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3.69 AVERAGE
3.69 AVERAGE
adventurous
medium-paced
This is one of the most random stories I have ever read, but I’m glad I did! An interesting premise to do with Hell on earth, and a relatively diverse group of characters. Fair warning the trans character does get misgendered here and there.
I thought going into it that it would be more horrorish, but it truly isn’t in any way. I wish the story was more intense, it definitely had room to be more lively.
I thought going into it that it would be more horrorish, but it truly isn’t in any way. I wish the story was more intense, it definitely had room to be more lively.
Es hermoso.
Me recordó, de manera extrana, a Hell is the Absence of God. Por supuesto, en este caso se trata de una historia medieval donde el infierno existe y las ocurrencias sobrenaturales no son tan indiferentes.
Pero hay una atmósfera similar a la gente presenciando eventos infernales en la vida cotidiana y actuando acorde, experimentando aún así los dramas normales de sus vidas.
Puntos extra por tantos personajes femeninos, tan variados y complejos. También hay un personaje trans y se aprecia mucho que se muestre lo que pudo ser, lo que seguramente fue en muchos casos, antes de tener el nombre que tiene ahora.
Aunque el infierno por supuesto tiene sus horrores, este libros es como una brisa de aire fresco en un mar de horror que más o menos se mueve de maneras similares. No que todos los libros que he leído en este Barrifest sean iguales, al contrario, pero esto se sale aún más de lo normal de la burbuja que normalmente elijo para este mes y considero que la decisión de incluirlo fue un éxito.
Me recordó, de manera extrana, a Hell is the Absence of God. Por supuesto, en este caso se trata de una historia medieval donde el infierno existe y las ocurrencias sobrenaturales no son tan indiferentes.
Pero hay una atmósfera similar a la gente presenciando eventos infernales en la vida cotidiana y actuando acorde, experimentando aún así los dramas normales de sus vidas.
Puntos extra por tantos personajes femeninos, tan variados y complejos. También hay un personaje trans y se aprecia mucho que se muestre lo que pudo ser, lo que seguramente fue en muchos casos, antes de tener el nombre que tiene ahora.
Aunque el infierno por supuesto tiene sus horrores, este libros es como una brisa de aire fresco en un mar de horror que más o menos se mueve de maneras similares. No que todos los libros que he leído en este Barrifest sean iguales, al contrario, pero esto se sale aún más de lo normal de la burbuja que normalmente elijo para este mes y considero que la decisión de incluirlo fue un éxito.
There were a lot of things that could have let this book down. The density of the specialised language - i.e. all the different items of clothing, weapons and armour which made me stop each time to look them up - the occasional latin, the characters not always being likeable, the story meandering in the middle, the late climax. But, miraculously, none of it did - this book was, instead, fantastic.
One thing that kept striking me as I read, was the fact that Heartfield managed to have such consistent, complex and different characters. It was easy to tell who was doing what without needing their names, because they all had such distinct personalities and perspectives. Maigret was my favourite, with her pigheadedness, but also her bravery. It's rare to see older women main characters, especially ones as unlikeable as Maigret, but her strength was what kept the characters and plot together. Her refusal to let go of what she wanted kept it moving forward, and I was rooting for her always.
The nice thing about this book is that all of the characters had their moments, all of the characters grew and had enough weakness that you couldn't help but like them. I was surprised by how much I sympathised with the Chatelaine, even.
I talk character rather than plot because this is a hugely character-driven plot. It felt realistic that the book consists of a lot of walking and resting and trading -- and yet somehow it remains so engaging. But as for the plot? It was interesting and took unexpected turns at just the right moments. It had just the right amount of characters and differing motivations to keep things tense and conflicted. I also knew nothing of 14th Century, particularly European, history, and it still managed to be accessible.
This is a great and ambitious debut novel, and I'm going to keep an eye out for whatever Heartfield writes next.
