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A review by charlotekerstenauthor
Cloud and Ashes: Three Winter's Tales by Greer Gilman
“I am braided of them, of their voices telling. I am what they made. They made me to go on.”
CW: Sexual assault and attempted sexual assault of adult and minor characters, sacrifice of infants
So What’s It About?
(I sorely resisted the tempation to just write "fuck if I know" here...)
Gilman’s second novel, Cloud & Ashes, is a slow whirlwind of language, a button box of words, a mythic Joycean fable that will invite immersion, study, revisitation, and delight. To step into her world is to witness the bright flashes, witty turns, and shadowy corners of the human imagination, limned with all the detail and humor of a master stylist. In Gilman’s intricate prose, myth and fable live, breathe, and dance as they do nowhere else.
Cloud & Ashes collects three Winter’s Tales (“Jack Daw’s Pack,” “A Crowd of Bone,” and the longest, “Unleaving”) centering on folk traditions, harvest rites, the seasons, gods, and trickster figures. Inventive, playful, and erudite, Gilman is an archeolexicologist rewriting language itself in these long-awaited tales.
What I Thought
I just fundamentally lack the brain power requisite to write a coherent review of this book. I wouldn’t even know where to begin. So I’m just going to drop some quick thoughts and then bounce. I’ve never read anything like this before, and I doubt I’ll ever read anything like it again. That is at once a bit of a relief and a travesty. Gilman’s wielding of language is more than exquisitely, extraordinarily skillful, the imagery she evokes is gorgeous, and her mythology is fascinating and unique at the same time that it speaks to the fundamental elements of many human myths. Reading this book is a completely unique experience that I can’t compare to any other reading experience I’ve had - it is a challenge that feels so very worthwhile. Please note that that challenge is very, very real (or at least it was for me)- the insanely inventive, poetic, free-wheeling and archaic writing style and language make it quite difficult to understand what is happening at any point in time. In particular, the dialogue is written in an archaic, rustic dialect that is extremely difficult to parse. There is an interesting and powerful story to be told about trauma and cycles of violence and the breaking of old patterns that keep us trapped, but I often had to flip back and reread sections to make sure that I was understanding events properly. As of now, I think I have the overall gist but I am sure that there is a great deal more that would become clear to me with a reread. (I definitely will be rereading, but not anytime soon).
CW: Sexual assault and attempted sexual assault of adult and minor characters, sacrifice of infants
So What’s It About?
(I sorely resisted the tempation to just write "fuck if I know" here...)
Gilman’s second novel, Cloud & Ashes, is a slow whirlwind of language, a button box of words, a mythic Joycean fable that will invite immersion, study, revisitation, and delight. To step into her world is to witness the bright flashes, witty turns, and shadowy corners of the human imagination, limned with all the detail and humor of a master stylist. In Gilman’s intricate prose, myth and fable live, breathe, and dance as they do nowhere else.
Cloud & Ashes collects three Winter’s Tales (“Jack Daw’s Pack,” “A Crowd of Bone,” and the longest, “Unleaving”) centering on folk traditions, harvest rites, the seasons, gods, and trickster figures. Inventive, playful, and erudite, Gilman is an archeolexicologist rewriting language itself in these long-awaited tales.
What I Thought
I just fundamentally lack the brain power requisite to write a coherent review of this book. I wouldn’t even know where to begin. So I’m just going to drop some quick thoughts and then bounce. I’ve never read anything like this before, and I doubt I’ll ever read anything like it again. That is at once a bit of a relief and a travesty. Gilman’s wielding of language is more than exquisitely, extraordinarily skillful, the imagery she evokes is gorgeous, and her mythology is fascinating and unique at the same time that it speaks to the fundamental elements of many human myths. Reading this book is a completely unique experience that I can’t compare to any other reading experience I’ve had - it is a challenge that feels so very worthwhile. Please note that that challenge is very, very real (or at least it was for me)- the insanely inventive, poetic, free-wheeling and archaic writing style and language make it quite difficult to understand what is happening at any point in time. In particular, the dialogue is written in an archaic, rustic dialect that is extremely difficult to parse. There is an interesting and powerful story to be told about trauma and cycles of violence and the breaking of old patterns that keep us trapped, but I often had to flip back and reread sections to make sure that I was understanding events properly. As of now, I think I have the overall gist but I am sure that there is a great deal more that would become clear to me with a reread. (I definitely will be rereading, but not anytime soon).