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kivt's review
4.0
Parts of this were sublime, parts were overwrought, and a few parts were boring. I liked the sharp turns to the surreal. Dorsey’s horror imagery is extremely evocative and effective. The end definitely felt rushed. But it was a weird book and I’m really not sure what I thought of it, all told.
megatsunami's review
4.0
Debating between 4 and 5 stars for this really well-written novel. Basically it's a novel set on another planet or a future Earth, in which there are a range of cultures with widely varying access to technology and vastly different cultural practices. Some seem dystopian, some utopian, some just different. You might call this anthropological sci-fi a la LeGuin. At first the different chapters seem to be following totally unrelated stories, but the threads come together part way through the book. The writing is just beautiful, and the characters are diverse and interesting. This is a super thoughtful book exploring how characters find ways to manage personal and societal violence and how it affects their relationships. My main caveat is the fairly gruesome violence, which kept me from re-reading it for some time after the first reading. Since the main characters are trying to overcome their upbringing in an extremely violent culture, we see a lot of the bad stuff, including quite a lot of sexual violence. But if you can stomach the violent parts, this is an amazing novel that's well worth your time.
charlotekerstenauthor's review
"Women who transgress. Who don't take from others and be slaves for it. Who stand up and say no.""
Cw for sexual violence, slavery and incest.
So What’s It About?
Why is there an old woman, in a hanging cage for punishment, keeping a journal written in blood? Candas Jane Dorsey has written an ambitious, feminist novel about women coming to terms with their identity in a barbarous fantasy world. Dorsey's women travel across the world, from the slave dens to the merchant cities, across seas by ship and by dirigible, to isolated mountain villages and back again. There is a woman exiled from her family, a mother who has abandoned her daughter, an old woman in a cage, a young women slave on a lord's estate who does not remember her past. How many of them are the same woman?
What I Thought
This is an extremely unique one. I’ve never read anything quite like it, and I don’t expect to read anything very similar ever again. It’s probably one of the darkest books I’ve read in a long time, but I think that darkness is put to good use in creating something truly bold and original.
Each perspective in Black Wine is utterly unique, but they end up forming a greater whole that is truly magnificent. You know how there’s that massive reveal in The Fifth Season regarding the identities of the three narrators? Well, this book has awesome reveals like that several times over -the realization that the enslaved waif is Essa, the realization that the journal perspective is Ea’s, and then that the old woman in the cage is Ea. It was really fun gradually piecing things together and seeing the story threads weave into a pattern that made sense.
The story’s world is also really interesting - some places have electricity, gene mapping and neurosurgery while we also have people living in isolated villages and executing transgressors by hanging. Each place has its own culture and customs, with the main focus being the customs about touch, formality and sexuality. There’s a scene where several women from different places are summoned by the Carrier of the Dead and speak about what they consider perversity, each with a drastically different idea. There is no conceptualization of rape or consent in the Dark Isles. There are little touches of difference like the tradition of handfasting polycules or the universal use of the name Minh with different pronunciations and emphases.
Another central theme is language and how it connects us - sharing a tongue binds the waif to the old woman in the cage, and the waif learns about the liberatory power of language for the enslaved from a slave whose name she interprets as Escape-from-bondage. Language is what sets off revolution in the Dark Isles.
This is also a story about how we live on through brutality in different ways, especially in the case of women who transgress. The waif and Escapes-from-bondage decide that consensual sex is a “slave rebellion,” to put it in the waif’s terms. XX (Escapes-from-bondage) ultimately finds that he has to return to the Dark Isles at the end of the story because his work there is incomplete; Ea ultimately just wanders off, mind broken by what she has experienced, and Essa realizes that she never really got her mother back in a really bittersweet turn of events. Black Wine also makes it clear that the fight against brutality can simply lead to more violence in turn - the revolution in the Dark Isles leads to despotism on the part of the new government, which leads to utter decimation in another rebellion.
On this theme of living on through brutality in different ways, one of my favorite bits of the book is the conversation between XX and Essa at the end of the book, where they talk about the way she tried to sleep with him when they were both still in the Dark Isles. Essa’s privilege and naivety led to her presuming upon him; she couldn’t understand how different his experience of the world was, the power she held over him, and the way that their relationship changed when she stopped being the waif. Even though she had no bad intentions, she still hurt him with her presumption.