One thing that kept striking me as I read, was the fact that Heartfield managed to have such consistent, complex and different characters. It was easy to tell who was doing what without needing their names, because they all had such distinct personalities and perspectives. Maigret was my favourite, with her pigheadedness, but also her bravery. It's rare to see older women main characters, especially ones as unlikeable as Maigret, but her strength was what kept the characters and plot together. Her refusal to let go of what she wanted kept it moving forward, and I was rooting for her always.
The nice thing about this book is that all of the characters had their moments, all of the characters grew and had enough weakness that you couldn't help but like them. I was surprised by how much I sympathised with the Chatelaine, even.
I talk character rather than plot because this is a hugely character-driven plot. It felt realistic that the book consists of a lot of walking and resting and trading -- and yet somehow it remains so engaging. But as for the plot? It was interesting and took unexpected turns at just the right moments. It had just the right amount of characters and differing motivations to keep things tense and conflicted. I also knew nothing of 14th Century, particularly European, history, and it still managed to be accessible.
This is a great and ambitious debut novel, and I'm going to keep an eye out for whatever Heartfield writes next.
What a weird book.
A trans man-at-arms, a shrewish old wet nurse, and a spinster with a magic distaff march on the gates of Hell to reclaim a stolen inheritance. Also features a debate on whether zombies are legally dead.
It could be fantasy, it could be alternate history, it could be philosophy. It was definitely strongly feminist, in a somewhat similar way to Women Talking, where the worth of women is always defined in relation to the men.
But it did discuss that women are expected to give and give and give, and it is a blemish on their womanly character if they ever want to take. Margriet, Beatrix, and the Chatelaine all experience this in some form. Also, how a man and a woman can hear the same conversation and make radically different conclusions.
And there are so many allegories for Hell. In the afterword, the author says the book was based on Dull Gret by Pieter Brueghel- I thought it useful for envisioning some of the crazier scenes (but again, all of this book was batshit).
There are more discussions of Hell, about how horrible and inescapable marriage can be, how the injustices a man can bring on his wife are the worst thing in the world (The beast was Hell because it was home to her husband, the antagonist laments at some point). Other good phrases: It is right that a wife should die, when her husband has no further need of her (if indeed he ever had need of her, even if he never provided for her while he was alive). If Judas and Caesar cannot be found in Hell, is it really Hell? It brings suffering and monstrosities, but it doesn’t match a Christian definition.
There were some Book of the New Sun-type asides that seemed to make reference to how horrible the modern world would be to a thirteenth century peasant. I thought those were pretty funny. They discuss how glasses and prosthetics are kind of chimera-ish, if you think about it.
Margriet was an interesting protagonist. She wasn’t very sympathetic or relateable, but her strong sense of justice was pretty indisputable by modern standards. She wasn’t a very loving mother to her adult daughter, but you could see how she knew better than to share her bitterness with children (unlike certain characters in An Unkindness of Ghosts, cough cough). There was love in her, but certainly not for any man.
The setting in general was really excellently researched. It was incredibly and specifically tied to its setting. I had to look up a lot of terms (especially clothing and different types of nunneries), but it was a good thing. It tied me more closely to Bruges in 1328.
I didn't really love this book, but I thought it was interesting.
A trans man-at-arms, a shrewish old wet nurse, and a spinster with a magic distaff march on the gates of Hell to reclaim a stolen inheritance. Also features a debate on whether zombies are legally dead.
It could be fantasy, it could be alternate history, it could be philosophy. It was definitely strongly feminist, in a somewhat similar way to Women Talking, where the worth of women is always defined in relation to the men.
But it did discuss that women are expected to give and give and give, and it is a blemish on their womanly character if they ever want to take. Margriet, Beatrix, and the Chatelaine all experience this in some form. Also, how a man and a woman can hear the same conversation and make radically different conclusions.
Spoiler
I couldn’t help thinking of Margriet’s accidental invitation to her husband was very like those vampiric legends, but also a case of willful misinterpretation.And there are so many allegories for Hell. In the afterword, the author says the book was based on Dull Gret by Pieter Brueghel- I thought it useful for envisioning some of the crazier scenes (but again, all of this book was batshit).
