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A review by chirson
The Dollmaker by Nina Allan
3.0
I read this book courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, in exchange for a review. My opinions are my own.
I discovered Nina Allan slightly more than a year ago, and I fell in love with her writing in The Rift and The Race; they were some of my favourite novels read last year, so I was beyond excited to get ahold of her newest novel, The Dollmaker, even though the description didn't really appeal to my taste. And really, the novel was both what I love about Allan's writing and what made me wary in the description; the rating of 3.5 stars that I wish I could leave is the reflection of that.
What I loved about Allan's two previous novels and what was realised beautifully here was the way in which the relationship between the frame and the embedded stories is undermined. The characters tell stories about themselves and about the world, and these stories contain further stories. The relationship between fiction and fiction-within-fiction is uncertain and complex; the reader is never sure if the world described is one of the historical past or the present or a fantastical world. There's an effect of disorientation at times; if I interrupted reading in the middle of a chapter, upon returning to the book, I would often find it difficult to find my bearings again, and it was amazing.
The book is also very beautifully written and engrossing, and its characters are as fascinating as the mysteries they slowly reveal.
What didn't quite work for me was the aspect of disability. While this story is essentially about and against oppression and prejudice, I found it occasionally difficult to get through the ablist thoughts of characters and disturbing images the book evoked (particularly with regard to children). I am not entirely convinced that the book succeeds in what it wants to accomplish there, and I found its pessimism almost misanthropic - and that's something I don't really like in fiction.
And my second complaint, predictably, concerns the use of Polish names in the book...
Nonetheless, I found this book extremely interesting and thought-provoking, and I can't wait to read more from this author. I love her voice and her vision.
I discovered Nina Allan slightly more than a year ago, and I fell in love with her writing in The Rift and The Race; they were some of my favourite novels read last year, so I was beyond excited to get ahold of her newest novel, The Dollmaker, even though the description didn't really appeal to my taste. And really, the novel was both what I love about Allan's writing and what made me wary in the description; the rating of 3.5 stars that I wish I could leave is the reflection of that.
What I loved about Allan's two previous novels and what was realised beautifully here was the way in which the relationship between the frame and the embedded stories is undermined. The characters tell stories about themselves and about the world, and these stories contain further stories. The relationship between fiction and fiction-within-fiction is uncertain and complex; the reader is never sure if the world described is one of the historical past or the present or a fantastical world. There's an effect of disorientation at times; if I interrupted reading in the middle of a chapter, upon returning to the book, I would often find it difficult to find my bearings again, and it was amazing.
The book is also very beautifully written and engrossing, and its characters are as fascinating as the mysteries they slowly reveal.
What didn't quite work for me was the aspect of disability. While this story is essentially about and against oppression and prejudice, I found it occasionally difficult to get through the ablist thoughts of characters and disturbing images the book evoked (particularly with regard to children). I am not entirely convinced that the book succeeds in what it wants to accomplish there, and I found its pessimism almost misanthropic - and that's something I don't really like in fiction.
And my second complaint, predictably, concerns the use of Polish names in the book...
Spoiler
while the relationship between all the stories written within this novel and our world is tenuous and the use of mangled Polish names (and Russian names for presumably Polish characters in the translated-from-the-Polish stories of a Polish emigrant) might well have been intentional, I found myself annoyed whenever I saw another faux-Polish name. Krystina Lodz? That's a name an emigrant might have, but not a Polish scholar - in Poland... Is "Fryderyck" spelled this way to indicate it's not the actual Fryderyk Chopin but another one? Perhaps all of this was on purpose, but if so, I wish there was a note to address it; as a Polish reader I am accustomed to books getting spelling of Polish names wrong and caring little for accuracy and it bugs me all the more. (See also Krakow University, which sounds about as authentic to me as "Providence University" instead of Yale - so is this a way to indicate that it's a different world that has a Krakow and not a Jagiellonian University, or is it done to make it easier for English-language readers by avoiding difficult words, or is it simply a mistake? If it's on purpose, very few people would know, so I'm inclined to think a simplification or a mistake :/)Nonetheless, I found this book extremely interesting and thought-provoking, and I can't wait to read more from this author. I love her voice and her vision.