If it isn’t clear from everything I’ve talked about so far, this book is extremely brutal. While I could generally deal with it, there were a few places where it became a bit much for me; everything to do with Ea’s monstrous grandmother is just A Lot, especially with her treatment of the slaves that she tortures to death and lobotomizes etc. There are a couple of things that aren’t necessarily too brutal but just didn’t work for me at all, like the part where the sisters with the incestuous relationship were painting on each other with menstrual blood and the bit about white people being discriminated against. There are also lots of relationships that develop very quickly and get dropped and lots of coincidences, like Essa ending up where Ea is in the cage and them finding each other later while walking down the road. Finally, I just do not understand what happened at the very ending of the book at all!!
I can’t remember how I first heard about this book but I think it might have been in an r/fantasy thread where I was asking for recs of books similar to Planescape: Torment. If so, I can definitely see the comparison; if not, who knows! If you’re looking for an utterly weird and disconcerting read, this is a good fit. Weak stomachs, stay away.
Cw for sexual violence, slavery and incest.
So What’s It About?
Why is there an old woman, in a hanging cage for punishment, keeping a journal written in blood? Candas Jane Dorsey has written an ambitious, feminist novel about women coming to terms with their identity in a barbarous fantasy world. Dorsey's women travel across the world, from the slave dens to the merchant cities, across seas by ship and by dirigible, to isolated mountain villages and back again. There is a woman exiled from her family, a mother who has abandoned her daughter, an old woman in a cage, a young women slave on a lord's estate who does not remember her past. How many of them are the same woman?
What I Thought
This is an extremely unique one. I’ve never read anything quite like it, and I don’t expect to read anything very similar ever again. It’s probably one of the darkest books I’ve read in a long time, but I think that darkness is put to good use in creating something truly bold and original.
Each perspective in Black Wine is utterly unique, but they end up forming a greater whole that is truly magnificent. You know how there’s that massive reveal in The Fifth Season regarding the identities of the three narrators? Well, this book has awesome reveals like that several times over -the realization that the enslaved waif is Essa, the realization that the journal perspective is Ea’s, and then that the old woman in the cage is Ea. It was really fun gradually piecing things together and seeing the story threads weave into a pattern that made sense.
The story’s world is also really interesting - some places have electricity, gene mapping and neurosurgery while we also have people living in isolated villages and executing transgressors by hanging. Each place has its own culture and customs, with the main focus being the customs about touch, formality and sexuality. There’s a scene where several women from different places are summoned by the Carrier of the Dead and speak about what they consider perversity, each with a drastically different idea. There is no conceptualization of rape or consent in the Dark Isles. There are little touches of difference like the tradition of handfasting polycules or the universal use of the name Minh with different pronunciations and emphases.
Another central theme is language and how it connects us - sharing a tongue binds the waif to the old woman in the cage, and the waif learns about the liberatory power of language for the enslaved from a slave whose name she interprets as Escape-from-bondage. Language is what sets off revolution in the Dark Isles.
This is also a story about how we live on through brutality in different ways, especially in the case of women who transgress. The waif and Escapes-from-bondage decide that consensual sex is a “slave rebellion,” to put it in the waif’s terms. XX (Escapes-from-bondage) ultimately finds that he has to return to the Dark Isles at the end of the story because his work there is incomplete; Ea ultimately just wanders off, mind broken by what she has experienced, and Essa realizes that she never really got her mother back in a really bittersweet turn of events. Black Wine also makes it clear that the fight against brutality can simply lead to more violence in turn - the revolution in the Dark Isles leads to despotism on the part of the new government, which leads to utter decimation in another rebellion.
On this theme of living on through brutality in different ways, one of my favorite bits of the book is the conversation between XX and Essa at the end of the book, where they talk about the way she tried to sleep with him when they were both still in the Dark Isles. Essa’s privilege and naivety led to her presuming upon him; she couldn’t understand how different his experience of the world was, the power she held over him, and the way that their relationship changed when she stopped being the waif. Even though she had no bad intentions, she still hurt him with her presumption.
If it isn’t clear from everything I’ve talked about so far, this book is extremely brutal. While I could generally deal with it, there were a few places where it became a bit much for me; everything to do with Ea’s monstrous grandmother is just A Lot, especially with her treatment of the slaves that she tortures to death and lobotomizes etc. There are a couple of things that aren’t necessarily too brutal but just didn’t work for me at all, like the part where the sisters with the incestuous relationship were painting on each other with menstrual blood and the bit about white people being discriminated against. There are also lots of relationships that develop very quickly and get dropped and lots of coincidences, like Essa ending up where Ea is in the cage and them finding each other later while walking down the road. Finally, I just do not understand what happened at the very ending of the book at all!!
