights the existence of issues like colonialism and antisemitism without ever bothering to say anything about it, and says gross things about sex workers (in a book that is about the serial murder of sex workers, yikes), and so forth. And the Watson character (Doyle) is strongly hinted to be a trans man, and then when his ~big secret~ is finally revealed it's that....Doyle's actually a crossdressing woman. Uncomfortable! (Not to mention the fucked up stuff about how for angels, apparently the gender other people decide you are IS your gender)
Also the angel mythology in this book is deeply christian in a completely unconsidered kind of way (oh boy the stuff about the Fallen!!!) which is made even weirder by one of the angels being....apparently jewish?
Okay. So then. If you put aside all the various issues on which I wish the author had gotten a sensitivity reader or something (which is a lot to put aside!) I still honestly don't like this book, but for reasons that are more just personal taste I guess.
Nearly the whole book turns out to be a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories retold with a light garnish of the supernatural dusted on top. Which kind of feels like, why bother reading this book when the original stories still exist, if you're not going to do anything innovative with your retellings? I was so bored whenever I wasn't busy getting angry about the issues. I know these stories already!
And ALSO if the book is a bunch of short stories strung together into a longer narrative, why was it written specifically as a novel when it doesn't have a novel shape? The book is extremely episodic, and although there is a bit of a through-line in the Whitechapel murders (the Jack the Ripper stuff), this is just glancingly referred to here and there before it becomes the Case of the Week at the end. The whole thing I think would work better as a series of linked short stories, which could each be tightened and given their own shape, instead of all running into each other in a very all-over-the-place novel-like thing.
And the ending doesn't feel like it ties everything together, which just adds to the feeling of the book not actually being a novel, because it doesn't hold together from beginning to end as a singular work.
The end of a narrative generally has two things to resolve: the plot arc, and the emotional arc.
The plot arc of this book, such as there is, is the Whitechapel murders. This has two problems. One, it gets little attention in the preceding parts of the book, because the narrative is too focused on the various Cases of the Week to really get interested in the Whitechapel case, so wrapping up this case doesn't feel to me like it's wrapping up the book. And then two, this case.....doesn't actually get resolved. They find the guy, and then he's murdered by a mob before they can find out a single thing about him - his name, his motive, how he was doing it, anything. All the questions remain up in the air even though they catch him, which means it isn't satisfying either as an open-ended mystery that can never be solved OR as a shut case. Because it's neither and both at once! And the characters just move on from this and don't seem to have any lingering questions even though I really do. They feel like the case is just DONE. I'm frustrated!!
The emotional arc of the book is, I guess, the friendship between Doyle and Crow. But it gets pretty settled pretty early on as being one of mutual platonic love and support that they're both aware of and fully on board with, so.....it doesn't feel like an arc, so much. They just go straight there. (Which I would be perfectly happy with, if there was another thing to be the emotional arc instead, but there isn't.) The book tries to have its happy moment in the ending scene of Doyle and Crow being just so happy with their relationship with each other, and I'm like.... a) we knew that already, and b) THE CONTEXT MAKES IT CREEPY.
See, the book ends by making a big deal of the fact that Doyle is an unregistered hell-hound, and it's solved by......having Crow basically take legal responsibility for Doyle and act in a sort of guardianship capacity for him. And Crow and Doyle are both fine with this! As is the lawyer who suggested it, and the angel who's Crow's family who found the lawyer! It's just fine! And Doyle will be registered as a hell-hound with the prejudiced-against-hell-hounds government and it's fine! Everyone's fine! Doyle is delighted with his relationship with Crow and it's fine! WHAT A NOTE TO END ON.
Hmm I suppose you could also argue that the unregistered hell-hound thing is actually the emotional arc of the book? Doyle going from fear of discovery to being confidently out as a hell-hound. But it isn't treated like the main emotional arc, imo. We never explore what it means to be a hell-hound, or Doyle's feelings about being one beyond his fear of being discovered, or anything specific about the prejudices against hell-hounds, or what makes hell-hounds different from werewolves, or what it will mean for him to be openly known to be a hell-hound, or anything really. And the guardianship ending doesn't seem to me to be a satisfying ending to this arc either, anyway!
Also, speaking of relationships: apparently Mary Morstan just isn't into Doyle once she finds out about Doyle's assigned gender, which like, sure, some people are solely into cis men I guess, but I found it personally frustrating that Doyle was RIGHT that nothing could ever happen between him and Mary because of his ~awful secret~. Queer people DO have happy romances, including in history, so I'm sad that this is apparently just out of bounds for Doyle to possibly expect.
I mentioned earlier that there are some things I think were well done about this book, and I should talk about that too, for fairness' sake. So I actually really loved Crow as a character. His open enthusiasm and earnestness was extremely charming to me! And the way Crow and Doyle both clearly like and respect each other so much is a delight. I just wish these charming and delightful features had been presented to me in the context of a different book entirely so I could have enjoyed them more.
And unfortunately I found myself really disappointed in the book, and for unexpected reasons! (And now I'm feeling a lot more trepidatious about the Goblin Emperor sequel coming out next year...)
Usually when I write reviews of books I try to be fair, and acknowledge that books that don't work for me often do have their right readers out there even if I'm not one. But this book has enough stuff going on that I'm uncomfortable with that I don't think I can do that, even though it DOES have some genuinely good aspects too.
