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A review by ridgewaygirl
The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch
3.0
The earth is dead, populated only by a few dying survivors, the environment reduced to desert. A handful of wealthy people live in a space station tethered to the earth, called CIEL, using the last few resources to live increasingly futile lives. The sudden, dramatic environmental changes as well as the new living conditions have brought changes to the people on CIEL; they are hairless, devoid of pigmentation or genitalia. Without the usual physical markers, people have turned to grafts and scarification to ornament themselves. Christine is one of CIEL's residents. She made her name for her skill in creating elaborate stories on people's bodies. More and more, her mind is on Joan, the young woman who led the armies opposing CIEL's dictator, Jean de Men, and who was burned to death in a public display. There are whispers that Joan isn't dead after all and that rebellion might be possible.
I read the first four chapters and then wondered if I'd be able to read the entire book. Christine and her soulmate show their independence by pantomiming sex acts and shouting out Shakespearian-style insults. When they're imprisoned for this, Christine bravely rebels by miming masturbation. I was left wondering if I could find it in myself to be interested in people who, in the face of great evil, reacted by being naughty. The book did improve once the story turned toward earth and to what led to its desolation. There were some fantastically inventive ideas in this book, which in the end were able to pull me through, although they were certainly not enough to make me like The Book of Joan. Primarily, there were two aspects of the book I struggled with. One is that any event that occurred in the novel was slowed down so that the author could point out how Christine and/or Joan felt and how they felt their feeling really, really deeply, perhaps more intensely than any other person has ever felt a feeling. And the other thing was that this book had so many extra words in it.
But her beloved's voice -- Trinculo's -- it is in her. His voice so rings Christine's corpus that she feels she might faint. Every bone in her body vibrates with his language.
It's not a long book, but there's not a simply described scene in it. And while neither of those qualities is a flaw, they are things that I find annoying. I'll chalk my dislike of this book up to personal taste, while recognizing that many of the ideas put forward were thought-provoking and impressive.
I read the first four chapters and then wondered if I'd be able to read the entire book. Christine and her soulmate show their independence by pantomiming sex acts and shouting out Shakespearian-style insults. When they're imprisoned for this, Christine bravely rebels by miming masturbation. I was left wondering if I could find it in myself to be interested in people who, in the face of great evil, reacted by being naughty. The book did improve once the story turned toward earth and to what led to its desolation. There were some fantastically inventive ideas in this book, which in the end were able to pull me through, although they were certainly not enough to make me like The Book of Joan. Primarily, there were two aspects of the book I struggled with. One is that any event that occurred in the novel was slowed down so that the author could point out how Christine and/or Joan felt and how they felt their feeling really, really deeply, perhaps more intensely than any other person has ever felt a feeling. And the other thing was that this book had so many extra words in it.
But her beloved's voice -- Trinculo's -- it is in her. His voice so rings Christine's corpus that she feels she might faint. Every bone in her body vibrates with his language.
It's not a long book, but there's not a simply described scene in it. And while neither of those qualities is a flaw, they are things that I find annoying. I'll chalk my dislike of this book up to personal taste, while recognizing that many of the ideas put forward were thought-provoking and impressive.