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Dec. 5th, 2019 11:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsFrances Hardinge's latest, Deeplight, is not yet out in the states, but izilen sent me a copy from the UK so I could get my fix!
This is the rare Frances Hardinge book that does not feature a more or less monstrous teen girl as the protagonist, but a lying Dickensian urchin lad is a reasonable substitute. (shati and I have been having a whole conversation about Hardinge protagonist patterns over in her post about the book, so I will not rehash it here, but I do think it's very clear that Hardinge has different things to say about her heroines and her heroes.) Anyway! Hark the urchin lad lives on a set of islands that used to worship great and terrible monsters of the deep, which have all died in an unspecified calamity within living memory; the islands are now grappling with the holes left by the absence of the gods, and, relatedly, the potentially ominous arrival of foreign trade from the mainland. On the bright side, the islands have developed a thriving deaf culture as a result of the boom in commercial diving!
Among all this cultural upheaval, Hark is perfectly content with his life of small-time crime; unfortunately, his best friend, Jelt, is a.) determined to do bigger time crime and b.) equally determined that Hark will be doing the bigger time crime with him. As is often the case in Hardinge books, things spiral very rapidly out of control! Eldritch ocean horror ensues!
Aside from Hark, other major characters include:
Jelt: a meaner Dickensian lad rapidly exiting urchinhood; Not A Good Friend
Rigg: A Pirate
Selphin: Rigg's daughter; a feral girl, because this is a Hardinge book; afraid of the sea as a result of a diving accident, which is, unfortunately, a major drawback for a pirate's daughter
Dr. Vyne: morally ambiguous mentor #1, a brilliant research scientist performing experiments using leftover bits of god-carcass
Quest: morally ambiguous mentor #2, a dying priest with Secrets
The Hidden Lady: a dead god with a human torso and crab-legs; Hark has a bit of a crush on her, because Frances Hardinge has apparently been on tumblr and understands what the youth are into (it's great and terrible monsters of the deep)
It was a good time for me to read this book; I don't know if I would have liked it as much as I did if I hadn't already been primed by Heaven's Official Blessings to have a lot of thoughts and opinions about power and divinity and the way humans relate to those things. I ... love Quest? Nobody is surprised by this. "The things we worship are powerful but not intelligent or benevolent and therefore any amount of sacrifice is worth it to be free of them so we can be as awful as we want on our own terms" is such a fantastically ambitious motive and I appreciate that he sticks to his guns about it. I mean, it is probably bad that thousands of people died in the process and also the troubling prospect of colonialism was introduced as a result. Nonetheless: respect! Also I found his relationship with Hark heartwarming. On a character level it's probably not my favorite favorite Hardinge, but the way it handles its worldbuilding and themes overall puts it pretty well up there for me.
izilen sent me a copy from the UK so I could get my fix! This is the rare Frances Hardinge book that does not feature a more or less monstrous teen girl as the protagonist, but a lying Dickensian urchin lad is a reasonable substitute. (
shati and I have been having a whole conversation about Hardinge protagonist patterns over in her post about the book, so I will not rehash it here, but I do think it's very clear that Hardinge has different things to say about her heroines and her heroes.) Anyway! Hark the urchin lad lives on a set of islands that used to worship great and terrible monsters of the deep, which have all died in an unspecified calamity within living memory; the islands are now grappling with the holes left by the absence of the gods, and, relatedly, the potentially ominous arrival of foreign trade from the mainland. On the bright side, the islands have developed a thriving deaf culture as a result of the boom in commercial diving! Among all this cultural upheaval, Hark is perfectly content with his life of small-time crime; unfortunately, his best friend, Jelt, is a.) determined to do bigger time crime and b.) equally determined that Hark will be doing the bigger time crime with him. As is often the case in Hardinge books, things spiral very rapidly out of control! Eldritch ocean horror ensues!
Aside from Hark, other major characters include:
Jelt: a meaner Dickensian lad rapidly exiting urchinhood; Not A Good Friend
Rigg: A Pirate
Selphin: Rigg's daughter; a feral girl, because this is a Hardinge book; afraid of the sea as a result of a diving accident, which is, unfortunately, a major drawback for a pirate's daughter
Dr. Vyne: morally ambiguous mentor #1, a brilliant research scientist performing experiments using leftover bits of god-carcass
Quest: morally ambiguous mentor #2, a dying priest with Secrets
The Hidden Lady: a dead god with a human torso and crab-legs; Hark has a bit of a crush on her, because Frances Hardinge has apparently been on tumblr and understands what the youth are into (it's great and terrible monsters of the deep)
It was a good time for me to read this book; I don't know if I would have liked it as much as I did if I hadn't already been primed by Heaven's Official Blessings to have a lot of thoughts and opinions about power and divinity and the way humans relate to those things. I ... love Quest? Nobody is surprised by this. "The things we worship are powerful but not intelligent or benevolent and therefore any amount of sacrifice is worth it to be free of them so we can be as awful as we want on our own terms" is such a fantastically ambitious motive and I appreciate that he sticks to his guns about it. I mean, it is probably bad that thousands of people died in the process and also the troubling prospect of colonialism was introduced as a result. Nonetheless: respect! Also I found his relationship with Hark heartwarming. On a character level it's probably not my favorite favorite Hardinge, but the way it handles its worldbuilding and themes overall puts it pretty well up there for me.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-06 05:19 am (UTC)I don't think it's a stage one grows out of.
