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A review by thepurplebookwyrm
Inanna by Emily H. Wilson
mysterious
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
So this one was ultimately rather disappointing for me, and I maintain finding a properly good mythological retelling is actually pretty difficult!
Writing, structure, etc...:
I enjoyed the prose's relatively formal, 'archaic-emulating' style, and the book's 'narrative distance' at first, but then felt it became too great to effectively convey, well... anything in terms of emotionality, and too great to properly keep me engaged with the unfolding story. By trying to sound both 'relevant' to contemporary readers, and like it was genuinely harking back to the story's inspiring real-world myths, Inanna wound up feeling rather sterile, and more inert than either type of story should ever be. I also think there was ultimately an issue with the very plot structure of this retelling; too much was attempted in this first volume, and major threads of the retelling were thus laid by the wayside – I'll come back to this shortly.
Characters:
I thought the characterisation was decent overall. Each point of view character – so Inanna, Gilgamesh and Ninshubar – felt sufficiently distinct and sketched out... though that was more so true of the latter two characters, since Inanna herself was eventually reduced to a pretty soulless, robotic shell of a character. This went hand in hand with the problem I had with the too-great narrative distance in the book's final section. And actually, at the end of the day... I'm not sure we needed Ninshubar's point of view in book one; the novel would have benefitted, I think, from being a tighter, and more fleshed out, dual point-of-view story.
The mythology, itself, and broader world-building:
1) The book felt satisfyingly immersive, and believable, in terms of historical setting, based on the little I have gleaned, over the years, about Ancient Mesopotamia. So that's cool.
2) But then, we have the meat of my issues with this book, which is that for a 'mythological retelling', Inanna both lacked sufficient amounts of actual mythological fantasy, magic and religion, and pressed a little too hard, for my taste, into the 'retelling' side of things. Indeed, there's nothing for it, I do think the story took too many liberties with the source material it purported to retell. And then outside of that, it just under-delivered on some of its retold elements, because I maintain it tried to do too much at the same time.
I'm a mythology nerd, and so yes I do know a bit about Mesopotamian mythology (in fact, it's one of the mythological canons I'm most interested in), and Inanna also happens to be one of my all-time favourite pagan deities. I have read, and thoroughly enjoyed, one of the books the author recommends at the end of hers: Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth by Diane Wolkstein and Noah Kramer. And sorry not sorry, but this book's version of the "Descent of Inanna to the Underworld" was underwhelming and lacklustre as fuck, and that made me kind of salty, because holy shit how do you fumble that so hard in a novel titled "Inanna"! The Sumerian Underworld itself, and my Queen in Darkness Ereshkigal, were also underbaked as fuck, and like I said the mythological fantasy as a whole was pretty underbaked...
3) Because the story also includes what I'll call 'pseudo-science-fictiony' vibes. I really hoped I was imagining things with that but, as it so happens, the author straight up owned the fact that this is indeed something she chose to do with her retelling. And, look: fair enough. I can respect the fact she genuinely wanted to have unbridled, creative fun with mythological stories she apparently really loves, finds inspiring, etc... but I fucking loathed those pseudo-SF vibes, let me tell you. I just... really hated that shit. I don't want Sumerian gods as beings from outer space, or another dimension, what have you... with magic blood that isn't actually divine magic, but some fancy, unexplained 'technology'. Fuck off with that. I want actual, freaking, mythology; I want actual, freaking gods, and creation magic, and fantastical creatures, and a lively, soulful Underworld, and demons that are more than just decorative, and discussions of faith, religion, etc... not whatever this was: blegh !
Once again: I appreciate the fact the author was transparent with her creative intent, as well as the limitations of her education on the book's subject matter, and the fact she recommended actual sources to delve deeper into the history, and myths she (ultimately rather loosely) took inspiration from. And she was absolutely free to make the creative choices she did. But the simple fact is (the majority) of those choices were not to my taste at all. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
PS: so, yeah, I'm really disappointed, because this retelling had so much potential, and there aren't that many Sumero-Babylonian mythology retellings, as far as I know.
