Katherine Mansfield, 1888 – 1923

Last week, I mentioned Katherine Mansfield’s Miss Brill in the context of a “drawing in” mode of storytelling, as opposed to a more observational and distancing narrative style.

As noted then, what I mean by “drawing in” is that as reader I am drawn into the world of the story and the lives of the characters, experiencing the events of the story through their eyes and emotions. Although it can sometimes work to feel as if you are ‘outside’ the story, looking in on the ‘play’ of characters and emotions, generally I find this less satisfying as a reading experience.

Katherine Mansfield (1888 – 1923) is recognized as one of literature’s outstanding short storyists (yes, I did coin that word!) and although I have read and enjoyed many of her works, Miss Brill is one of those that has stuck with me. It’s short but very powerful, and despite being published almost a century ago, is still compelling reading (imho.)

Miss Brill is an ageing single woman living alone, and the story hones in on the routine of her life, and her Sunday routine in particular. What matters is what the routine tells us without a narrative discussion by the author. We understand that Miss Brill is not only ageing, single, and lives alone, but that she is poor, isolated, and lonely. The power of the story is that by the end we also feel the fragility of such circumstances, because while reading we have walked in Miss Brill’s shoes.

That was my experience of the story at any rate, and I have read it several times now. More than any other short story I can recall, Mansfield’s Miss Brill illuminates an aspect of human nature and of the human condition, holding up a mirror to society and ourselves. As an author, it exemplifies what great writing is and sets a standard to aspire too. The bar is a high one, but that is at it should be.

Note: the reason I haven’t talked about what happens in the story in specific terms is because it is a short story, one that merits being read in the original rather than me telling you everything about it here. 😉

Miss Brill is part of the collection titled The Garden Party and Other Stories, which first appeared in 1922.

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The About The Characters post series focuses on the minor characters in The Wall Of Night series, in large part because:

“I think it’s the presence of the smaller characters that “makes” a story, creating texture around the main points of view.”

~ from my Legend Award Finalist's Interview, 2013

Initially, the series focused exclusively on characters from The Heir of Night, but now I’m continuing on with minor characters from both The Gathering Of The Lost and Daughter of Blood simultaneously — in alphabetical order, of course!

(The quotes, together with the covers, indicate the books in which the character appears.)

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Hatha:  a Daughter of Blood, second child to the Earl of Blood; also known as Captain-Lady Hatha. 

“Your sister has sent for you,” the ensign continued, when Myr did not speak. “Captain- Lady Hatha wants to see how your weapons’ practice is progressing.”

Myr groaned. “Do I have to?”

Taly’s expression did not change. “She said I was to flush you out, wherever you were hiding. And that my failure would not be acceptable to her.”

I hate the way Hatha does that, Myr thought: makes it clear that Taly, Dab, or whoever else she corners will get punishment detail if I don’t do what she wants. “I loathe weapons practice,” she said…

~ from © Daughter Of Blood: The Wall of Night Book Three, Chapter 1 — Lady Mouse

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Note: The last About The Characters’ entry, for Heris, was out of alphabetical order, for which I apologise—but I’ve taken a small step back today so we’re back on track. I’m not quite sure how it happened but I’ll claim it as a consequence of my degree of concentration on WALL #4! 😉

Angela Carter (1940 – 1992) is an SFF name I’ve known for quite some time because although relatively shortlived, she’s an iconic writer from the 1970s and 1980s, credited with reframing speculative fiction through a feminist lens. She also received more awards for her writing than you can shake a stick at.

Yet although I read some of her 1970s non-fiction while at university, I never quite got around to the fiction, which is why when I stumbled across her collection of short stories titled The Bloody Chamber—on a book table in my local MP’s office of all places; yes indeed, endeavouring to participate in the democratic process, aye!—I snapped it up.

Being a writer, I can no more not read than a fish can not swim, but when hard at work on a novel (as you will all be glad to hear I am right now, despite the visit to my MP’s office 😉 ) short stories are a great way of continuing reading without embarking on the commitment—and temptation toward page-turning nights—that are a risk of novel reading. (Especially SFF ‘doorstop’ novels – just saying!)

All another good reason for snapping up The Bloody Chamber – and dear readers, I have not been disappointed.

The Bloody Chamber is a retelling of traditional folk and fairytales with a particular focus on more contemporary settings—although some I would also describe as ‘timeless’ or ‘time-slippish’—as well as famously empowering the heroines and generally giving the stories a more female-centric slant. For example, in the title story, The Bloody Chamber, which is a retelling of the Bluebeard fairytale, the heroine is rescued by her mother, not her brothers as in the traditional story. (Although I note that the heroine’s sister, Anne, supported her sister in the traditional version so it was not entirely ‘passive heroine alone.’)

