Interview With Rosamund Hodge
On the YA fantasy front, author Rosamund Hodge has been making quite a splash with her moody, dark, intensely atmospheric reworkings of myths and fairy tales. So when I had the chance to review this collection, Desires and Dreams and Powers, I pounced.
As in her novels, Rosamund Hodge takes images and ideas from the classics and fairy tales as well as more modern works and refashions them into multifaceted stories short on wordcount but long on punch. You know, with titles like "And Her Eyes Sewn Shut With Unicorn Hair" that these stories are not going be fantasy fluff. As for the neutral-sounding "Situation Normal," I do not recommend reading this sfnal fantasy before bedtime.
One recurring element that grabbed my attention is sisters. There is a wide variety of sisterly relationships in these stories, some of which go very dark indeed. As for actual darkness, the Persephone myth shows up more than once, most directly in the lead story, “Desires and Dreams and Powers.” But there are echoes in others, as these complex, intense stories examine recurring themes from several angles.
A few of these stories, like “Textual Variants”, are so tight they could easily have expanded into novels-that one, with its abrupt narration and many breaks, feels like a longer work distilled to its core elements. But my favorite story, “More Full of Weeping Than You Can Understand,” is exactly right for its length. In truth, I loved the story so much I would have happily sunk into it at novel length, and ordinarily I can take or leave faerie.
It has everything-mothers and daughters, sisters, culture clashes, the deep delight of scholarship. Men and women, war. All woven together in shimmering prose:
“Cold fingers brushed her back, and her shoulders loosened. She knew that her wings were blossoming; she could feel their colours in her throat. When she opened her eyes, the world was different: shadows were longer but filled with hidden glimmers, and the house was hazed with mist but she could see leaves on a tree half a mile away.
“Come across the water,” said her faery mother.
“Perfect World’ addresses the highly contrived moral dilemma of Ursula K. Le Guin’s much-anthologized “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.” That story has sparked many essays and reviews, pro and con, since it first appeared. Here, Hodge engages in literary conversation with it, offering a slant that could spark an interesting discussion all on its own.
As mentioned above, some of the stories are very dark. Others offer hope, or consolation. “Apotheosis,” in which a group of people decide they need to purchase a god, lights up with sly humor before the whirlwind climax. None of these stories was the least predictable, except in the expectation of an emotional rollercoaster as well as a visual feast.
Interview here
This entry was originally posted at https://sartorias.dreamwidth.org/1010521.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
As in her novels, Rosamund Hodge takes images and ideas from the classics and fairy tales as well as more modern works and refashions them into multifaceted stories short on wordcount but long on punch. You know, with titles like "And Her Eyes Sewn Shut With Unicorn Hair" that these stories are not going be fantasy fluff. As for the neutral-sounding "Situation Normal," I do not recommend reading this sfnal fantasy before bedtime.
One recurring element that grabbed my attention is sisters. There is a wide variety of sisterly relationships in these stories, some of which go very dark indeed. As for actual darkness, the Persephone myth shows up more than once, most directly in the lead story, “Desires and Dreams and Powers.” But there are echoes in others, as these complex, intense stories examine recurring themes from several angles.
A few of these stories, like “Textual Variants”, are so tight they could easily have expanded into novels-that one, with its abrupt narration and many breaks, feels like a longer work distilled to its core elements. But my favorite story, “More Full of Weeping Than You Can Understand,” is exactly right for its length. In truth, I loved the story so much I would have happily sunk into it at novel length, and ordinarily I can take or leave faerie.
It has everything-mothers and daughters, sisters, culture clashes, the deep delight of scholarship. Men and women, war. All woven together in shimmering prose:
“Cold fingers brushed her back, and her shoulders loosened. She knew that her wings were blossoming; she could feel their colours in her throat. When she opened her eyes, the world was different: shadows were longer but filled with hidden glimmers, and the house was hazed with mist but she could see leaves on a tree half a mile away.
“Come across the water,” said her faery mother.
“Perfect World’ addresses the highly contrived moral dilemma of Ursula K. Le Guin’s much-anthologized “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.” That story has sparked many essays and reviews, pro and con, since it first appeared. Here, Hodge engages in literary conversation with it, offering a slant that could spark an interesting discussion all on its own.
As mentioned above, some of the stories are very dark. Others offer hope, or consolation. “Apotheosis,” in which a group of people decide they need to purchase a god, lights up with sly humor before the whirlwind climax. None of these stories was the least predictable, except in the expectation of an emotional rollercoaster as well as a visual feast.
Interview here
This entry was originally posted at https://sartorias.dreamwidth.org/1010521.html. Please comment there using OpenID.