Walton, Jo: Ha'Penny
Ha'Penny (2007)
Written by: Jo Walton
Genre: Alternate History
Pages: 332 (Mass Market Paperback)
Series: Book Two (Small Change)
Why I Read It: After reading Farthing last year, I decided to go ahead and put the two sequels on my Paperback Swap wishlist. I wasn't in a HUGE hurry to read them, but if they showed up, I would be happy to. Ha'Penny came to me in September, and while it didn't help me keep my monthly goal of only six received books per month, it was a nice break from some of the brand new titles that had been coming in. I was curious to see how Walton structured this series, so I was excited to sit down with this and see just exactly what she was doing with her alternate history of post World War II England.
The premise: ganked from BN.com: In 1949, eight years after the "Peace with Honor" was negotiated between Great Britain and Nazi Germany by the Farthing Set, England has completed its slide into fascist dicatorship. Then a bomb explodes in a London suburb.
The brilliant but politically compromised Inspector Carmichael of Scotland Yard is assigned the case. What he finds leads him to a conspiracy of peers and communists, of staunch King-and- Country patriots and hardened IRA gunmen, to murder Britain's Prime Minister and his new ally, Adolf Hitler.
Against a background of increasing domestic espionage and the suppression of Jews and homosexuals, an ad-hoc band of idealists and conservatives blackmail the one person they need to complete their plot, an actress who lives for her art and holds the key to the Fuhrer's death. From the ha'penny seats in the theatre to the ha'pennies that cover dead men's eyes, the conspiracy and the investigation swirl around one another, spinning beyond anyone's control.
In this brilliant companion to Farthing, Welsh-born World Fantasy Award winner Jo Walton continues her alternate history of an England that could have been, with a novel that is both an homage of the classic detective novels of the thirties and forties, and an allegory of the world we live in today.
Spoilers, yay or nay?: Yay, but such spoilers really aren't detrimental to the book. However, if you want to remain spoiler-free, I suggest skipping to "My Rating" and you'll be just fine. And please note, this book does spoil events that happened in Farthing, so it's not wholly recommended that you read them out of order. At any rate, if you're caught up, onward!
Before picking this book up, I figured it would take me a while to read it. Walton's style doesn't lend itself to tearing through the pages. Rather, it's the kind of style that you sit, absorb, and think about what you're reading and what it means. I was expecting a week, maybe two. I was rather surprised and pleased that it only took me three days to read this.
I'd forgotten about the style: in Farthing, we get two points of view. The heroine, Lucy Kahn, who is telling her side of the story from a first person POV, and then the detective, Inspector Carmichael, who's telling his side of the story from a third person POV. We get this same style again, and I have to say, it's quite grown on me. No, Lucy isn't our heroine. This time, we're getting to know actress Viola Lark, who's just been cast in Hamlet as the titular character. I rather loved these beginning sections, learning about how gender-swapping roles in plays is all the rage right now, and it was fascinating to look at the play through Viola's eyes, looking at Hamlet as a woman instead of a man. She's right: it really does make a lot of sense, and while reading, I found myself really wishing I could actually watch that particular interpretation. It would be fascinating!
Her story, in some ways, is a bit tragic. She gets roped into a conspiracy to kill Hitler by one of her sisters. The problem is, Viola isn't exactly what you'd call political. She accepts things the way they are and can't believe the rumors of concentration camps or any such thing. She assumes that if people are getting arrested, they must deserve it somehow. Yet her sister Siddy seeks her out after the initial plan blows up (har-har) in the faces of those who were going to carry it out. Siddy uses their shared childhood to convince Viola to come visit their uncle's estate, and it's then when the plan is laid out before her. She wants no part of it, but promises not to report anyone to the authorities. Of course, she's actually just signed her death sentence, and ends up only agreeing after the man who was going to kill her explains what's going on and how things are going to work, depending on the choice she makes: she can die now, or she can live for two weeks and die in the explosion that kills Hilter (he's coming to the opening night of Hamlet, you see). And even then, there's no guarantee the blow will kill her. She agrees, in part hoping she can worm out of it before the time comes, but there's also the fact that since meeting the man, who's name is Devlin, she was attracted to him. I don't think we ever really know if Devlin is attracted to her or if he's just using her attraction to him to make her more biddable. There's arguments either way, and I'm more of the mind that he was manipulating her from the start but gradually softened towards her toward the end. They could've had something, but I have to say, Devlin rubbed me the wrong way more often than not. The romantic in me just wanted to write it off that he really cared, but he was a gruff man of his time and at the most, accustomed to women doing what he says. But realistically, it just wasn't a healthy relationship. Everything from keeping her with him at all times (makes sense in that he doesn't want her going to the authorities) to telling her she'll be cleaning the dishes since she can't cook, the whole relationship was off-putting. Regardless, that never made me think poorly of Viola: I kept asking myself, what should she have done? And those answers always conflicted with my own current version of history, because let's face it: you want them to succeed. You want Hilter gone, because you know if he's gone, the world will be a better place.
