I bring you free fiction!

[talkstowolves]

I really just made up my mind to start this yesterday, so forgive the paucity of this week's offerings! This week, I'm mostly just sharing stories that I have already read and recommended (but not lately) and one new offering: "The Horrid Glory of Its Wings" by Elizabeth Bear.

Now, I have sung the praises of the Interfictions Annex long and loud

Comments

[juushika]

I read "The Horrid Glory of Its Wings" specifically because of your comments here, so I figure a response is in order. I didn't have such strong mixed reactions to the story, because for me there was an equal balance between the story's bleakness and it's emphasis on—agency, decision, change, I suppose. Ah, you worded it well enough.

Two related novels spring to mind, more in the impressions they left than the subject matter they contain: The Nature of Monsters by Clare Clark and Slammerkin by Emma Donoghue. Both are about poor women in 1700s London, which is a pretty bleak premise no matter the specifics. Monsters is a well-intended novel, but I came away from it disappointed because the message didn't redeem the pain of the incredibly gritty, bleak, painful setting. Not to say it wasn't realistic, but to the reader it wasn't meaningful, wasn't redeemed. Slammerkin impressed me more, especially in its first half (the second half deviates somewhat from the protagonist), because the protagonist's light shines so brightly within the

[talkstowolves]

Thank you for this!

Thank you for mentioning each of these novels as well, for I rather think I'd like to investigate each of them further. I agree that provocative works - especially those that contrast the brightness and durability of hope with the sometimes overwhelming bleakness of life - are really worth reading.

When I commented that I found it derivative, I was mostly thinking of Neil Gaiman's "Troll Bridge" where another protagonist is faced with the choice of becoming a monster. "Troll Bridge" was effective in ways that "The Horrid Glory of Its Wings" wasn't... I think, in some ways, Neil Gaiman just did the depiction of such a situation and the characters involved better.

[juushika]

Ah, context is good—I wasn't quite sure what you were referring to by derivative. I haven't read that story (Gaiman's short fiction rarely pleases me, so I generally avoid it), but I take your word on the similarity.

The novels I mentioned are similar only in the light within darkness sense—they're both historical fiction with no fantastical elements, so there are no other similarities. Slammerkin in particular is worth a poke around, though—like I said the second half is a bit less focused and a bit less successful, but it's a very provocative book on the whole: brutal, dark, difficult, but nonetheless worth the reader's time and effort. That's a difficult balance to strike, but I think long fiction serves it better due to the ability to take a longer, more leisurely look at both sides of the balance.

I rather feel like I'm repeating myself, so I'll just say: thanks for the links and discussion.