There are more discussions of Hell, about how horrible and inescapable marriage can be, how the injustices a man can bring on his wife are the worst thing in the world (The beast was Hell because it was home to her husband, the antagonist laments at some point). Other good phrases: It is right that a wife should die, when her husband has no further need of her (if indeed he ever had need of her, even if he never provided for her while he was alive). If Judas and Caesar cannot be found in Hell, is it really Hell? It brings suffering and monstrosities, but it doesn’t match a Christian definition.
There were some Book of the New Sun-type asides that seemed to make reference to how horrible the modern world would be to a thirteenth century peasant. I thought those were pretty funny. They discuss how glasses and prosthetics are kind of chimera-ish, if you think about it.
Margriet was an interesting protagonist. She wasn’t very sympathetic or relateable, but her strong sense of justice was pretty indisputable by modern standards. She wasn’t a very loving mother to her adult daughter, but you could see how she knew better than to share her bitterness with children (unlike certain characters in An Unkindness of Ghosts, cough cough). There was love in her, but certainly not for any man.
The setting in general was really excellently researched. It was incredibly and specifically tied to its setting. I had to look up a lot of terms (especially clothing and different types of nunneries), but it was a good thing. It tied me more closely to Bruges in 1328.
I didn't really love this book, but I thought it was interesting.
Surreal fantasy, set in Bruges under siege in the Middle Ages, set in a Bruegel painting, where all the grotesques are characters, and the regular folks are just trying to survive.
Both bizarre and utterly compelling, with strong, stubborn female characters, an interesting depiction of politics at the time, and a trans soldier who keeps getting misgendered. Fascinating. I’m not sure exactly who to recommend this to, but I’ll start with my Middle Ages loving friends, who can appreciate the rich setting as much as the adventure.
Advanced readers copy provided by edelweiss.
Both bizarre and utterly compelling, with strong, stubborn female characters, an interesting depiction of politics at the time, and a trans soldier who keeps getting misgendered. Fascinating. I’m not sure exactly who to recommend this to, but I’ll start with my Middle Ages loving friends, who can appreciate the rich setting as much as the adventure.
Advanced readers copy provided by edelweiss.
I think I described the book on twitter as "the Wife of Bath meets a Bosch painting, and also says 'trans rights!'" and that is basically it. It's a sff and medieval nerd's dream come true. We follow Margriet, who's not necessarily a nice character but is very much like the wife of Bath - she knows what she wants, she hates her husband, and she takes no shit. She and her little band navigate a world full of demons and half human monsters that I'd swear were lifted right off a Bosch paining, and for a story set in Bruges it makes a lot of sense!
The story itself is about claiming what's yours, as a widow, and for your daughter, from a dead husband who was a liar and a thief but is still technically bound to you because medieval laws tend to say "fuck women". So while I didn't like Margriet, I could certainly see her point of view and why she was doing all of that.
The "side" characters, who did have their own point of view chapters, were almost more interesting to me, from Beatrix who is developing some interesting magical abilities and tries to get her own way in a shitty world despite her stubborn mother, to Claude, the trans man-at-arm who's given shit by everyone around him for who he is but has a job to do and damned if he's not gonna do it!
I especially liked Claude because I was not expecting a trans character (I don't fully read the summary sometimes, and I've had this book for ages) and I thought it was done well. Just be aware, the other characters misgender him continuously in their POV chapters. I'd have really liked if by the end, a few of them "got it" and gendered him correctly, but I was happy enough with the ending he got, considering the period setting.
I also enjoyed that it pitted one woman - Margriet - against another - the Chatelaine - but they were all in a way fighting the same patriarchal bullshit. Now, the Chatelaine may be truly evil, but she's taken over Hell from her own good-for-nothing husband, and she's fighting for the King of France to give her what he promised - her own lands to govern - despite Salic laws and all that other shit. It was clearly not all black and white, and I like that in a villain too!
As a weird little book tidbit, it has an inserted page to make up for a printer error, as I just found out now! It was funny and confusing when I came to it, I even made a little video.
It's a bit of a medievalist daydream and I highly recommend it!
Trigger warnings: period-accurate sexism and transphobia, misgendering, violence, murder, body horror.
