Radiance: A Novel

RADIANCE is a feast of grief, a full spread of reactions, inactions, and mourning of a particular life and death, by those who knew Severin, loved her, or saw her movies and thought that was close enough to love and knowing. Told through various media such as scripts, interviews, journals, and editorials, RADIANCE is a lush portrait of an alternate early 1900’s cinematic solar system where the Edisons are a dynasty, supply chains stretch from Earth’s moon all the way to Pluto, with life sustained by the milk of callowhales on Venus, and imagination fed by silent films. 

I love old sci-fi's imagination of the wonders of the solar system, before we knew that Mars wasn't brimming with water. RADIANCE embraces that imagination and makes it true. The rules are different here, where movie stars live on the moon, production teams travel to Venus for better lighting, and Pluto is a colony for those who want to be absolutely free to live under a pretty stringent set of customs. The worldbuilding is lovingly detailed, with reasons (implied or explicit) for each oddity until they blur together into a wonderfully strange whole. 

My sense of what the story is wobbled and undulated as I was reading, as each new piece, every angle and new way of telling the story, they shifted my sense of the narrative. At the end I feel as though I understand Severin, at least a little, but also I have a deep sense of how foolish it is to think that I’d understand her through this biographical reimagining of her life and wishes, filtered through the gaze of someone who made her reenact important moments if the lighting was a bit off. 

Some sections are breezy and delightful, oozing the upbeat patter of a newsreel or advertisement, scattered with references to contemporary figures and their planetary exploits, matter-of-factly describing life on various planets and moons. It’s excellent worldbuilding, as descriptions slowly drift between what genuinely seems like fun and more disturbing descriptions of what’s necessary for survival or expected as the rules of that particular location. I like this blend of narrative styles, creating the feeling of a great big book of everything one might want to say about Severin, pouring at first in a raw scream of grief at her absence, moving into a celebration of what she did with her presence, then contemplating a long future without her. 

My favorite sections are the murder mystery theater portion and the last instance of The Ingenue's Handbook. The staged and surreal nature of the mystery theater felt like a perfect way to highlight the impossibility of reconciling Percival's need to know what happened to Severin, and his understanding of how impossible that would be. The Handbook, shortly thereafter, is by contrast acceptance and understanding of the writer's need to move on, but also great love for Severin that is undiminished even by her likely eternal absence.

The conclusion pulls everything together delicately and suddenly, like a magic trick, blink and you'll miss it. One instant I had a dozen questions and just a paragraphs or two later the whole story made sense in a way that I didn't expect but just feels wonderful. 

Date I stopped reading this book. December 24.

I read all the glowing reviews here and I wanted to like this book. And now I am wondering if I am the only one who can see that the emperor is not wearing any clothes. Or is it me?

At first, I found myself reading through a longish meta-prologue. It was fun while it lasted - a few minutes maybe. Then I began skipping - reading diagonally through the pages. I wanted to get to the real story. But after the prologue there was some weird snippet of dialogue excerpts. I kept skipping. Then at last I saw the words "Part One" and I rejoiced, I had finally reached the story portion of the book. Alas, there was a movie script thingy there. Also not the story. Although by this time I had begun to suspect that all these myriad pieces I had been looking at - more that rather than reading - were already part of the story and it was already being told. And that's how it goes on, and on. Pieces and snippets of text. Partials.

This book reminds me of cubist paintings, or of atonal music. Nothing quite fits, yet only in seeing it all together does the art emerge.

I felt I had to like this book and I feel bad for putting it aside. It has a lovely cover and I can't quite believe that I am not equal to this task. But it's Christmas and I need some easy reading, and this is anything but.

I do recognize that this is probably really good. The execution seems very well done. Maybe I'll get through this another time. But this time I am not having fun.