Things The Angel of the Crows is Weird about include, but are not limited to:
- gender
- asexuality
- colonialism
- angels
- sex workers
- antisemitism
- and more!
The thing is. I think the author was genuinely trying to write an inclusive book? But she doesn't seem to have had the wherewithal to succeed at that.
So she does things like imply that asexual people cannot consent to sex ever, and spotlights the existence of issues like colonialism and antisemitism without ever bothering to say anything about it, and says gross things about sex workers (in a book that is about the serial murder of sex workers, yikes), and so forth. And the Watson character (Doyle) is strongly hinted to be a trans man, and then when his ~big secret~ is finally revealed it's that....Doyle's actually a crossdressing woman. Uncomfortable! (Not to mention the fucked up stuff about how for angels, apparently the gender other people decide you are IS your gender)
Also the angel mythology in this book is deeply christian in a completely unconsidered kind of way (oh boy the stuff about the Fallen!!!) which is made even weirder by one of the angels being....apparently jewish?
Okay. So then. If you put aside all the various issues on which I wish the author had gotten a sensitivity reader or something (which is a lot to put aside!) I still honestly don't like this book, but for reasons that are more just personal taste I guess.
Nearly the whole book turns out to be a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories retold with a light garnish of the supernatural dusted on top. Which kind of feels like, why bother reading this book when the original stories still exist, if you're not going to do anything innovative with your retellings? I was so bored whenever I wasn't busy getting angry about the issues. I know these stories already!
And ALSO if the book is a bunch of short stories strung together into a longer narrative, why was it written specifically as a novel when it doesn't have a novel shape? The book is extremely episodic, and although there is a bit of a through-line in the Whitechapel murders (the Jack the Ripper stuff), this is just glancingly referred to here and there before it becomes the Case of the Week at the end. The whole thing I think would work better as a series of linked short stories, which could each be tightened and given their own shape, instead of all running into each other in a very all-over-the-place novel-like thing.
And the ending doesn't feel like it ties everything together, which just adds to the feeling of the book not actually being a novel, because it doesn't hold together from beginning to end as a singular work.
The end of a narrative generally has two things to resolve: the plot arc, and the emotional arc.
The plot arc of this book, such as there is, is the Whitechapel murders. This has two problems. One, it gets little attention in the preceding parts of the book, because the narrative is too focused on the various Cases of the Week to really get interested in the Whitechapel case, so wrapping up this case doesn't feel to me like it's wrapping up the book. And then two, this case.....doesn't actually get resolved. They find the guy, and then he's murdered by a mob before they can find out a single thing about him - his name, his motive, how he was doing it, anything. All the questions remain up in the air even though they catch him, which means it isn't satisfying either as an open-ended mystery that can never be solved OR as a shut case. Because it's neither and both at once! And the characters just move on from this and don't seem to have any lingering questions even though I really do. They feel like the case is just DONE. I'm frustrated!!
The emotional arc of the book is, I guess, the friendship between Doyle and Crow. But it gets pretty settled pretty early on as being one of mutual platonic love and support that they're both aware of and fully on board with, so.....it doesn't feel like an arc, so much. They just go straight there. (Which I would be perfectly happy with, if there was another thing to be the emotional arc instead, but there isn't.) The book tries to have its happy moment in the ending scene of Doyle and Crow being just so happy with their relationship with each other, and I'm like.... a) we knew that already, and b) THE CONTEXT MAKES IT CREEPY.
See, the book ends by making a big deal of the fact that Doyle is an unregistered hell-hound, and it's solved by......having Crow basically take legal responsibility for Doyle and act in a sort of guardianship capacity for him. And Crow and Doyle are both fine with this! As is the lawyer who suggested it, and the angel who's Crow's family who found the lawyer! It's just fine! And Doyle will be registered as a hell-hound with the prejudiced-against-hell-hounds government and it's fine! Everyone's fine! Doyle is delighted with his relationship with Crow and it's fine! WHAT A NOTE TO END ON.
Hmm I suppose you could also argue that the unregistered hell-hound thing is actually the emotional arc of the book? Doyle going from fear of discovery to being confidently out as a hell-hound. But it isn't treated like the main emotional arc, imo. We never explore what it means to be a hell-hound, or Doyle's feelings about being one beyond his fear of being discovered, or anything specific about the prejudices against hell-hounds, or what makes hell-hounds different from werewolves, or what it will mean for him to be openly known to be a hell-hound, or anything really. And the guardianship ending doesn't seem to me to be a satisfying ending to this arc either, anyway!
Also, speaking of relationships: apparently Mary Morstan just isn't into Doyle once she finds out about Doyle's assigned gender, which like, sure, some people are solely into cis men I guess, but I found it personally frustrating that Doyle was RIGHT that nothing could ever happen between him and Mary because of his ~awful secret~. Queer people DO have happy romances, including in history, so I'm sad that this is apparently just out of bounds for Doyle to possibly expect.
I mentioned earlier that there are some things I think were well done about this book, and I should talk about that too, for fairness' sake. So I actually really loved Crow as a character. His open enthusiasm and earnestness was extremely charming to me! And the way Crow and Doyle both clearly like and respect each other so much is a delight. I just wish these charming and delightful features had been presented to me in the context of a different book entirely so I could have enjoyed them more.
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The hellhound thing bugged me so much! There was room to explore some really interesting issues, and it just. Didn't. WHY.
(sorry about the extremely belated comment reply!)
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