The collection contains ten stories, several of them told two different ways: for example The Courtship of Mr Lyon and The Tiger’s Bride are both retellings of Beauty and the Beast, each with a different slant. Similarly, The Werewolf and The Company of Wolves, offer two different takes on Little Red Riding Hood. The latter was the basis for the 1984 film of the same name.

In addition to her feminist lens, Carter’s work (in this collection) is decidedly Gothic in tone but stands out most for her amazing use of language. This collection is definitely a Gorgeous Words contender, with opulent, even ornate, imagery and powerful evocative language. The stories and the language also comprise (because no one story is approached in the same way) the bold and the bawdy, the richly sensual and outright sexual, and the bloody and savage.

Completely in keeping with the traditions of fairy and folk tales, you may say, and I believe you are quite right. The point of difference is the contemporary framing and the willingness to look at more than one way of telling the same story.

The one aspect that did not work well for me was that I found the storytelling style distancing. I always felt I was on the outside looking in at the story happening, rather than being drawn into the action and ‘living’ it with the characters. In part this was because of the almost ‘anthropological’ use of the narrative voice, which may have been deliberate because of the fairytale retelling format. But it’s not my preferred style of short story, with the ‘drawing in’ style epitomized for me by Katherine Mansfield’s Miss Brill.

The strengths that carried the stories through, for me, were the power of the language and the equally powerful reslanting of the old stories. Overall, I’ve enjoyed the collection and definitely recommend it to keen speculative fiction and fairytale retelling readers. I believe those who enjoy authors such as Catherynne M. Valente and Seanan Maguire will almost certainly appreciate Angela Carter.

Angela Carter, 1940 – 1992

As for those ten stories, do I have a favourite among them? I did like The Bloody Chamber heroine’s Mum riding to her rescue, which makes a great opening tale. Overall, though, I incline toward Puss-In-Boots, as favourite. This may be surprising to some since it’s probably the most bawdy and definitely the most amoral of the tales. Nonetheless, the retelling fits the story and it has a sardonic, tongue-in-cheek quality that works very well—and of all the stories, Puss’s point of view engaged me most fully.

To learn more about Angela Carter you can start with the British Council, here, or try Wikipedia, here.

The Wall of Night Series map; artist Peter Fitzpatrick

The A Geography of Haarth post series is traversing the full range of locales and places from The Wall of Night world of Haarth. Each locale is accompanied by a quote from the relevant books where the place occurs.

From January 25, 2013 to November 25, 2014, the series explored locations encountered in The Heir Of Night and The Gathering Of The Lost. Now the series has resumed to ensure the geography of Daughter Of Blood (The Wall Of Night Book Three) is included in our “grand tour”, epic fantasy style. 😉

The new series comprises updates of previous entries as well as the new listings.

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Temple Of Night:  the main temple precinct of the Keep of Winds, comprising temples to all nine Derai gods, but primarily dedicated to the god Mhaelanar, the Defender.
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“She was right, Kalan thought, but he still loathed the turn his life had taken. The House of Blood was the most extreme of the warrior orders, exiling all but a bare minimum of those with the old powers—usually to one of the priestly Houses. There were days when Kalan was grateful that the Temple of Night had been short of novices and so he was still part of the forbidden warrior world, even at a distance. But at times like this it made his lot seem that much harder.”

~ from © The Heir Of Night, The Wall of Night Book One: Chapter 3 — Whispers in the Dark
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“Darksworn, he thought, and felt the familiar insect crawl along his spine, although he had never resisted the knowledge that there might be Derai amongst the Swarm in the same way Malian had. Perhaps because Brother Belan had told him the story when he first arrived in the Temple of Night, and the crazy old man had seemed like his only friend at that time.”

~  from © The Gathering Of The Lost, The Wall of Night Book Two: Chapter 42 — Rites of Honor
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Kalan was not quite sure why he was giving the vagabond further thought, except that he knew what it was to be both outcast and exile, thrown on the kindness of strangers. In both cases he had been fortunate, first in the Temple of Night under Sister Korriya’s tutelage— although he had not appreciated his fortune at the time— and later as Falk of Normarch’s foster son. But he had seen enough of the world to know that it could be far from kind, especially to those without money, or kin and clan to call on in need.

