sophia_sol: photo of a 19th century ivory carving of a fat bird (Default)
soph ([personal profile] sophia_sol) wrote2023-03-20 10:05 am

Spear, by Nicola Griffith 

A novella about the Matter of Britain, featuring Percival the Grail Knight as a young woman. Griffith's prose is beautiful, and she's doing some interesting things with this interpretation, and I found the beginning of the book compelling, but ultimately....idk, I finished the book feeling oddly dissatisfied. I'm not sure what I wanted done differently, I'm not sure what wasn't working for me.

Maybe it's that I don't feel like I got a good enough sense of why being one of the Companions of King Arthur was what she wanted, why it met her goals in life and what she was looking to be able to do? And although I loved the early stuff about her relationship with Nimuë, with the immediate unsettling magical brain-connection thing, I don't feel like I saw enough of why it was a thing that was able to just...settle into an unfraught ending together.

The ending isn't uncomplicatedly happy – her mother is dead, the Arthur/Guinivere/Lancelot triad is unable to produce an heir to the throne, the influence of the sword on Arthur is problems. But I still don't feel like the happy parts actually felt earned.

Dangit I wanted to like this book!!
brownbetty: (Default)

[personal profile] brownbetty 2023-03-20 03:10 pm (UTC)(link)

Have you read Jo Walton's book on the same subject? It's not very queer, but is interesting

brownbetty: (Default)

[personal profile] brownbetty 2023-03-20 06:30 pm (UTC)(link)

IDK, the ending isn't IMHO the main problem, the main problem is that it opens with a rape, and the story flows from that, so like. You're excluding a big amount of readership.

I seem to remember it ended okay, but it's been a bit. It feels more "biographical" than story-shaped, so I think I wasn't expecting the ending to be necessarily that tidy.

brownbetty: (Default)

[personal profile] brownbetty 2023-03-20 06:34 pm (UTC)(link)

Fair exclamation point. I mention it because I definitely want people to know this in case my discussion gets them interested exclamation point

oracne: turtle (Default)

[personal profile] oracne 2023-03-20 03:54 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm looking forward to this one - I am imagining it as a Myth for Now, but have no idea if that's what it actually is.
sholio: sun on winter trees (Default)

[personal profile] sholio 2023-03-20 05:53 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, Griffith's endings are often misses for me. Her books tend to have setups I really love, characters I really enjoy, and then not quite go where I want them to. But her writing is really lovely and I keep trying!
sholio: sun on winter trees (Default)

[personal profile] sholio 2023-03-20 06:09 pm (UTC)(link)
Haha, yeah, both Hild and Ammonite were like that for me, although in both cases the parts I liked were vivid and strong enough to override the disappointing ending. And I will probably read the Hild sequel, but with generally lowered expectations.
chestnut_pod: A close-up photograph of my auburn hair in a French braid (Default)

[personal profile] chestnut_pod 2023-03-20 08:12 pm (UTC)(link)
I felt much the same way. It met and exceeded my baseline expectations for "good," but it didn't really do much else.