Writing, structure, etc...:
I enjoyed the prose's relatively formal, 'archaic-emulating' style, and the book's 'narrative distance' at first, but then felt it became too great to effectively convey, well... anything in terms of emotionality, and too great to properly keep me engaged with the unfolding story. By trying to sound both 'relevant' to contemporary readers, and like it was genuinely harking back to the story's inspiring real-world myths, Inanna wound up feeling rather sterile, and more inert than either type of story should ever be. I also think there was ultimately an issue with the very plot structure of this retelling; too much was attempted in this first volume, and major threads of the retelling were thus laid by the wayside – I'll come back to this shortly.
Characters:
I thought the characterisation was decent overall. Each point of view character – so Inanna, Gilgamesh and Ninshubar – felt sufficiently distinct and sketched out... though that was more so true of the latter two characters, since Inanna herself was eventually reduced to a pretty soulless, robotic shell of a character. This went hand in hand with the problem I had with the too-great narrative distance in the book's final section. And actually, at the end of the day... I'm not sure we needed Ninshubar's point of view in book one; the novel would have benefitted, I think, from being a tighter, and more fleshed out, dual point-of-view story.
The mythology, itself, and broader world-building:
1) The book felt satisfyingly immersive, and believable, in terms of historical setting, based on the little I have gleaned, over the years, about Ancient Mesopotamia. So that's cool.
2) But then, we have the meat of my issues with this book, which is that for a 'mythological retelling', Inanna both lacked sufficient amounts of actual mythological fantasy, magic and religion, and pressed a little too hard, for my taste, into the 'retelling' side of things. Indeed, there's nothing for it, I do think the story took too many liberties with the source material it purported to retell. And then outside of that, it just under-delivered on some of its retold elements, because I maintain it tried to do too much at the same time.
I'm a mythology nerd, and so yes I do know a bit about Mesopotamian mythology (in fact, it's one of the mythological canons I'm most interested in), and Inanna also happens to be one of my all-time favourite pagan deities. I have read, and thoroughly enjoyed, one of the books the author recommends at the end of hers: Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth by Diane Wolkstein and Noah Kramer. And sorry not sorry, but this book's version of the "Descent of Inanna to the Underworld" was underwhelming and lacklustre as fuck, and that made me kind of salty, because holy shit how do you fumble that so hard in a novel titled "Inanna"! The Sumerian Underworld itself, and my Queen in Darkness Ereshkigal, were also underbaked as fuck, and like I said the mythological fantasy as a whole was pretty underbaked...
3) Because the story also includes what I'll call 'pseudo-science-fictiony' vibes. I really hoped I was imagining things with that but, as it so happens, the author straight up owned the fact that this is indeed something she chose to do with her retelling. And, look: fair enough. I can respect the fact she genuinely wanted to have unbridled, creative fun with mythological stories she apparently really loves, finds inspiring, etc... but I fucking loathed those pseudo-SF vibes, let me tell you. I just... really hated that shit. I don't want Sumerian gods as beings from outer space, or another dimension, what have you... with magic blood that isn't actually divine magic, but some fancy, unexplained 'technology'. Fuck off with that. I want actual, freaking, mythology; I want actual, freaking gods, and creation magic, and fantastical creatures, and a lively, soulful Underworld, and demons that are more than just decorative, and discussions of faith, religion, etc... not whatever this was: blegh !
Once again: I appreciate the fact the author was transparent with her creative intent, as well as the limitations of her education on the book's subject matter, and the fact she recommended actual sources to delve deeper into the history, and myths she (ultimately rather loosely) took inspiration from. And she was absolutely free to make the creative choices she did. But the simple fact is (the majority) of those choices were not to my taste at all. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
PS: so, yeah, I'm really disappointed, because this retelling had so much potential, and there aren't that many Sumero-Babylonian mythology retellings, as far as I know.