~ from © Daughter Of Blood, The Wall of Night Book Three: Chapter 7 —Fire and Water

Just to recap, I have dedicated 2019 as my Year of Romance (#YOR) on the Supernatural Underground, specifically Romance in Fantasy Fiction (#RIFF). Because as I indicated last month, Fantasy is how I roll. 😀

I began in March with JRR Tolkien’s The Lord Of The Rings (aka when romance is missing-in-action), continuing in April with Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke and Bone, which is romance of the kind I categorize as “my enemy, my love.” Last month, I featured Patricia McKillip’s Riddlemaster series, with the additional tagline of “Constancy Amid Tumult.”

On 1 June, I featured Guy Gavriel Kay’s Under Heaven — in particular Li-Mei & Meshag’s tale with the subsidiary tagline ‘When Your Ship Doesn’t Sail’.

Also known as: When The Stars Don’t Align, aka It Could Never Be – but to find out more, rock on over to Supernatural Underground and check out the post in full: 😉

Guy Gavriel Kay’s Under Heaven: Li-Mei & Meshag’s Tale or ‘When Your Ship Doesn’t Sail’

Enjoy!

UK/AU/NZ

The About The Characters post series focuses on the minor characters in The Wall Of Night series, in large part because:

“I think it’s the presence of the smaller characters that “makes” a story, creating texture around the main points of view.”

~ from my Legend Award Finalist's Interview, 2013

Initially, the series focused exclusively on characters from The Heir of Night, but now I’m continuing on with minor characters from both The Gathering Of The Lost and Daughter of Blood simultaneously — in alphabetical order, of course!

(The quotes, together with the covers, indicate the books in which the character appears.)

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Heris:  an itinerant scribe, in the Southern Realms of Haarth

…Heris—a name that could equally well originate on the River or in northern Emer—an itinerant scribe on a pilgrimage to all the shrines of Serrut in Emer and Aralorn. And maybe Lathayra, although the shabby scribe was undecided on that point whenever his plans were discussed. Lathayra, he had heard, was a dangerous place for those not adept with the weapons of war.

~  from © The Gathering Of The Lost, The Wall of Night Book Two: Chapter 53 — The Solitary Tower

Some years ago when I lived in Sweden, I was told that in the main language of neighbouring Finland (i.e. Finnish, as opposed to Swedish, which is also an official language there) there are only two pronouns: one personal, denoting ‘he/she’ for people; and one impersonal, denoting ‘it’ for inanimate objects.

This, I felt, was a straightforward and sensible state of affairs and would also make writing far easier, because it disposes with the perennial awkwardness of personal pronouns when the context is indeterminate, i.e. the story has not revealed whether the person is a he or a she, or is dealing with a group that includes both—which is frequently the case in Derai society. (I feel that the Derai language would definitely take a Finnish approach to pronouns.)

Although the now old-fashioned use of “he”, in English, to include “she” may appear to achieve the same end as the Finnish he/she I don’t feel that it does. This is because the English tradition of separate pronouns means that the “she” is being artificially subsumed by the “he”, as opposed to the Finnish situation where one pronoun has evolved to mean both.

To avoid having to cumbersomely write “he or she”, “his or hers” I naturally incline to using “they” and “their.” They/them is also an approach being adopted by those who choose not to identify as a specific gender. However, I have been corrected for the they/their usage in the past, although the mighty Merriam Webster has pronounced recently on the “they” usage being A-OK—at the same time pointing out that it’s centuries old.

original, 1904 cover

However, I was recently reminded of another alternative that appears to have been acceptable in the past, but which I’d forgotten since it has been Very Many Years Indeed since I last looked between the covers of an E Nesbit book.

You know,  E Nesbit, the  awesome force in children’s writing from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, whose Five Children series juxtaposed magic with childhood adventures. Anyway, I recently unearthed a tattered copy of The Phoenix and the Carpet from one of the post-earthquake era boxes that are still waiting to be unpacked — and in dipping into it, discovered this:

“Then all the fireworks were put on the table, and each of the four children shut its very tight and put out its hand and grasped something.”

Not “his or her”, dear readers, and not “their” either (there being four children at this juncture of the story, two girls and two boys), but “its.”

Needless to say I was quite fascinated (enough to keep skimming and see it crop up consistently throughout the story), both because the awkwardness of “he or she” is obviously a longstanding problem for authors and because “its” must have been an acceptable alternative at the time E Nesbit was writing.

And because I do love words and language, and the history and evolution of both, I decided I had to share “its” with you. 😀

The Wall of Night Series map; artist Peter Fitzpatrick

The A Geography of Haarth post series is traversing the full range of locales and places from The Wall of Night world of Haarth. Each locale is accompanied by a quote from the relevant books where the place occurs.

From January 25, 2013 to November 25, 2014, the series explored locations encountered in The Heir Of Night and The Gathering Of The Lost. Now the series has resumed to ensure the geography of Daughter Of Blood (The Wall Of Night Book Three) is included in our “grand tour”, epic fantasy style. 😉

The new series comprises updates of previous entries as well as the new listings.

