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I knew Jeannette Ng's Under the Pendulum Sun leaned hard into creepy Victorian fae tropes, so I was pretty much expecting something in the same general wheelhouse as Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and Sorcerer to the Crown.
Instead I got the Venn diagram between Jane Eyre and the works of Kaori Yuki, with the wackiness ramped way down and the Victorian theology ramped way, way up. A different experience!
The protagonist, Cathy Helstone, has traveled to the outskirts of Arcadia (fairyland) to find her brother Laon, a missionary who for the past several years has been failing dramatically to keep up with his correspondence while attempting to convert fairies to Christianity.
The mission so far has one (1) convert, Mr. Benjamin the gardener, but honestly that's better than I would expect of such an obviously doomed enterprise, so ... good job!
Unfortunately, Laon is away on some sort of ambiguous mission business when Cathy arrives, so her only company is Mr. Benjamin and Ariel Davenport, an incredibly tryhard polite and awkward changeling who's temporarily acting as her guide and household companion. Ariel Davenport, for the record, is my favorite character in the book.
However, Cathy does not really appreciate the company of either Mr. Benjamin or Ariel Davenport -- mostly she just finds Mr. Benjamin's constant theological questions stressful and Ariel's desperate attempts at uninformative politeness frustrating, although I find them both deeply charming -- so instead she turns to the project of trying to translate the journals of Laon's predecessor, a missionary who died under mysterious circumstances. Also, there are strange mysteries and forbidden locations in the house! And possibly the presence of a mysterious screaming woman? MAYBE IN THE ATTIC??
Things go on like this for a bit until Laon finally shows up in a pitch-perfect recreation of the Jane-Rochester scene from Jane Eyre ... and that should tell you all that you need to know about the relationship between Cathy and Laon, whose hobbies, once reunited, include "reminiscing fondly about their close and very normal childhood" and "staring longingly at each other while thinking about how the other's face looks like theirs, only sexier."
If you guessed, at this point, "Laon ran away to become a missionary and cut off contact because he's been an inveterate sisterluster for years," you would be correct!
Tension comes to a head when Queen Mab comes to stage an elaborate party at their house. Cathy, in her most appealing move of the book, attempts to teach her how to knit; unfortunately, Queen Mab is more interested in staging a human hunt that ends with Ariel Davenport dead (murdered by Cathy! at Ariel Davenport's request! so Laon wouldn't have to!) and the dramatic reveal that Cathy is a changeling herself!
Cathy, understandably, has an identity crisis! Laon insists that Cathy is still his sister and nothing can change that! However, they also almost immediately start banging, which somewhat diminishes the impact of these heartfelt assertions.
They also go on investigating the disappearance of the previous missionary, and learn that the screaming madwoman in theattic basement was the previous missionary's wife, an incredibly devout Christian whom he brought to Arcadia as bait so the fairies would come and tell her life-destroying theological truths. Which indeed they did, and then she murdered him, justifiably. Anyway now she's chained in the kitchen because the fairy housekeeper loves her and wants to stop her from stabbing herself, but hasn't heard of therapy because it's the nineteenth century. Nobody does anything about this; as far as I'm aware, at the end of the book she's still chained in the kitchen. She also tells them that Arcadia is Hell, which -- whether or not it's the literal truth -- Cathy and Laon are deep enough into weird Victorian theology to buy.
This leads into the final reveal: CATHY WAS NEVER A CHANGELING! It was all an Elaborate Ruse on the part of the Fairy Queen, who enjoyed tricking two self-righteous missionaries into incest on a technicality.
This is agonizingly life-destroying for Laon and Cathy, but, kids, I hate to break it to you: changeling or not, IT WAS INCEST ALL ALONG. You knew it. We all knew it. The time to be upset about this was ten chapters ago.
ANYWAY. In the end, Cathy and Laon decide that though they're definitely extreme sinners -- not only the incest, but also, lest we forget, Cathy did very much murder Ariel Davenport -- it's the very fact that they are extreme sinners that gives them the opportunity to venture further into Arcadia/Hell and try and spread the Good Word. Good luck, kids! Again, I don't predict a huge amount of success, but you've got to respect the hustle -- and, I mean, if they're going to missionary anywhere, they might as well go to Fairyland where it will be significantly more difficult to bring all the evils of colonialism with them...