I can’t remember how I first heard about this book but I think it might have been in an r/fantasy thread where I was asking for recs of books similar to Planescape: Torment. If so, I can definitely see the comparison; if not, who knows! If you’re looking for an utterly weird and disconcerting read, this is a good fit. Weak stomachs, stay away.
allireadsmke's review against another edition
This was incredibly confusing for the first 20% of the audio. After that, I was just mildly confused for the next 20% until I decided to put this book down.
Sex is front and center in the book from basically the beginning. Abusive sex, loving sex, incestuous sex, raping servants, all kinds of variations of pairings and groups of people having sex. From what I can tell, this appears to be the *point* of the book and central to the plot. Because besides drifting from sexual relationship to sexual relationship, I could never tell what Essa was doing or why.
BUT I love the narrator's vocal inflection and accent. On normal speed, I actually get a little lost in her voice and forget to pay attention to the actual story. If this book IS you cup of tea, then you will enjoy the audio as well.
Sex is front and center in the book from basically the beginning. Abusive sex, loving sex, incestuous sex, raping servants, all kinds of variations of pairings and groups of people having sex. From what I can tell, this appears to be the *point* of the book and central to the plot. Because besides drifting from sexual relationship to sexual relationship, I could never tell what Essa was doing or why.
BUT I love the narrator's vocal inflection and accent. On normal speed, I actually get a little lost in her voice and forget to pay attention to the actual story. If this book IS you cup of tea, then you will enjoy the audio as well.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Incest, Sexual violence, and Sexual assault
ashleylm's review
2.0
I loved Hamilton, but I hadn't been that impressed with Lin-Manuel Miranda's previous work In the Heights. Actually, that's not fair: I felt it had a lot going for it, but that I just wasn't the right audience for it. That's pretty much how I feel about Black Wine ... I didn't like it (and ultimately stopped reading it and started reading the extraordinarily dissimilar By the Shores of Silver Lake) but I don't think it's horrible as much as I think it's not quite for me.
(That said, I do manage to like all manner of surprising things, if handled in just the right way. This was not that way).
1. There are clearly three narratives going on, but no sense of how they are linked. Are the three women relatives? Will they meet later and become friends? Is this a murder mystery and those are our primary suspects? Who knows!
2. The three women aren't remotely differentiated in character. In fact, none of the characters jump off the page as having a discernible personality, save for the second-hand descriptions of a dreadful grandmother. Everyone else is just there, sounding, probably, a lot like the author and the way she thinks or expresses herself. So it was impossible to tell (when switching viewpoints) which narrative we were back into, something that was never an issue with, say, Middlemarch or Vanity Fair, and those were written over a hundred years ago, so I know it's possible to do so as a writer!
3. No plot momentum. I don't need every story to be a rollicking adventure (one of my favourite all-time books is Queen Lucia, and that's just about a woman in a small town attempting to slightly outshine another woman at social events), but I do want to have some sense in where the story is heading, or even What Kind of Book this is. For instance, in a murder mystery (which I'm assuming this isn't) I put up with meeting lots of characters in the first quarter of a book because I'm pretty sure they'll all be implicated in an upcoming murder.
4. No fun. This, clearly, was going to be one of those ever-so-serious books. But if you're going to go that route, for me, you have to compensate by having incredibly compelling characters that I fall in love with so I will want to know what happens to them, rather than three wan uninteresting ciphers, as we have here.
It's possible that the book storms into a wild impossible beauty in the last two-thirds, but I doubt it (or doubt that it'd appeal to me, given my take on the the first third), so I'm done with it, and on to other things. I'm a third of the way through By the Shores of Silver Lake already, I can tell all the characters apart, exciting things have happened, and I care about the participants. It's a winner. Black Wine? Not so much.
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s).
(That said, I do manage to like all manner of surprising things, if handled in just the right way. This was not that way).
1. There are clearly three narratives going on, but no sense of how they are linked. Are the three women relatives? Will they meet later and become friends? Is this a murder mystery and those are our primary suspects? Who knows!
2. The three women aren't remotely differentiated in character. In fact, none of the characters jump off the page as having a discernible personality, save for the second-hand descriptions of a dreadful grandmother. Everyone else is just there, sounding, probably, a lot like the author and the way she thinks or expresses herself. So it was impossible to tell (when switching viewpoints) which narrative we were back into, something that was never an issue with, say, Middlemarch or Vanity Fair, and those were written over a hundred years ago, so I know it's possible to do so as a writer!
3. No plot momentum. I don't need every story to be a rollicking adventure (one of my favourite all-time books is Queen Lucia, and that's just about a woman in a small town attempting to slightly outshine another woman at social events), but I do want to have some sense in where the story is heading, or even What Kind of Book this is. For instance, in a murder mystery (which I'm assuming this isn't) I put up with meeting lots of characters in the first quarter of a book because I'm pretty sure they'll all be implicated in an upcoming murder.
