Take a photo of a barcode or cover
jamesbeth 's review for:
Looking Glass Sound
by Catriona Ward
Rules are hard. Parables, metaphors—they’re so much easier, a guideline rather than a hard fast, stringent rule. Rules don’t leave much room for deviation before they start to get stressful or impractical, and worst of all, distracting. But there is something to be said about an author committing to the complicated undertaking of a non-reality as we know it. So much freedom, but so very much responsibility with this creative omniscience.
Rules aren’t the intention with Looking Glass Sound, just like Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House isn’t about rules either. But in supernatural suspensions of reality as we know it, it’s important to set an orientation, otherwise our brains spin like compass hands.
So many things work well in Looking Glass Sound (it’s important to mention this). It’s an utterly captivating page-turner of a novel, but I’m not sure it made sense. Given the name disorientation was intended, but just who, exactly, falls through the looking glass, when, why and how—well that was hard to know. At some point I stopped trying to organize and check it, and that was fine. The story was worth it.
I was transported to Maine, to in-land, liberal arts, collegiate Pennsylvania, and of course New York City. I felt, really, Ward’s ability to associate a single word and create an entire vibe: “bright shining summer days in a dime-like New York,” simmering, glinting, insignificant and enormous, regardless of physical dominion, in that heat. There’s an almost Muriel Spark ability to distill the least likely yet most identifiable noun and instantly pry the intended world open like a stubborn oyster, a complete pearl of Ward’s intentions wobbling out and spinning perfectly into orbit.
And she’s no slouch with intention, structure—then outlines for tales like this must be novels in themselves. Again, I found myself willingly giving up control: all those English major moments—the need to truly “get it,” the ego of figuring out the mystery myself, knowing the line of scale my pitch registers on without worry of accidentally clashing, slamming into a register below it. But it can be very hard to stop trying to connect a circuit, and it became frustrating, even when I didn’t realize it was frustration. The queues are all there, actual (in some instances) horcrux of hair and “milk teeth” (which also give away Ward’s own childhood geographic nomad status. I’ve only ever heard baby teeth in the US, but maybe it’s a specific East Coast regionalism I’ve just missed), and Skye and Sky, red and russet, rich or poor, blood or lover, killer or accomplice, poison or herb. And the homage to the gothic is ever-present: another Rebecca in a watery gown, the ever-creepy, versatile and wild-growing Hemlock (but I did not know the root was carrot-shaped) and another phenomenon I will not name because it might spoil things and I hate reviews that have to be hidden (but this is my third encounter with it and I’m starting to feel like I have a readers tool kit at my disposal).
But, there were characters that felt “pushed” into the unlikable, when my instinct was to sympathize and relate. It felt heavy-handed, even clumsy. Like they weren’t going like they needed to, but rather than rework them they were just pushed into positions they needed to assume. Sometimes I thought behaviors gave me insights into intended character development, but I was rarely right. There was always a loophole or anomaly to combat my sense of order. It started to remind me of playing checkers with my son—who can possibly win if the rules change every time I take a turn?
Other characters were so absent, unnamed until late in the book, or without backstory, dead in a single sentence, and not missed, or again, maybe that was the point. But others return, regain page space, but (to me) serve little function. This is, unmistakably, Ward’s world, and nothing is without intention, but it was never mine. I was ill-at ease, always looking over my shoulder and very ready to leave, by the end. That might just be the point, the genius, the horror. Murder and violence are frightening, but so is the disconnection of sense as we know it, the absence of fillable expectation.
Books that truly engage supernatural rules add an extra layer of complexity to be sure. We’re all waiting for the reasonable explanation, and it’s a specific type of undertaking to do it well. Ward does do well, I want to be clear. Could it be better? I’m still thinking and reading. I can say I would be hard pressed to find another version of this type of tale that does better. Somehow the messy bits are just a part of it, but it’s so much more fun than “it was all a dream.”
Rules aren’t the intention with Looking Glass Sound, just like Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House isn’t about rules either. But in supernatural suspensions of reality as we know it, it’s important to set an orientation, otherwise our brains spin like compass hands.
So many things work well in Looking Glass Sound (it’s important to mention this). It’s an utterly captivating page-turner of a novel, but I’m not sure it made sense. Given the name disorientation was intended, but just who, exactly, falls through the looking glass, when, why and how—well that was hard to know. At some point I stopped trying to organize and check it, and that was fine. The story was worth it.
I was transported to Maine, to in-land, liberal arts, collegiate Pennsylvania, and of course New York City. I felt, really, Ward’s ability to associate a single word and create an entire vibe: “bright shining summer days in a dime-like New York,” simmering, glinting, insignificant and enormous, regardless of physical dominion, in that heat. There’s an almost Muriel Spark ability to distill the least likely yet most identifiable noun and instantly pry the intended world open like a stubborn oyster, a complete pearl of Ward’s intentions wobbling out and spinning perfectly into orbit.
And she’s no slouch with intention, structure—then outlines for tales like this must be novels in themselves. Again, I found myself willingly giving up control: all those English major moments—the need to truly “get it,” the ego of figuring out the mystery myself, knowing the line of scale my pitch registers on without worry of accidentally clashing, slamming into a register below it. But it can be very hard to stop trying to connect a circuit, and it became frustrating, even when I didn’t realize it was frustration. The queues are all there, actual (in some instances) horcrux of hair and “milk teeth” (which also give away Ward’s own childhood geographic nomad status. I’ve only ever heard baby teeth in the US, but maybe it’s a specific East Coast regionalism I’ve just missed), and Skye and Sky, red and russet, rich or poor, blood or lover, killer or accomplice, poison or herb. And the homage to the gothic is ever-present: another Rebecca in a watery gown, the ever-creepy, versatile and wild-growing Hemlock (but I did not know the root was carrot-shaped) and another phenomenon I will not name because it might spoil things and I hate reviews that have to be hidden (but this is my third encounter with it and I’m starting to feel like I have a readers tool kit at my disposal).
But, there were characters that felt “pushed” into the unlikable, when my instinct was to sympathize and relate. It felt heavy-handed, even clumsy. Like they weren’t going like they needed to, but rather than rework them they were just pushed into positions they needed to assume. Sometimes I thought behaviors gave me insights into intended character development, but I was rarely right. There was always a loophole or anomaly to combat my sense of order. It started to remind me of playing checkers with my son—who can possibly win if the rules change every time I take a turn?
Other characters were so absent, unnamed until late in the book, or without backstory, dead in a single sentence, and not missed, or again, maybe that was the point. But others return, regain page space, but (to me) serve little function. This is, unmistakably, Ward’s world, and nothing is without intention, but it was never mine. I was ill-at ease, always looking over my shoulder and very ready to leave, by the end. That might just be the point, the genius, the horror. Murder and violence are frightening, but so is the disconnection of sense as we know it, the absence of fillable expectation.
Books that truly engage supernatural rules add an extra layer of complexity to be sure. We’re all waiting for the reasonable explanation, and it’s a specific type of undertaking to do it well. Ward does do well, I want to be clear. Could it be better? I’m still thinking and reading. I can say I would be hard pressed to find another version of this type of tale that does better. Somehow the messy bits are just a part of it, but it’s so much more fun than “it was all a dream.”