(no subject)

[skygiants]

The Blue Place is the first Nicola Griffith book I've read (on aamcnamara's recommendation) after Hild several years ago and it is ... very different. Based on these two books, I have come to believe that Griffith is one of those writers who just throws herself very wholeheartedly into whatever genre she is doing; Hild was so much the enormous elliptical political history! and The Blue Place is so extremely noir!

The protagonist of The Blue Place: Aud Torvingen, a Norwegian expat ex-cop living in Atlanta with a history of violence and an expertise in martial arts.

While turning a corner one day, Aud bumps into beautiful art dealer Julia Lyons-Bennett right before the house of one of Julia's friends explodes around the corner. After a round of sexual-tension-filled martial arts practice a few days later, Julia hires Aud to investigate the crime.

Noir love interests are the way that they are, so I spent the entire book waiting for the reveal about whatever big deadly secret it would turn out that Julia was keeping from Aud. Slightly wrong genre savvy, as it turns out! Julia is not the kind of noir love interest keeping deadly secrets that stab you in the back but instead the kind of noir love interest that dies. (It turns out rachelmanija had alerted me to this four years ago in recommending me the series, but I had completely forgotten.) Aud's friend/ex-boss, on the other hand, is the kind of trusted authority figure keeping deadly secrets that stab you in the back, because it's a noir and somebody's got to. Ironically, I missed the foreshadowing here because I was too busy being mildly grumpy about how relatively uncritically Griffith was portraying the police overall, so the joke is absolutely on me! Well done, Nicola, you played me.

Anyway. As in many works of this genre, the plot is only somewhat the point -- it's about the feel and the language and the aesthetics, the visual setting and the intensity of character, the written equivalent of the cinematography -- and Griffith turns out to be extremely talented at this. There are some elements that I would perhaps like to assess more critically, including Aud and Julia's shared white-girl sexy karate prowess and the ... I think fetishization is too strong a word? But once the action shifts to Norway there's a lot of beautiful scenery but also a lot about The Norwegian Mindset And Temperament and I always start squinting at the text a little when an author who is not from a particular country starts making sweeping statements about the way everyone in that particular country is (as opposed to what the customs are or the culture is or whatever.) And perhaps all Griffith's statements are true! I have never been to Norway. Either way, there is no denying that it's very good noir.

(Also, the description of Norwegian food was consistently mouth-watering, someone please bring me a koldtbord immediately.)

Comments

[sovay]

Julia is not the kind of noir love interest keeping deadly secrets that stab you in the back but instead the kind of noir love interest that dies.

You sometimes get the kind that fight crime with you! I like those best.

(Also, the description of Norwegian food was consistently mouth-watering, someone please bring me a koldtbord immediately.)

Next time you're in Grand Central: Great Northern Food Hall.

[larryhammer]

I like those best

+1

[skygiants]

They are objectively the best if also the rarest Pokemon in the noir deck! Though I always appreciate your dedicate efforts at turning up more of them.

I LOVE GREAT NORTHERN FOOD HALL. I wish for many reasons trains from Boston came into Grand Central rather than Penn Station!

[sovay]

Though I always appreciate your dedicate efforts at turning up more of them.

I do what I can.

I wish for many reasons trains from Boston came into Grand Central rather than Penn Station!

Amen! (I really want smørrebrød.)

[cyphomandra]

I am hanging out for the next Hild book so hard. I really liked The Blue Place but the sequel not so much, although I mean to go back and try it again before reading the last one in case it was me. I recently read So Lucky, which is fantastically and compellingly angry, if that’s a genre...

[chestnut_pod]

Seconded! It's like when anger becomes so strong that it slides into magical realism, almost.

[skygiants]

I've heard really good things about So Lucky! (I'm not sure 'angry' is a genre per se, but maybe it should be?)

[oracne]

This book is so terrific, but I remember it was also painful (as noir always is for me, why do I keep going back, why?). Griffith is just a genius, imo.

[skygiants]

3/4 of the way through I made the mistake of briefly relaxing my guard and thinking maybe everything would be fine! THE MORE FOOL I. I've seen and read enough noirs to know better!

[aamcnamara]

The Blue Place is EXTREMELY noir, yes. And yeah, throwing herself into whatever genre seems to be Griffith's thing. (Ammonite is very classic thought-experiment planetary SF that's not quite as second-wave-feminist as it could be, although it still mostly is.)

For my money, the sequel is the best in the trilogy--it's a vivid exploration of grief that is also simultaneously a noir novel--while the third lost me somewhat. It's possible I should just recommend the second book in the series to people, I read it first and thought it was a standalone and loved it.

[chestnut_pod]

Ha, I read Ammonite entirely unprepared last year on a plane in a kind of weird ebook version, sort of assuming it was written since 2000, and the whole way through I just kept thinking to myself, "This is so 1980s, I wonder if it's intentional…"

And then of course I finally went and deciphered the ebook title page and it was published in 1992 *grin*

[skygiants]

I'm definitely very curious about the second one, and about the trajectory of the trilogy overall - Aud is already such a firmly-drawn character in The Blue Place that I'm interested to see how both she and the shape of the narrative shift in the wake of the ending.

[davidgillon]

There are some elements that I would perhaps like to assess more critically, including Aud and Julia's shared white-girl sexy karate prowess

An essential factoid for that assessment would probably be to edit the subject to "... including Aud and Julia and Nicola Griffith's ..."

[rachelmanija]

I thought it was aikido, not karate.

[skygiants]

You may be right! I was trying to double-check, but I'd already returned my copy to the library and all the reviews I saw seemed to say karate.

[davidgillon]

I think you're probably right, in fact I did mean to qualify that comment with 'though I can't remember Griffith's actual art', but forgot.

[skygiants]

True, and it seems from interviews that Aud is a self-insert to a certain degree ...

[obopolsk]

This post reminds me that I started but...never actually finished Hild, whoops! I did recently read her novel So Lucky, though, which I liked very much.