At the end of the day, my feelings were pretty mixed; I honestly enjoyed the book's exploration of religious faith and thorough dive into weird literalized Victorian theology, and I respected its commitment to the Gothic, but I often found Cathy herself a fairly frustrating protagonist. Justice for Ariel Davenport!
Instead I got the Venn diagram between Jane Eyre and the works of Kaori Yuki, with the wackiness ramped way down and the Victorian theology ramped way, way up. A different experience!
The protagonist, Cathy Helstone, has traveled to the outskirts of Arcadia (fairyland) to find her brother Laon, a missionary who for the past several years has been failing dramatically to keep up with his correspondence while attempting to convert fairies to Christianity.
The mission so far has one (1) convert, Mr. Benjamin the gardener, but honestly that's better than I would expect of such an obviously doomed enterprise, so ... good job!
Unfortunately, Laon is away on some sort of ambiguous mission business when Cathy arrives, so her only company is Mr. Benjamin and Ariel Davenport, an incredibly tryhard polite and awkward changeling who's temporarily acting as her guide and household companion. Ariel Davenport, for the record, is my favorite character in the book.
However, Cathy does not really appreciate the company of either Mr. Benjamin or Ariel Davenport -- mostly she just finds Mr. Benjamin's constant theological questions stressful and Ariel's desperate attempts at uninformative politeness frustrating, although I find them both deeply charming -- so instead she turns to the project of trying to translate the journals of Laon's predecessor, a missionary who died under mysterious circumstances. Also, there are strange mysteries and forbidden locations in the house! And possibly the presence of a mysterious screaming woman? MAYBE IN THE ATTIC??
Things go on like this for a bit until Laon finally shows up in a pitch-perfect recreation of the Jane-Rochester scene from Jane Eyre ... and that should tell you all that you need to know about the relationship between Cathy and Laon, whose hobbies, once reunited, include "reminiscing fondly about their close and very normal childhood" and "staring longingly at each other while thinking about how the other's face looks like theirs, only sexier."
If you guessed, at this point, "Laon ran away to become a missionary and cut off contact because he's been an inveterate sisterluster for years," you would be correct!
Tension comes to a head when Queen Mab comes to stage an elaborate party at their house. Cathy, in her most appealing move of the book, attempts to teach her how to knit; unfortunately, Queen Mab is more interested in staging a human hunt that ends with Ariel Davenport dead (murdered by Cathy! at Ariel Davenport's request! so Laon wouldn't have to!) and the dramatic reveal that Cathy is a changeling herself!
Cathy, understandably, has an identity crisis! Laon insists that Cathy is still his sister and nothing can change that! However, they also almost immediately start banging, which somewhat diminishes the impact of these heartfelt assertions.
They also go on investigating the disappearance of the previous missionary, and learn that the screaming madwoman in the
This leads into the final reveal: CATHY WAS NEVER A CHANGELING! It was all an Elaborate Ruse on the part of the Fairy Queen, who enjoyed tricking two self-righteous missionaries into incest on a technicality.
This is agonizingly life-destroying for Laon and Cathy, but, kids, I hate to break it to you: changeling or not, IT WAS INCEST ALL ALONG. You knew it. We all knew it. The time to be upset about this was ten chapters ago.
ANYWAY. In the end, Cathy and Laon decide that though they're definitely extreme sinners -- not only the incest, but also, lest we forget, Cathy did very much murder Ariel Davenport -- it's the very fact that they are extreme sinners that gives them the opportunity to venture further into Arcadia/Hell and try and spread the Good Word. Good luck, kids! Again, I don't predict a huge amount of success, but you've got to respect the hustle -- and, I mean, if they're going to missionary anywhere, they might as well go to Fairyland where it will be significantly more difficult to bring all the evils of colonialism with them...
At the end of the day, my feelings were pretty mixed; I honestly enjoyed the book's exploration of religious faith and thorough dive into weird literalized Victorian theology, and I respected its commitment to the Gothic, but I often found Cathy herself a fairly frustrating protagonist. Justice for Ariel Davenport!