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Alias Grace (1996)

Alias Grace is a historical fiction novel by Margaret Atwood based on Grace Marks, a woman found guilty of murder in the 1840’s as a teenager, who then spent 29 years in prison in Ontario before being pardoned. In this novel, set when Grace had been in prison for around twenty-six years, a church community in Kingston petitioning the Canadian government for her pardon brings in a young physician, Dr Simon Jordan, who wishes to make a case study of her. The novel alternates between Grace and Simon’s points of view as it explores an intimate, vulnerable, and unflinching fictionalization of her life rooted in what we know about the historical woman. Simon struggles to maintain his professionalism as he becomes too drawn into her story, endures the provincial nature of Kingston in the 1840’s, and becomes entangled in some of his own choices. The novel is punctuated by reports concerning the historical Grace Marks, some real and fictional letters from people around them, and excerpts from Susannah Moodie’s famously embellished interviews with her. It deserves high praise for its depth of historical accuracy and it’s a compelling read. It offers compassionate and uncomfortable insights into society, especially concerning the life of women in the 1840’s, while offering no easy answers about right and wrong. It’s an excellent book.

Storytelling and narratives are at the core of Alias Grace - how stories are told, and how people receive them. Grace tells segments of her life to Simon while sewing or doing needlepoint in the house of the prison warden, where she is sometimes permitted to work as a domestic. During these sessions, Grace tells Simon about the narrative nature of quilt patterns; how each has a name, associations, and life events they should ideally accompany. The book itself is divided into sections, each named after a real quilt pattern, and the book sections feel like they align with the implications of each one. It really reinforces both the storytelling nature of this particular book and firmly embeds the book’s perspective in that of an 1840’s woman.

This storytelling focus leads smoothly into the sociological aspects of the book as Grace and Simon both find themselves navigating hedge mazes of social expectation, while the other people around them have their own complicated paths or serve as barriers in the paths of others. While the pressures of being a doctor, prisoner, public spectacle, domestic servant, or immigrant get explored, amongst other things, I found the motivations of the characters felt rooted in who they are. Those puzzle pieces fit together with nuance as parts of a greater whole, and those same elements fit differently into different people, the decisions they make, and their outlooks towards each other (and themselves).

Storytelling and sociology go rather hand in hand when it comes to another aspect of this book - the effect an audience has directly on the story they are being told. Grace talks about the media circus that surrounded her trial, but Grace is also telling Simon a story herself, and the historical Grace was recorded as giving conflicting accounts of the events of the murder. Suzannah Moodie told a story about Grace, painting a particular kind of picture, and Margaret Atwood is also telling a story about Grace, and about Simon as well. It’s masterfully done. Grace herself is, unsurprisingly, very defined by an awareness of the impact those around her have on anything she might have to say, and this book’s narrative is defined by this awareness as well.

Grace’s story, as told to Simon, begins with her life as a child in Ireland, her problematic father, and her harrowing voyage to Canada. We get to know Grace as an impoverished, immigrant child trying to take care of her irresponsible father and even younger siblings, eventually getting work as a maid where we get to know the kind of young teenager she became, before coming to work at the country house where the murders would occur at 16 years old. The Grace telling the stories, who spent 26 years in prison, reflects on how she looks back on it all now. Simon’s story, told directly to the reader, begins with him arriving in Kingston, finding less than ideal lodgings after his recent tour across Europe, and thinking about his future prospects. He finds himself in uncomfortable lodgings, pursuing his exploration of Grace Marks, but getting continuously nagged by his mother, through passive-aggressive letters, to get married and settle down already. His story follows a decidedly different path as he reflects on the rising and falling fortunes of his family, his own attractions to women, and the ramifications of his current entanglements. It’s two very different stories.

Alias Grace was insightful and engaging read, and an intimate window into a very specific time and place in Canadian history. I highly recommend it.

The Book of the New Sun is a tetralogy of books written by its fictional narrator, Severian, detailing his forced journey into the world outside the halls of the Torturer's Guild where he grew up. Through him, we are introduced to a faded, anachronistic world under the thin light of a pale, dying sun. He has triumphs, adventures, and sorrows, and his strange encounters bring him into a unique understanding of the New Sun, a sort of religious concept and prophecy of his world. The series is full of both references to mythology and western antiquities as well as alien-sounding wonders. It's also a book that seems to move under your hands while you read it, such that passages you reread may not feel the same. It's a spectacular read, wildly imaginative, and written in a way that conjures the readers' full force of imagination. Not gonna lie, this is an instant new favorite of mine.

It's hard to talk about the plot without taking away from the experience of reading the book, as the limited-keyhole-view of the narrative is part of that experience. Severian travels to a distant city to become the chief torturer there, armed with little more than the signature dark cloak of his guild and a masterwork executioner's sword with the evocative name Terminus Est. On the way he makes the acquaintance of various unlikely companions; not because they are oddly paired, but because his acquaintances are increasingly unlikely people. Later in the series we are introduced to inter-or-multi dimensional beasts, angelic entities, riddles within reflections, mysterious and potentially miraculous forces of healing, a entire mountain sculpted to look like a man, old witches, devastating energy lances, fishermen-warriors armed with flint spears, an entire people who speak only in quotes, and the question of what, exactly, is actually so special about the gemstone known as the Claw of the Conciliator.

The series consists of four books: 1. The Shadow of the Torturer (1980) 2. The Claw of the Conciliator (1981) 3. The Sword of the Lictor (1982) 4. The Citadel of the Autarch (1983) There is a fifth book, The Urth of the New Sun (1987), written as an afterward years after the last book, which I haven't read, so I won't be including that in this review.

