Hild

Griffith manages to write about powerful female characters in medieval Britain without resorting to overt anachronisms. Hild is privileged but in a precarious position. She has to keep her wits about her to survive and flourish in Edmond King's court.

Somehow this tail of court intrigue, warlords and Christian domination manages to give the characters and world so much depth, detail and motivation that archetypes such as the corrupt ambitious bishop, the testosterone fueled warrior, the scheming king and even the sooth seer, aren't cringe inducing megalomaniacs, but feel like people.

It is especially impressive how women are shown finding their power in the roles allotted to them.

I found Nicola Griffith in the SF&F section, but I'm not sure this is a fantasy novel. Magic isn't portrayed as real. It is a way for smart people to manipulate the superstitious. Hild is smart and educated in reading the signs in her environment. She is also a capable healer, but neither she nor any other character have supernatural abilities.

It is a well-researched and wonderfully imagined portrayal of historical Britain.

Good books, I find, are great for getting you through hard times. Hild fit that bill perfectly as I read it over three nights in front of an open fire.

Hild is set in 7th Century England, and based on the historical figure that later became Saint Hilda of Whitby. If you have an aversion to reading about the lives of Saints, set aside your preferences and delve into a rich exploration of character and a beautiful presentation of Anglo-Saxon England. From a short passage in Bede’s The Ecclesiastical History of the English, Griffith manages to conjure a fully realised, interesting character and give a real flavour of the time period.

The character of Hild is presented more as a natural philosopher, her thinking is almost scientific in her observation of the natural and political worlds she finds herself in. She sees patterns and frames her analysis of them in terms of prophecy – necessary for survival in a court with a fickle king and a priest of Rome who resents those with religious/mystical power, especially women. The Gods and later God seem to be a frame of reference that she moves within rather than a deeply held belief. I get the distinct impression that if the thinking of her time period allowed it she’d be an Agnostic.

It’s a coming of age novel, a tale of the rise and fall of Kings but the real tension comes from the precarious position of King’s Seer that Hild is groomed for by her mother. This tale should have something for everyone swords. I found it weighty and rich in its language but not dense. The kind of book that makes you notice the prose and leverages off it to provide an immersive experience.

While the book does reach a resolution, I felt that there was ample interest, story and opportunity for a companion work that detailed the rest of Hild’s life. If you’re a fan of Anglo-Saxon historical, Hild presents a fuller world beyond shield walls and oath making.

perhaps conjure is a little cliché and underwhelming - I want to invoke a sense of awe and magic that I know stems from shoulder to the wheel literary crafting.

I wanted to like this so badly. It's right up my alley: a tough smart girl carves out a place in the world in an interesting historical setting. But I've had this from the library for 6 weeks and I've made it 30 pages, and every one of those 30 pages has felt like a chore. I will do almost anything to avoid picking this up. The house has never been so sparkling clean.

So. Even though I want to like this, I also want to read books that I enjoy reading. And I don't enjoy reading this. I don't feel like I can give a good reason why I don't like it (I've only read 30 pages, after all, which isn't enough time to really get under the skin of the characters or figure out the dominant narrative arc or even get into the flow of the book's language), but here we are, and 6 weeks is enough time wasted on a book I don't want to read. And so, back to the library it goes; no star rating, because I can't in good conscience give a star rating to a book I've read so little of.