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A review by readthesparrow
Private Rites by Julia Armfield
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Julia Armfield is back at it again with sad ocean lesbianism, this time with 100% more apocalypse and x3 times the lesbians.
Private Rites follows three sisters—all lesbians—as they navigate the death of their architect father, the ghosts of their childhood, and their complex relationships with each other and their lovers. Meanwhile, the flood has come; their city is mostly underwater thanks to global warming, and the constant rain only wears the city down more and more. People cram themselves into smaller and smaller spaces, ride boats to get to work, and business close when the rain stops.
I once described Armfield’s previous novel, Our Wives Under the Sea, as quintessential lesbian tragedy, and I would say that Private Rites falls into that category as well, though in this case ‘tragedy’ works in the classical sense as well.
Evidently it is a King Lear retelling, which I didn’t fully know until about 15% in. I haven’t read King Lear, so I am not sure how it compares or what elements the novel pulls—I definitely want to read King Lear and give Private Rites a reread in the future so I can more fully understand how Armfield adapts and comments upon the source material.
I absolutely loved this novel. Armfield’s prose, appropriately, is oceanic—melancholy as an empty sea, wrathful as storm-lashed waters, and able to calm or rough in the blink of an eye. For some reason, Private Rites in particular reminded me a bit of Disco Elysium, in the sense that there is this sad, struggling world impacted by uncontrollable, inevitable disaster caused by human action, and despite this terrible pressure mundanity continues on. (The sections of PR wherethe city speaks helps this as well, of course. I’m a sucker for a perhaps-sentient city zeitgeist narrator. )
(Non-specific discussion of the ending below, spoilers for Our Wives Under the Sea)
The main aspect of this novel that keeps me from giving a full five stars is the execution of the ending—something which, on reflection, was also present in Our Wives Under the Sea as well. The ending of PR feels very sudden and has a major tonal shift. It does not come out of nowhere, per say—the elements are certainly built and foreshadowed plenty—but there is just something about how extremely suddenly the narrative swerves into an ending that just felt slightly out of place with the rest of the books in terms of pacing and tone. For some reason, to me—despite it having all the same characters and the same setting and the same themes—it feels like the ending to a genre novel, not a literary one.
And don’t get me wrong, I love a genre novel! I’m a huge genre fan! But when the book is a slow character study and the ending is almost an action movie, it just leaves me feeling like “…huh?”
Like I said, this was present in Our Wives Under the Sea as well. We have this grief-filled, wonderfully weird, quiet tragedy of a character study between Miri and Leah, and a beautifully tragic ending of letting Leah go, into the sea. But then there’s also the ending plot point of Miri maybe joining forces with another person who lost a loved one to the sea expedition to investigate and eventually take down this corporation, which feels more like the beginning to a genre sci-fi than the end to a literary novel with sci-fi/horror elements.
I don’t necessarily dislike the ending to either plot-wise. The endings just didn’t have room to breathe or settle, especially in the case of Private Rites—like the narrative realized it only had one more chapter to wrap things up so it had to jam everything into way too small a space. It just felt a little unsatisfying.
I’m already looking forward to the next Armfield book—there are elements I’ve noticed in both her novels so far, both in terms of broad thematics, images, and major/minor plot elements (@ me if you want to talk about the role play forums), and I’m desperate to pattern-seek in whatever she writes next.
Overall this is another win for the weird oceanic lesbian literature lovers !! Julia Armfield thank you for my life !!!!
thank you to the publisher for providing an e-ARC via NetGalley. all opinions expressed in this review are my own.
Private Rites follows three sisters—all lesbians—as they navigate the death of their architect father, the ghosts of their childhood, and their complex relationships with each other and their lovers. Meanwhile, the flood has come; their city is mostly underwater thanks to global warming, and the constant rain only wears the city down more and more. People cram themselves into smaller and smaller spaces, ride boats to get to work, and business close when the rain stops.
I once described Armfield’s previous novel, Our Wives Under the Sea, as quintessential lesbian tragedy, and I would say that Private Rites falls into that category as well, though in this case ‘tragedy’ works in the classical sense as well.
Evidently it is a King Lear retelling, which I didn’t fully know until about 15% in. I haven’t read King Lear, so I am not sure how it compares or what elements the novel pulls—I definitely want to read King Lear and give Private Rites a reread in the future so I can more fully understand how Armfield adapts and comments upon the source material.
I absolutely loved this novel. Armfield’s prose, appropriately, is oceanic—melancholy as an empty sea, wrathful as storm-lashed waters, and able to calm or rough in the blink of an eye. For some reason, Private Rites in particular reminded me a bit of Disco Elysium, in the sense that there is this sad, struggling world impacted by uncontrollable, inevitable disaster caused by human action, and despite this terrible pressure mundanity continues on. (The sections of PR where
(Non-specific discussion of the ending below, spoilers for Our Wives Under the Sea)
And don’t get me wrong, I love a genre novel! I’m a huge genre fan! But when the book is a slow character study and the ending is almost an action movie, it just leaves me feeling like “…huh?”
Like I said, this was present in Our Wives Under the Sea as well. We have this grief-filled, wonderfully weird, quiet tragedy of a character study between Miri and Leah, and a beautifully tragic ending of letting Leah go, into the sea. But then there’s also the ending plot point of Miri maybe joining forces with another person who lost a loved one to the sea expedition to investigate and eventually take down this corporation, which feels more like the beginning to a genre sci-fi than the end to a literary novel with sci-fi/horror elements.
I don’t necessarily dislike the ending to either plot-wise. The endings just didn’t have room to breathe or settle, especially in the case of Private Rites—like the narrative realized it only had one more chapter to wrap things up so it had to jam everything into way too small a space. It just felt a little unsatisfying.
I’m already looking forward to the next Armfield book—there are elements I’ve noticed in both her novels so far, both in terms of broad thematics, images, and major/minor plot elements (@ me if you want to talk about the role play forums), and I’m desperate to pattern-seek in whatever she writes next.
Overall this is another win for the weird oceanic lesbian literature lovers !! Julia Armfield thank you for my life !!!!
thank you to the publisher for providing an e-ARC via NetGalley. all opinions expressed in this review are my own.