The language of the book is sometimes difficult but well-considered. The words Severian uses often feels archaic, or rooted in social norms of European and middle eastern antiquities. This isn't incidental, as one of the afterwards clarifies it's used to evoke the reader's associations of what is ancient with Severian's own associations, though those ancient things continue to exist in his own time. I find the language also has the effect of reinforcing the strange, alien feeling of this world, as well as makes effective use of Severian as a narrator of very limited scope. Everything he writes reflects his paradoxical breadth of knowledge and the limitations of his point of view, having been raised within the cloistered walls of his guild.

The world Severian inhabits is one of high technology fallen into disrepair and ruin. Many elements of the world have long histories, of both higher and lower technological application than they may serve in Severian's own time, and one of the ways the book changes as it is read lies in how details become revealed that change the implications of previous passages. Additionally, there are creatures and materials that do not originate on this world at all, entirely alien to its long histories, and it's not always clear which of these camps anything, or anyone, might belong. The book is delightfully wrapped in mysteries and ambiguities, which I found engaging as I would unconsciously fill in blanks with my own associations.

There are a lot of references in this book, many of which I suspect went over my own head. There is a lot of Latin, which gets used for most official government positions or military purposes, but there is also a lot of Greek as well as Judeo-Christian mythology and European folklore. Due to the ambiguities of the narrative it's not always clear if the things being described are like those mythological entities or situations or if he actually considers them to be the same thing. Or maybe they resurfaced through time and space. Or maybe those things were alien all along. Or maybe it's something even stranger of which only a small piece is actually perceived. It's really hard to tell. There are likely a few ways in which these books can be read, but nothing feels accidentally placed or mentioned off-hand without some purpose (by the time you get to the end, that is).

This isn't a casual read - I did a fair bit of google-searching unfamiliar words but I found it vastly rewarding. Through Severian, Gene Wolfe contemplates faith, obedience, authority, individualism, cruelty, miracles, illusions, and compassion across extreme paradigm shifts of consciousness, time, space, and dimension. And it's a great story.

The Book of the New Sun is a tetralogy of books written by its fictional narrator, Severian, detailing his forced journey into the world outside the halls of the Torturer's Guild where he grew up. Through him, we are introduced to a faded, anachronistic world under the thin light of a pale, dying sun. He has triumphs, adventures, and sorrows, and his strange encounters bring him into a unique understanding of the New Sun, a sort of religious concept and prophecy of his world. The series is full of both references to mythology and western antiquities as well as alien-sounding wonders. It's also a book that seems to move under your hands while you read it, such that passages you reread may not feel the same. It's a spectacular read, wildly imaginative, and written in a way that conjures the readers' full force of imagination. Not gonna lie, this is an instant new favorite of mine.

It's hard to talk about the plot without taking away from the experience of reading the book, as the limited-keyhole-view of the narrative is part of that experience. Severian travels to a distant city to become the chief torturer there, armed with little more than the signature dark cloak of his guild and a masterwork executioner's sword with the evocative name Terminus Est. On the way he makes the acquaintance of various unlikely companions; not because they are oddly paired, but because his acquaintances are increasingly unlikely people. Later in the series we are introduced to inter-or-multi dimensional beasts, angelic entities, riddles within reflections, mysterious and potentially miraculous forces of healing, a entire mountain sculpted to look like a man, old witches, devastating energy lances, fishermen-warriors armed with flint spears, an entire people who speak only in quotes, and the question of what, exactly, is actually so special about the gemstone known as the Claw of the Conciliator.

The series consists of four books: 1. The Shadow of the Torturer (1980) 2. The Claw of the Conciliator (1981) 3. The Sword of the Lictor (1982) 4. The Citadel of the Autarch (1983) There is a fifth book, The Urth of the New Sun (1987), written as an afterward years after the last book, which I haven't read, so I won't be including that in this review.

The language of the book is sometimes difficult but well-considered. The words Severian uses often feels archaic, or rooted in social norms of European and middle eastern antiquities. This isn't incidental, as one of the afterwards clarifies it's used to evoke the reader's associations of what is ancient with Severian's own associations, though those ancient things continue to exist in his own time. I find the language also has the effect of reinforcing the strange, alien feeling of this world, as well as makes effective use of Severian as a narrator of very limited scope. Everything he writes reflects his paradoxical breadth of knowledge and the limitations of his point of view, having been raised within the cloistered walls of his guild.

The world Severian inhabits is one of high technology fallen into disrepair and ruin. Many elements of the world have long histories, of both higher and lower technological application than they may serve in Severian's own time, and one of the ways the book changes as it is read lies in how details become revealed that change the implications of previous passages. Additionally, there are creatures and materials that do not originate on this world at all, entirely alien to its long histories, and it's not always clear which of these camps anything, or anyone, might belong. The book is delightfully wrapped in mysteries and ambiguities, which I found engaging as I would unconsciously fill in blanks with my own associations.

There are a lot of references in this book, many of which I suspect went over my own head. There is a lot of Latin, which gets used for most official government positions or military purposes, but there is also a lot of Greek as well as Judeo-Christian mythology and European folklore. Due to the ambiguities of the narrative it's not always clear if the things being described are like those mythological entities or situations or if he actually considers them to be the same thing. Or maybe they resurfaced through time and space. Or maybe those things were alien all along. Or maybe it's something even stranger of which only a small piece is actually perceived. It's really hard to tell. There are likely a few ways in which these books can be read, but nothing feels accidentally placed or mentioned off-hand without some purpose (by the time you get to the end, that is).

This isn't a casual read - I did a fair bit of google-searching unfamiliar words but I found it vastly rewarding. Through Severian, Gene Wolfe contemplates faith, obedience, authority, individualism, cruelty, miracles, illusions, and compassion across extreme paradigm shifts of consciousness, time, space, and dimension. And it's a great story.