But as we learn from Carmichael's point of view (and hell, even from Viola's at the start), at this point in the alternate history timeline, there would just be more and more people coming in to fill the gap. It's the most haunting question of the book: if Hilter had stayed in power TOO long, would killing him solve the problem, or would the power vacuum be filled by those who'd grown accustomed to his power and wanted to keep this new status quo?
The terrorist element of it never really bothered me. Maybe it should have, but this is fiction, and alternate history at that. The people who are most likely to be killed by the blast, one can reason the world is better off without them. The innocent bystanders are faceless. So for me, it was hard not to look forward to that scene happening. Yet I kept thinking that it was going to go horribly wrong: that Viola would deliver the wrong flowers, that the bomb would go off in the dressing room (quite plausible, because earlier in the book it was pointed out that on opening night, their dressing rooms look like funeral parlors) and kill someone Viola (and the reader) cared about.
Instead, what went awry was Carmichael figuring it all out while watching the play, going up to warn Hilter and his men, and naturally, Hilter was saved. Carmichael is struck with the vertigo of irony after it's all said and done: he knows Hilter is a bad man, that Hilter and his policies have made the world an utterly unsafe place, especially for someone like him (we learned in the last book that he's gay, and we learn more about his relationship in this one). Yet he, too, realizes that killing Hitler would just create a power vacuum: that someone just as bad would fill the gap.
The explosion, for the record, does take some people out. One character who didn't particularly deserve it, yet given how her husband treated her, you can't help but think it was a better alternative. I should also note that I'm pretty sure we met these two characters in the last book. But it's been a year since I read it, and there were so many names that I'm having trouble putting certain pieces together. Yet often I knew I was supposed to be putting those pieces together, you know? One day, I hope to read these three books all together. I think it'll give me a wonderful new depth to the story.
Going back to Carmichael, I had to feel sorry for him: after the events in Farthing, he's between a rock and a hard place. He wants to do the right thing, but his lifestyle, now known, makes it easy for his superiors to manipulate him to their ends, and while he wasn't quite so badly manipulated in this book, he's constantly reminded of his place in the system. And the grand irony of his story, as I said, is that he's in a job that forces him to protect the very people and government that would shame him, kill him, at any time, just because he happens to love another man.
His point of view gave us a very good look at just how fascist England was becoming. It was always startling to see those in power spewing beliefs that by modern day's standards are just so utterly wrong. And some of these characters are otherwise sympathetic, which makes for a real mental whammy. One of these characters is Royston, who I was particularly sad to see get killed.
Carmichael's story is a fascinating one. With each book, he's becoming more and more of a man that he should really be fighting against. Yet there's this constant hope that he can do the right thing from inside the corrupted system, despite the fact the system itself is corrupting him. I can't wait to see how his storyline progresses in the final book, Half a Crown.
My Rating: Good Read
Coming back to this strange, alternate world was in some ways, a delight. I really enjoy Walton's style in these books, and the tension driving the book forward never fails to capture my attention: killing Hitler. When it comes to alternate histories, anything is possible, and I couldn't wait to see how Walton's alternate history would shape up. It's such a quiet book, yet it's filled with a building tension that's hard to escape. Part of this is due to the style, as the reader gets both sides of the story. In Farthing, the tension came from both sides actually being on the same side but not knowing it. In Ha'Penny, the tension comes from the fact that both sides SHOULD be on the same side, but they aren't, and the reader wants them to be. It's a fascinating book that develops the world in interesting and new ways, and it's complex enough that one day, whenever I get my hands on the final installment, I'd like to re-read the whole set all over again.
Cover Commentary: Of all the Small Change novels, I still like Farthing's the best. However, I'm glad they keep the same basic design with the sequel. You see the swastika, and you see the city in the background. It's effective, though not as striking as Farthing was for me with its use of reds and blues.
Next up: Devil Said Bang by Richard Kadrey