I've been trying to figure out how to review this novel for days now. I have a pretty strong background in Russian history, both Soviet an4 1/2 stars.
I've been trying to figure out how to review this novel for days now. I have a pretty strong background in Russian history, both Soviet and not, and so I kind of feel like I shouldn't have been surprised by anything in this book, but I was. I was gutted, my heart was shredded, I kept saying, "no!" aloud, to the story on the page, not least because Pulley draws her story from true events. Not least because my reading of Soviet history and the genocide perpetrated against the Russian people (to say nothing of everyone else) supports every single awful thing that happens here.
It is a marvel of a book. It is also utterly shattering.
Solzhenitsyn's In The First Circle tells the story of his time in the gulag, and the opening of The Half Life of Valery K reminds me strongly of it. The tone is similar enough to serve as a warning of things to come, and it's also a clue that every word Pulley writes is deliberate. Every line of dialog and every bit of self-censorship is intentional and eventually so ingrained that the characters don't even dare think their concerns, they only circle them allegorically.
It is harrowing.
Somehow Pulley wrangles a (relatively) happy ending out of this journey through horrific moral relativism , and along the way we see her usual themes of iron-willed women, gender dysphoria, and desperation for human connection in settings that literally kill people for seeking it. There's a polyamorous love story between the protagonist and his married male love interest and some wonderful m/f friendship.
The real life setting that inspired the novel is the Mayak complex nuclear waste disaster that took place at Lake Karachai in the late 1950s and its shuttering in the early 1960s. This resulted in a radiation poisoning event 20 times worse than that of Chernobyl.
I had a couple of quibbles, as usual. First, it was weird to me to read Russians using British slang. I get the desire to convey colloquial conversations, but it was distracting. Second, the sex scenes are so oblique as to only exist in hindsight. This is clearly intentional: homosexuality was illegal & people learned from childhood to censor their very thoughts, much less words, when it came to anything that might land one in the Lubyanka. But readers are not actually able to read the author's mind and most people haven't read as much history as I have, so I wish there were more -- words like "texture" or "rhythm" or "pressure" or "strength" in the narrative would have drawn in the outlines while maintaining sufficient terror of discovery.
That said, this was an amazing book. Excruciating at times, and surprisingly literary for historical fiction, but amazing all the same.
In What Moves the Dead, T. Kingfisher (aka Ursula Vernon) remixes Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" and it is delightfully creepy, woIn What Moves the Dead, T. Kingfisher (aka Ursula Vernon) remixes Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" and it is delightfully creepy, wonderful gothic horror. I read it, immediately went and reread "The Fall of the House of Usher" (which I hadn't read since jr high or high school and now is available online in several places for free because it's out of copyright), and then I read What Moves the Dead all over again to savor the depth and texture of Kingfisher's work.
I've loved her writing since Summer in Orcus with few exceptions, and I open each one of her new works with an open heart, ready to love. This one brings together the best of her naturalist sensibilities, the richness of actual Gothic & Southern Gothic lit, the entertaining spark of European multiculturalism (including an improbable American transplant), and a core conceit rooted in Poe's imagination into something greater than its parts. I almost wish it were a full novel, although that would take it far beyond Poe's short story and possibly make it unrecognizable.
I loved the original characters, especially Miss Potter, and Easton's culture is one I would love to know more about/see again. I loved the the linguistics asides and how deftly drawn were Easton's core assumptions about her tiny country and the world. The elements of nature were vividly detailed and, not to spoil, but I had visceral reactions where appropriate. :g:
I find novellas hard to rate because I nearly always want to take off a star for wishing it were longer, which isn't really fair to the form. So I'm going to call it 4 1/2 stars.
CW for animal harm.
ARC
[edited to add] My arc didn't include the cover art, so I only saw it after posting. WOW! That is some appropriately creepy imagery. Kudos to the artist....more
I liked this a lot but I wish there had been...more. more folklore, more context, more Welsh, more description, more yearning to fully immerse me in tI liked this a lot but I wish there had been...more. more folklore, more context, more Welsh, more description, more yearning to fully immerse me in the verse....more
**spoiler alert** Parts of this are brilliant, and then there are a couple of plot holes that bug the hell out of me and have me docking stars. But I **spoiler alert** Parts of this are brilliant, and then there are a couple of plot holes that bug the hell out of me and have me docking stars. But I adore a good setting that is intrinsic to the plot, which this is! I just want a rewrite of the last quarter to get the whole mythopoesis thing down clearly....more
3.5 stars. Lovely use of language and atmosphere. I wish the plot had gone a bit further/deeper and the characterization were crisper. But really a mu3.5 stars. Lovely use of language and atmosphere. I wish the plot had gone a bit further/deeper and the characterization were crisper. But really a much better first novel than most....more
**spoiler alert** 3.5 stars. + Best reply to "You're too young to be using a cane!" I've ever read. - Wish the world building had been more vivid, esp**spoiler alert** 3.5 stars. + Best reply to "You're too young to be using a cane!" I've ever read. - Wish the world building had been more vivid, especially wrt color. ~ Deliciously Southern, though I could have done with a little more of the South in it. Maybe food, maybe music or hurricanes, maybe colonial relics.
Also: stupid publisher's blurb describes protagonist as a "young woman" when she's 34. Uh, whut?...more
**spoiler alert** Didn't hook me. The lovecraftian style was distracting. I couldn't tell the difference between the two narrative voices. The structu**spoiler alert** Didn't hook me. The lovecraftian style was distracting. I couldn't tell the difference between the two narrative voices. The structure didn't work for me. And I couldn't get invested.
But I still love the verse really really a lot. It just wants a deep dive quest rather than this skimming along on the surface....more
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