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elvinpearson 's review for:
The God of Endings
by Jacqueline Holland
I didn’t think so much of this while I was reading, but if you’ve ever watched the new interview with the vampire series, this book feels like you’re residing in Claudia’s head.
This section especially was reminiscent:
“I am told there was a funeral: a pretty girl in a pretty dress with curled hair and a hole in her chest, candles in a dim parlor and unwilling guests passing through it quickly. My grandmother put a rosary in one of my hands, and my grandfather put a bell in the other. The rosary was of no help (my grandfather, when he tells it, likes to underscore), but some weeks later, when I was ready, I rang the bell.”
Ultimately, though, this was such a refreshing and unique take on a vampire story and immortality. Reading her own disgust for herself, eventually giving way to understanding, watching her rationalization… There is something almost similar to grieving in the narrative structure of the book, as though rather than an introduction, a rising action, a climax, falling action, and conclusion, instead we see the five stages of grief in the ordering of the narrative.
The first stage of grief, denial:
“For a long time, I didn’t eat. I couldn’t. My stomach groaned, but it was unimaginable to me to cross the room to that animal, pick it up, and feel my new, hidden teeth unsheathe, shift forward, puncture skin. It was too frightening.”
The second stage, anger:
“In my mind a fog lifted, and in place of thought I saw the dark headstones of my family, four lined up in the snow. I felt the hands of my neighbors on my arms, around my waist, on my forehead and chin, holding
me firmly while the minister placed ashes in my forced-open mouth. I saw Grandfather, a mild expression on his face as he sent me off into the
darkness, and I felt rage flood, warm and lovely, through me. I narrowed my eyes at the spot in the center of Agoston’s chest. I clenched my jaw, pulled back my fist, and then punched him with everything in me.
“I felt the impact ring through my bones like a shock wave, ring through him, though he, not without effort, held firm as a wall. It was like the waves hurling themselves at some rocky coast, like the wind of a cyclone slamming into the houses, ripping trees up out of the ground. It left me dazed, this unaccountable strength that no thin-armed child had any business possessing.
“With an expression of incredulous wonder, I looked up to Agoston’s face and found him nodding with satisfaction, that pleased smile wide on his face, then he patted me on the head, turned, went back through his cabin door, and closed it behind him.”
The third stage, bargaining:
“I don’t know why this hunger keeps growing, why it must be so unreasonable. I look down at the dark green knit of sweater that covers my stomach—treacherous organ. Before I can hold them back, tears of exhausted frustration begin coursing down my face. I dig my fingers angrily into the flesh of my belly, which even now is conveying its incessant hunger.
‘“What do you want?” I moan in anguish, digging harder and harder into the skin. I would rip my guts out of my body if I could, be bloody and done with the entire apparatus. “What do you want?!”’
The fourth stage, depression:
“During those days, I thought seriously about attaching some kind of anchor to myself and dropping, just like the girl, off the side of the citadel into the sea. The anchor would sink to the bottom and I would sink with it, and there I would remain, out of the way, harmless, watching the days—only a dim light filtering down through the murk—come and go above me. Would my flesh eventually dissolve in that salt bath, I wondered, and if it did, would I die then, or would my consciousness be parceled out equally into each tiny part? Would a million pieces of me circulate, distributing my mind with the ocean currents? Would I, in essence, become the ocean? Or would I remain in one piece, floating at the end of my leash, growing ever hungrier, ever more ravenous, until I became some red-eyed, mindless, gnashing Charybdis, catching and devouring hapless swimmers who made the mistake of diving too deep? No, I decided, the bay wasn’t a deep enough grave for me. A monster such as myself belonged somewhere less accessible, somewhere deeper, farther, lonelier.”
And finally, the final stage, acceptance:
“Perhaps with him, as Agoston believed, the god of beginnings comes also, joined twins unsplit. For once, I’ll wait for them like a child learning patience, like a child learning trust. I’ll apologize for my foolishness in misunderstanding and dreading the Dark One for so long. It turns out that I did make a deal with him: the taking of anything sets into motion its eventual loss; nothing that is can resist becoming what was; to begin presumes the acceptance of an end. The god of beginnings-as-much-as-endings keeps those contracts without malice. He lends out generously and collects exactingly, and I’ve finally agreed to his terms: all that I had—the school, this house, this life—and all that I was—clenched and frightened, distrustful and ungrateful—will end tonight, and in the space that’s cleared, I’ll take hold of something new, though its eventual and likely painful end is assured. Something, even if it must eventually end, is better than nothing. This time, I’ll hold what I’m given tenderly but loosely; I’ll accept that it’s mine only for a season.”
