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Apr. 30th, 2019 09:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsThe 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 outrachelmanija 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.)
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.)
