Social Blunderer

Learwife is a strange nightmare of a book that hooks you in and won’t let go. The prose at points physically affected me. It creates an oppressive miasma that makes you feel as trapped as the Learwife of the title. In odd ways, it takes the works of Shakespeare, Camus, Kafka and, Beckett, remixing them into something stunning.

It is lyrical and compelling. As an exploration of grief and how that state of emotion colours all our memories. Learwife seamlessly veers from our protagonist boasting rhapsodically about her achievements as a queen, wife and mother to threnodies about the harm she caused and was caused to her by those she loved.

Learwife never shies away from how cruel and unfair life is. My reading of the book is that it is about a character trying to make sense of pain and reaching for those joyful moments that give us pleasure or satisfaction.

It plays with enigmas and ambiguity. How many of Learwife’s memories are accurate? Is the Convent real or a metaphor for limbo?

A brilliant book and one that I think I’ll come back to.

BUY IT here. They’ll kick me some money

Bridget Collins writes another superb novel. Much like The Binding, her latest story, The Betrayals, has motifs around exploring painful past relationships, coping with the trauma they cause and trying to find a way to live in a future where the scars aren’t so afflictive.

The characters here are compelling. They aren’t necessarily likeable or make logical decisions, but you can’t help but care for them. Léo, especially, is a contemptible bounder who happily works for a dictatorial regime. Only a political misstep sees him exiled to Montverre, an academy that teaches the national game called The Grand Jeu. What The Grand Jeu actually is, is never explained but seems to involve dance, music, maths and philosophy.

One of the other main protagonists is Claire, the first female Magister Ludi. Much like in previous Collins’ writing, through her lens, we see how oppressive societal norms can prevent people from achieving their potential and being happy.

There are some stunningly beautiful passages in this book. The characters do make some head-scratchingly poor decisions. It never quite reached the heights of The Binding for me. In part, that is because I preferred the world The Binding was set in. The Betrayals world was a less enjoyable place. Collins writes unsubtle commentary at the ease that countries can slip into despotism and how fascism is insidious in infecting all parts of society. Given the world, we live it hit rather too close to home. That said, the central conflict around the relationship between Claire, her brother Carafax and Leo kept me on edge.

This is a wonderful novel.

BUY it here. They’ll kick me some money.