4. No fun. This, clearly, was going to be one of those ever-so-serious books. But if you're going to go that route, for me, you have to compensate by having incredibly compelling characters that I fall in love with so I will want to know what happens to them, rather than three wan uninteresting ciphers, as we have here.
It's possible that the book storms into a wild impossible beauty in the last two-thirds, but I doubt it (or doubt that it'd appeal to me, given my take on the the first third), so I'm done with it, and on to other things. I'm a third of the way through By the Shores of Silver Lake already, I can tell all the characters apart, exciting things have happened, and I care about the participants. It's a winner. Black Wine? Not so much.
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s).
jazzseeks's review
5.0
This is by far one of the best books I've ever read. It's in my top 5 along with Octavia Butler, N.K. Jemisin, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, and Robin McKinley. I cannot recommend this book enough but especially to people healing from trauma or interested in conversations about consent. The explorations of trauma in this book are some of the most profound yet realistic depictions (which is funny for a fantasy book you would think) I've ever read. I cherish this book deeply and affectionately and re-read it often.
Potential Spoilers part:
The narrative of a language that doesn't include the word "no" or any way for the enslaved persons to even conceptualize their own agency or will is brilliant. For many of us who have grown up traumatized gaining the language to even conceptualize ourselves as having been harmed and betrayed and victimized is one of the key turning points that allows healing to begin. So this particular part was deeply profound for me and I am still so excited to have found a writer doing and caring about this kind of message. I could write a whole essay on how exceptional this book is but I'll leave it with just the one spoiler (though it's stated pretty clearly early on) to try and show what this book is about. What a stunning book about freedom and love and healing.
Potential Spoilers part:
The narrative of a language that doesn't include the word "no" or any way for the enslaved persons to even conceptualize their own agency or will is brilliant. For many of us who have grown up traumatized gaining the language to even conceptualize ourselves as having been harmed and betrayed and victimized is one of the key turning points that allows healing to begin. So this particular part was deeply profound for me and I am still so excited to have found a writer doing and caring about this kind of message. I could write a whole essay on how exceptional this book is but I'll leave it with just the one spoiler (though it's stated pretty clearly early on) to try and show what this book is about. What a stunning book about freedom and love and healing.
ijprest's review
2.0
The book was hampered by some particularly difficult-to-understand prose, especially in the first third.
I'm not sure I understand the ending. Or, really, much of the deeper meaning in the book.
The story itself was decent enough, even though the main character was kind of flaky.
I'm not sure I understand the ending. Or, really, much of the deeper meaning in the book.
The story itself was decent enough, even though the main character was kind of flaky.
nwhyte's review
5.0
https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3392910.html
An intricate, interesting novel, which actually reminded me of some of Iain M. Banks' work more than anything, with interlacing narrative perspectives in a dangerously diverse but mimimally portrayed world. There is good sex, and very bad sex, and power wielded against those who are divergent or deviant, and there is some brutal violence which I admit I found a bit of a deterrent from following the main plot. I am rather surprised that the author hasn't written a lot more.
An intricate, interesting novel, which actually reminded me of some of Iain M. Banks' work more than anything, with interlacing narrative perspectives in a dangerously diverse but mimimally portrayed world. There is good sex, and very bad sex, and power wielded against those who are divergent or deviant, and there is some brutal violence which I admit I found a bit of a deterrent from following the main plot. I am rather surprised that the author hasn't written a lot more.
nimrodiel's review
3.0
I liked this however, the first 150 or so pages of the book are hard to keep track of. I ended up setting this aside for a couple of weeks before returning to it last week because of this. I liked the way the story was constructed, and the non linear movement of the plot. I just had a really hard time keeping the story tellers apart at first as they were all written from the same point of view just about other events.
When the three story lines started to tie together the novel became very quickly paced. I didn't mind the addition of magic at the end as it was done in a subtle way that worked with the events that had put Essa where she was in her life. I would have loved to have had the world a little more built up I felt teased by not being able to become more immersed in the surroundings that shaped the story. I also was left wanting to know more about Etha and the music she makes in her future.
When the three story lines started to tie together the novel became very quickly paced. I didn't mind the addition of magic at the end as it was done in a subtle way that worked with the events that had put Essa where she was in her life. I would have loved to have had the world a little more built up I felt teased by not being able to become more immersed in the surroundings that shaped the story. I also was left wanting to know more about Etha and the music she makes in her future.