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Telimbras:  the braided river that runs the length of the Jaransor hills, separating them from the Gray Lands.  It eventually becomes a tributary of the Ijir. Also known as “the river of no return.”
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“She let her mind soar, following the bird, and suddenly the whole world was sharper, clearer, every rock and ridge outlined as though she saw it through the falcon’s eyes.  That gaze swung wider, out over the plain, and Malian felt certain that her enemies were there, hidden beneath the milky haze.  Their presence buzzed at her, sharp as a wasp along the outer edge of her mind.  She could sense an inexorable quality to their pursuit, and did not think the river Telimbras would stop them for long.”

~ from © The Heir Of Night, The Wall of Night Book One: Chapter 25 — The River of No Return

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The owl’s call, soft and sad from the trees, sounded like a farewell as she brought the gray alongside Raven’s horse. Briefly, Malian wondered if it was the same bird that had helped her earlier. But the horses were already turning toward Hedeld and the Telimbras, their hooves muted by drifted leaves as they left the night, and the ruin, and the body, to the pyre’s leap of flame.

~ from © Daughter Of Blood, The Wall of Night Book Three: Chapter 37 —High Stakes

The Wall Of Night series

“Player” vs “non player” characters are a roleplaying (i.e. roleplaying game) term. Broadly speaking, “player” characters are those developed (i.e. “rolled up” since dice—or more correctly, die—feature in this process) and then played by the participants in the game. “Non player” characters, aka NPCs,  are usually those generated by the Game Master to help along whatever campaign she or he is running.

In writing terms, I tend to think of those characters that exist in present time and are alluded to by others, but never actually appear in the action of the story, as “non player” characters. And yes, I persist in this mental categorization even though I know non player characters are frequently (if not always) part of the action in roleplaying games.

For me, it’s a useful piece of writerly shorthand, especially as the term does encapsulate the part such characters occupy in the story—an important aspect being that they are not just “names off (stage)”, but their existence has a bearing on the storyline.

Examples that I can think of, off the top of my head, include Elite Cairon of the Shadow Band, Onnorin of the Derai House of Adamant, and the River trader, Gray Taan.

As a writer, though, I believe it’s important that non player characters (as opposed to mere “names off”) should still convey a sense of personality and well, character…

Here’s a snippet for each for the three I’ve mentioned so you can decide for yourself whether I’ve hit the mark:

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Elite Cairon:
And Elite Cairon? she wondered. For nearly five years I’ve been working the River every summer and hunting down trails that always came to nothing—yet he is an Elite of the Shadow Band, with its network of listeners and agents. All along he must have known.

Bastard, Malian thought, entirely without surprise.

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Onnorin of Adamant:
…Rook could not help admiring the ensign’s courage in refusing to forswear her mission, despite the punishment meted out. She
reminded him of Onnorin, who had taken more than one beating, during their growing up together, that a lie would have prevented.

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Gray Taan:
Asantir paused. “I learned later that the trader, Gray Taan, was famous. As soon as I entered, he said he had something that might interest me.”

“Did he know the swords’ history?” Kalan asked, curious now.

She shook her head. “Only how they came into his hands, amidst an array of weapons of dubious provenance—his
words—in a tinker’s wagon. Too rich and too foreign for easy sale, the tinker had told him, and that he had been thinking
of melting them down. … “

USA

The About The Characters post series focuses on the minor characters in The Wall Of Night series, in large part because:

“I think it’s the presence of the smaller characters that “makes” a story, creating texture around the main points of view.”

~ from my Legend Award Finalist's Interview, 2013

Initially, the series focused exclusively on characters from The Heir of Night, but now I’m continuing on with minor characters from both The Gathering Of The Lost and Daughter of Blood simultaneously — in alphabetical order, of course!

(The quotes, together with the covers, indicate the books in which the character appears.)

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UK/AU/NZ

Guyon:  a knight in training, in the southern realm of Emer

They all seemed friendly enough, Carick decided, as Audin’s riders assembled around him…The only person who was silent while they waited for Raven was the young woman. She had led out a great, red roan warhorse and patted its neck while she listened to the cut andthrust of conversation between the other six, who obviously knew each other well. The youth swapping jokes with Hamar was called Arn, while Tibalt, who had a moth-shaped birthmark on his cheek, held a torch steady so that another young man, whose name seemed to be Guyon, could adjust his stirrup leathers.

~  from © The Gathering Of The Lost, The Wall of Night Book Two: Chapter 12 — Nightfall