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beautifulpaxielreads's review against another edition
challenging
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
If you ask a loving parent, they might say that the happiest day of their lives was the day their child was born.
For the parents of Sanna, a sixteen-year-old mermaid (marreminder), the day their daughter was born was a day to forget - quite literally.
Sanna is the product of a union between a merman - a “seavish” man - and a human (“landish”) woman, and on the night her mother gave birth, the witch of her father’s clan (flok) - an old woman called Sjældent - cast a powerful spell of forgetting on all those present. This included her mother.
But now Sanna is of age and, seeing the relationships the other girls of her flok have to their mothers, she is more determined than ever to find her own. She offers herself as Sjældent’s apprentice, not only so she can learn magic, but to discover how to transform herself so she may walk on land - and reunite with the woman who birthed her.
All Sanna has to go on is a name - Lisabet - and the last location the members of her flok can recall seeing her birth mother - the Thirty-Seven Dark Islands, in the far northern reaches of the medieval world.
But finding her mother isn’t the only quest Sanna has - Sjældent has also set her tasks to perform.
What obstacles will stand in Sanna’s path? And will she ever discover her mother’s true identity?
Mermaid Moon is a fairy tale, but to call it only a fairy tale would be to do it a disservice.
The novel is fiercely feminist in the way it depicts the society and culture of the seavish people as skewing towards a power-based matriarchy. The only male in Sanna’s flok is her father, Bjarl. Same-sex relationships are common. Males seem to be of little use here - except in cautionary tales told to young marreminder of lascivious landish men who will rape them given the opportunity. This mirror society of women’s dominance allows Cokal to challenge the tropes of our real-world patriarchal storytelling and women’s roles within its fables.
Susann Cokal’s decision to portray her seavish society as a matriarchal one is explained in her authors note:
“...why should the most powerful creatures in the stories, the ones who can ruin or save you - and the ones who can change their bodies to walk on land if they choose - still be a subject class? Why don’t they run the show?”
-Susann Cokal, “Notes on history, with gratitude”, Mermaid Moon, p. 484
Mermaid Moon is also a thoughtful exploration of what happens when magic and religion intersect, and questions the power of faith and belief. In her authors’ note, Cokal discusses the concept of syncretism, particularly with regard to religious sites. She defines it thus:
"Everyone knows that we build new civilisations on the ashes of the old. A new sovereign - or emperor or dictator, or president - moves into the castle of the one defeated. Or a warlord or -lady builds a fortress over a dragon's lair; then someone else comes along, storms the fortress, and adds on to it, making a castle or palace."
-Susann Cokal, “Notes on history, with gratitude”, Mermaid Moon, p. 485-6
Cokal's ideas about syncretism are explored in the form of the church building in Dark Moon Harbour. The centre of village religious life, the church was constructed upon the remains of a religious site predating the arrival of Christianity and it transforms again during the course of the novel, to commemorate the first of three miracles that occur during Sanna's stay.
The way Cokal describes this process blurs the line further between magic and spiritual belief, for it appears that the site itself possesses its own indefinable spiritual quality. It is magic in Sanna’s blood that causes surprising events, but the superstitious villagers -- spurred on by the priest, Father Abel - are quick to hail these as miracles, and Sanna herself as a saint.
The suspicious Baroness Thyrla - who possesses formidable magic of her own - quickly takes matters in hand, locking Sanna up in the castle and betrothing her to the Baroness’ handsome but vacant, immature son, Peder.
The fact that up until this point the villagers’ lives had been predictable and mundane only sharpens their belief that here, before them, is a living, breathing manifestation of the divine. Sanna, who among her own flok is considered somewhat of an afterthought, is bewildered and at times terrified by the reverence the landish folk lavish upon her.
The threat to Baroness Thyrla’s hold on her subjects with the arrival of Sanna ties into a classic fairy tale trope found most notably in “Snow White” - the older woman, jealous of a younger woman’s beauty, popularity, and power, schemes for the other’s downfall.
Mermaid Moon is a novel that is beautifully and evocatively written, though its steady pace and occasionally whimsical and offbeat tone may test the patience of some readers. I admit I occasionally struggled with the pacing and tone. But ultimately the complex ideas Cokal explores, along with her imaginative world-building, make Mermaid Moon an absorbing, memorable read.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Blood, Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Dementia, Emotional abuse, Gore, Murder, Physical abuse, Rape, Religious bigotry, Sexism, and Violence
There is a scene in which a sea witch performs what I can only term
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