Trigger warnings: period-accurate sexism and transphobia, misgendering, violence, murder, body horror.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Violence, Murder
Moderate: Sexism, Transphobia
We understand medieval Europe as a war-torn place with a populous threatened by a capricious ruling class and harshly proscribed society with a powerful Church. The threat of damnation and devils was as real to these people as the grotesques favored in architecture of the time. In Kate Heartfield's debut we get a look at early 14th century Belgium from the angle that all the threats that the Church warns of are real and players in the politics of the time.
This is all told from the viewpoint of women in and around the siege of Bruges, one of the last actions of the Flanders peasant revolt. We have the bad-tempered Margriet de Vos, her grown daughter Beatrix, both widowed in the revolt, along with Claude. a woman living as a male soldier (clearly transgender, but lacking the language to describe that) and their enemy, the Chatelaine of Hell. Her forces are besieging Bruges with attacks from chimera of her making and revenants, fallen soldiers returning as wraiths to attack their former loved ones. It's fair to describe the situation as hellish; Hell has literally opened its jaws not far from the action.
This is deeply strange and wonderfully inventive. There's little about the supernatural in this that the characters would find unbelievable; the forces attacking them are almost literally what the Church threatens people with. Additionally, by having all the major characters be women (ok, sort of for Claude), we're seeing a world where the demons of Hell are literally only just one more of the problems that these people have to face.
I can't wait to see what this author does next.
This is all told from the viewpoint of women in and around the siege of Bruges, one of the last actions of the Flanders peasant revolt. We have the bad-tempered Margriet de Vos, her grown daughter Beatrix, both widowed in the revolt, along with Claude. a woman living as a male soldier (clearly transgender, but lacking the language to describe that) and their enemy, the Chatelaine of Hell. Her forces are besieging Bruges with attacks from chimera of her making and revenants, fallen soldiers returning as wraiths to attack their former loved ones. It's fair to describe the situation as hellish; Hell has literally opened its jaws not far from the action.
This is deeply strange and wonderfully inventive. There's little about the supernatural in this that the characters would find unbelievable; the forces attacking them are almost literally what the Church threatens people with. Additionally, by having all the major characters be women (ok, sort of for Claude), we're seeing a world where the demons of Hell are literally only just one more of the problems that these people have to face.
I can't wait to see what this author does next.
I really didn't expect much from this but it was pretty awesome. It's set during the Peasant Revolt in Flanders but tells a story based on Pieter Bruegel's fantastic painting Dulle Griet. It seems to be fairly well researched and hits on a number of historic events of the era and how they might have impacted the characters in the story. I like that the magic and fantastical aspects weren't overpowered -- people had to figure out how to use any powers they had and they weren't always that useful. I also appreciated the political and legal issues involved, such as the rights of women to inherit, the rights of women in French lands during the time to rule, and the question of the property rights of the undead and the inheritance rights of their survivors . Philip VI was kind of a shallow villain -- which he kind of was in real life -- but he wasn't that big of a character. The main antagonist, the Chatelaine of Hell, was a fairly well drawn and dynamic character with motivations that could reasonably inspire sympathy. Once could imagine that if Margriet's purposes hadn't been such a threat to her that she might have acted justly. Margriet herself could be a bit tedious, but that was kind of the point. I loved the development of the story of Claude, the trans man mercenary who nobody seems to want to take seriously. And around it all was the hell that was 14th century Europe: a world of a mini ice age, failing crops, disease and famine, peasant revolts, and war after war after war. Overall, this was just an incredibly good book.
A group of women united in tragedy by ties of blood and sisterhood? A trans and gay hero helping them out in their quest to recover their legacy from, literally, the depths of hell, which, by the way, is governed by a black woman who took control over it from her husband? Hell fucking yeah.
Armed in Her Fashion is a fast-paced and thoroughly enjoyable read with a deft and witty take on religion, politics and women's lot in European medieval society circa 1328. It's a fantastic combination of great characters and well-researched historical details which Heartfield has meshed in a flawless and wholly believable way with the Chatelaine of Hell and her cohorts.