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A review by 101mystic
The Story of Silence by Alex Myers
4.0
This is a great book, especially if you are interested in the complexities of gender explored in an Arthurian style context.
So just read it. I am now going to be spoiler-filled.
This book was from Edelweiss+ for review, and when I read the description, I was intrigued and had no idea what I was getting into. It is a retelling of Arthurian myths but looking at it with a more modern understanding of gender and what does it mean with nature versus nurture. Silence is born a girl, and the Earl needs a son to inherit Cornwall, so Silence is raised as a boy. Silence has no idea he’s a girl this point, and believe that he is a boy until someone informs him otherwise. And spends most of the book fighting with the fact he feels masculine but has a vulva. Silence’s father spends a lot of the book seeing Silence as a monstrosity, while Silence becomes a knight and other things.
According to the review copy, it’s part of something that the Author, Alex Myers, saw in a book and modernized for the current exploration on gender.
And I can see this, what is a person’s gender? Usually, when gender is played within older stories it’s about the reveal, and the frame story of this narrative makes that happen as well. But Silence’s own story, and not the story told for them, is a complex one about who they are.
One thing I will say, I loved Merlin. I am really tired of the old, wise mentor we have turned Merlin into when in historical Arthurian legends, he’s just gross. Merlin is a disgusting old man, both in this book and the original stories. The form Merlin takes is interesting, and I like how, when he arrives, it doesn’t necessarily fix everything: Sometimes, it just makes it worse. Which is excellent, Silence is left to figure out a lot of things on their own without the fix of magic.
How magic is depicted in this book, especially toward the end, is something I agree with. It’s how I am forming my own magic systems based on historical ideas of magic being something in the in-between—you see this in my Advent story that I will have on my Pateron for Christmas.
I did not like the secondary ending, it makes sense in the context of changing someone’s story to fit their own, but I hated it. And I really wish we could have ended with Silence’s indication, and not the traditional ending of these sort of tales – also the King seems doubly gross, so twice over nope.
But it made me think about how people often adjust people’s stories to fit narrative means that aren’t what someone meant to begin with. And maybe that is as an essential part of this book.
This is a book I do hope you go and pick it up sooner than later, as I think it’s a really important story in the frame of Fantasy and how we think of stories and gender.
So just read it. I am now going to be spoiler-filled.
This book was from Edelweiss+ for review, and when I read the description, I was intrigued and had no idea what I was getting into. It is a retelling of Arthurian myths but looking at it with a more modern understanding of gender and what does it mean with nature versus nurture. Silence is born a girl, and the Earl needs a son to inherit Cornwall, so Silence is raised as a boy. Silence has no idea he’s a girl this point, and believe that he is a boy until someone informs him otherwise. And spends most of the book fighting with the fact he feels masculine but has a vulva. Silence’s father spends a lot of the book seeing Silence as a monstrosity, while Silence becomes a knight and other things.
According to the review copy, it’s part of something that the Author, Alex Myers, saw in a book and modernized for the current exploration on gender.
And I can see this, what is a person’s gender? Usually, when gender is played within older stories it’s about the reveal, and the frame story of this narrative makes that happen as well. But Silence’s own story, and not the story told for them, is a complex one about who they are.
One thing I will say, I loved Merlin. I am really tired of the old, wise mentor we have turned Merlin into when in historical Arthurian legends, he’s just gross. Merlin is a disgusting old man, both in this book and the original stories. The form Merlin takes is interesting, and I like how, when he arrives, it doesn’t necessarily fix everything: Sometimes, it just makes it worse. Which is excellent, Silence is left to figure out a lot of things on their own without the fix of magic.
How magic is depicted in this book, especially toward the end, is something I agree with. It’s how I am forming my own magic systems based on historical ideas of magic being something in the in-between—you see this in my Advent story that I will have on my Pateron for Christmas.
I did not like the secondary ending, it makes sense in the context of changing someone’s story to fit their own, but I hated it. And I really wish we could have ended with Silence’s indication, and not the traditional ending of these sort of tales – also the King seems doubly gross, so twice over nope.
But it made me think about how people often adjust people’s stories to fit narrative means that aren’t what someone meant to begin with. And maybe that is as an essential part of this book.
This is a book I do hope you go and pick it up sooner than later, as I think it’s a really important story in the frame of Fantasy and how we think of stories and gender.