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Date: 2019-12-06 07:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-12-06 09:01 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2019-12-07 04:40 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2019-12-07 06:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-12-07 05:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-12-07 09:01 pm (UTC)I can see that.
Out of curiosity, are the great and terrible monsters of the deep actually gods, or just treated as such by the human inhabitants of the islands, or is this the kind of universe where a sufficient level of power renders that a meaningless distinction?
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Date: 2019-12-07 11:00 pm (UTC)I'm gonna put the rest in ROT13 because it's a fairly major spoiler and other commenters might not want to see it: gur tbqf va guvf obbx ner, sbe gur zbfg cneg, abg engvbany bapr gurl tebj cnfg n pregnva fvmr; gur cevrfgf znxr fnpevsvprf, abg orpnhfr gur tbqf qrznaq gurz, ohg orpnhfr gurl arrq gb hfr fbzrguvat gb yher gur tbqf njnl sebz vaunovgrq nernf. Jr nyfb riraghnyyl yrnea gung gur tbqf cebonoyl nyy fgnegrq bhg nf uhznaf, genafsbezrq vagb fbzrguvat ryfr ol jrveq rkgen-qrrc bprna jngre naq gura ol praghevrf bs srrqvat ba uhzna srne. Ohg nyfb, rira bapr nyy guvf vf xabja gb gur cebgntbavfg - bapr ur'f vagreanyvmrq gb uvzfrys gung n erghea bs gur ntr bs gur tbqf jbhyq npghnyyl cebonoyl or n onq guvat - vg'f abg yvxr ur fgnegf hfvat nabgure grez sbe gurz. Naq, V zrna, jung znxrf n tbq, naljnl? Vf vg cbjre, be jbefuvc, be jung?
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Date: 2019-12-07 11:13 pm (UTC)I don't know that I have a one-stop definition, but I do think that if something is going to be an actual god as distinguished from any other available phenomenon, it should be qualitatively different from the aforementioned phenomena, which is why all those pop-culture hot-take characterizations of the Greek gods as superpowered humans behaving badly can be funny but also cause me to want to beat people over the head with the Homeric hymns repeatedly.
gur tbqf va guvf obbx ner, sbe gur zbfg cneg, abg engvbany bapr gurl tebj cnfg n pregnva fvmr
Gung vf n ernyyl vagrerfgvat jbeyqohvyqvat qrpvfvba. Abg fragvrag, be whfg abg engvbany? (V guvax V'z gelvat gb tnhtr gur yriryf bs "yvxr natyresvfu, onfvpnyyl, ohg ernyvgl-jnecvat" if. Ybirpensgvna Ryqre Tbqf, ng yrnfg bar bs juvpu vf pnabavpnyyl vafnar.)
Naq, V zrna, jung znxrf n tbq, naljnl? Vf vg cbjre, be jbefuvc, be jung?
Gung'f gur cneg V qba'g unir na nafjre gb, nygubhtu V srry gung V trg pybfrfg ol qvfnterrvat jvgu inevbhf svpgvbany nggrzcgf. Sbe rknzcyr V sbhaq gur raqvat bs Gur Nzore Fcltynff vaperqvoyl hafngvfslvat, orpnhfr vg frrzrq gb pynvz gung Chyyzna'f Tbq/gur Nhgubevgl jnf na hajbegul bowrpg bs uhzna jbefuvc orpnhfr ur jnf ernyyl whfg n erthyne Qhfg-pbaqrafrq natry jub unq yvrq nobhg univat perngrq gur havirefr: ur jnf n cergraqre gb n abarkvfgrag guebar. V nz zhpu zber vagrerfgrq ol fgbevrf jurer crbcyr qvfnterr jvgu tbqf gung ner ernyyl tbqf naq abg fgenj zra orpnhfr vg vf zber cuvybfbcuvpnyyl pbzcyvpngrq naq nyfb cebonoyl orpnhfr V nz Wrjvfu.
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Date: 2019-12-08 05:11 pm (UTC)A thing I'm finding overall, I think, is that I'm much more interested in how humans relate to their perception of gods/the divine than I am in the divine itself. I like stories about priests and rabbis and profound believers, and also the kind of story you describe, about people who rebel against their conception of the divine because they've decided it's unworthy of them. I think that's one of the things that makes this book in particular work for me -- it's less about the gods themselves and more about how people feel about it and what they do about it.
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Date: 2019-12-08 06:02 pm (UTC)That makes sense to me. I think I just find it a cop-out when the answer is "We don't need to worship you because you aren't really God!" as opposed to "All right, so you're God . . . your point . . . ?"
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Date: 2019-12-10 03:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-02-28 07:52 pm (UTC)I didn't even notice that deafness was never healed, but it didn't surprise me much because of the community and position of the sea-kissed. Getting your hearing back would come with big social consequences.
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Date: 2020-04-15 05:17 pm (UTC)