It’s such a genuinely vivid and moving book. For a work so thematically linked by death, it is overwhelmingly, abundantly, teeming with life.
This section especially was reminiscent:
“I am told there was a funeral: a pretty girl in a pretty dress with curled hair and a hole in her chest, candles in a dim parlor and unwilling guests passing through it quickly. My grandmother put a rosary in one of my hands, and my grandfather put a bell in the other. The rosary was of no help (my grandfather, when he tells it, likes to underscore), but some weeks later, when I was ready, I rang the bell.”
Ultimately, though, this was such a refreshing and unique take on a vampire story and immortality. Reading her own disgust for herself, eventually giving way to understanding, watching her rationalization… There is something almost similar to grieving in the narrative structure of the book, as though rather than an introduction, a rising action, a climax, falling action, and conclusion, instead we see the five stages of grief in the ordering of the narrative.
The first stage of grief, denial:
“For a long time, I didn’t eat. I couldn’t. My stomach groaned, but it was unimaginable to me to cross the room to that animal, pick it up, and feel my new, hidden teeth unsheathe, shift forward, puncture skin. It was too frightening.”
The second stage, anger:
“In my mind a fog lifted, and in place of thought I saw the dark headstones of my family, four lined up in the snow. I felt the hands of my neighbors on my arms, around my waist, on my forehead and chin, holding
me firmly while the minister placed ashes in my forced-open mouth. I saw Grandfather, a mild expression on his face as he sent me off into the
darkness, and I felt rage flood, warm and lovely, through me. I narrowed my eyes at the spot in the center of Agoston’s chest. I clenched my jaw, pulled back my fist, and then punched him with everything in me.
“I felt the impact ring through my bones like a shock wave, ring through him, though he, not without effort, held firm as a wall. It was like the waves hurling themselves at some rocky coast, like the wind of a cyclone slamming into the houses, ripping trees up out of the ground. It left me dazed, this unaccountable strength that no thin-armed child had any business possessing.
“With an expression of incredulous wonder, I looked up to Agoston’s face and found him nodding with satisfaction, that pleased smile wide on his face, then he patted me on the head, turned, went back through his cabin door, and closed it behind him.”
The third stage, bargaining:
“I don’t know why this hunger keeps growing, why it must be so unreasonable. I look down at the dark green knit of sweater that covers my stomach—treacherous organ. Before I can hold them back, tears of exhausted frustration begin coursing down my face. I dig my fingers angrily into the flesh of my belly, which even now is conveying its incessant hunger.
‘“What do you want?” I moan in anguish, digging harder and harder into the skin. I would rip my guts out of my body if I could, be bloody and done with the entire apparatus. “What do you want?!”’
The fourth stage, depression:
“During those days, I thought seriously about attaching some kind of anchor to myself and dropping, just like the girl, off the side of the citadel into the sea. The anchor would sink to the bottom and I would sink with it, and there I would remain, out of the way, harmless, watching the days—only a dim light filtering down through the murk—come and go above me. Would my flesh eventually dissolve in that salt bath, I wondered, and if it did, would I die then, or would my consciousness be parceled out equally into each tiny part? Would a million pieces of me circulate, distributing my mind with the ocean currents? Would I, in essence, become the ocean? Or would I remain in one piece, floating at the end of my leash, growing ever hungrier, ever more ravenous, until I became some red-eyed, mindless, gnashing Charybdis, catching and devouring hapless swimmers who made the mistake of diving too deep? No, I decided, the bay wasn’t a deep enough grave for me. A monster such as myself belonged somewhere less accessible, somewhere deeper, farther, lonelier.”
And finally, the final stage, acceptance:
“Perhaps with him, as Agoston believed, the god of beginnings comes also, joined twins unsplit. For once, I’ll wait for them like a child learning patience, like a child learning trust. I’ll apologize for my foolishness in misunderstanding and dreading the Dark One for so long. It turns out that I did make a deal with him: the taking of anything sets into motion its eventual loss; nothing that is can resist becoming what was; to begin presumes the acceptance of an end. The god of beginnings-as-much-as-endings keeps those contracts without malice. He lends out generously and collects exactingly, and I’ve finally agreed to his terms: all that I had—the school, this house, this life—and all that I was—clenched and frightened, distrustful and ungrateful—will end tonight, and in the space that’s cleared, I’ll take hold of something new, though its eventual and likely painful end is assured. Something, even if it must eventually end, is better than nothing. This time, I’ll hold what I’m given tenderly but loosely; I’ll accept that it’s mine only for a season.”
It’s such a genuinely vivid and moving book. For a work so thematically linked by death, it is overwhelmingly, abundantly, teeming with life.