Birthgrave – Tanith Lee

I have read 50+ pages of The Night Circus, and you know what happened? Nothing. Nothing is what happened. The 50 pages were dedicated solely to describing what I assume will be the two main characters, Marco and Celia, who will eventually (I hope) have an epic duel and fall epically in love. In great detail. Lots of detail. At one point she describes how fashionable one random female character is for almost an entire page. Like. I get that the lady is fashionable. I got it when you said she had an impeccable sense of style. There was no need to say ‘sense of style’ again, or ‘fiend for aesthetics’ or ‘eye for fashion’ or ‘magician with clothing’ all within 200 words because I absolutely got it the first time. And, on an unrelated note, the image of her wearing rubies around her throat evoking the impression of a slit throat sounds really familiar. I’m sure I read it somewhere, except in that case the woman actually did get her throat slit or something. Hopefully the same fate does not befall Super Fashionable Madame.

Morgenstern so loves detail that she breaks up the narrative into small chapter-things just to describe the amazingness of the Night Circus or Marco or Celia. EVERYTHING ASSOCIATED WITH THE NIGHT CIRCUS IS AMAZING OKAY?? IT’S GOSHDARNED MAGICAL AND MYSTERIOUS AND MAGICAL AND SHIT. And Celia and Marco are, like, lonely, tortured souls. SO lonely. Life is SO HARD. Okay? Okay. I can’t wait to continue reading about these special snowflakes (but then, if writers did not write about special snowflakes, what would they write about, right? I am being unfair to Morgenstern, and not just because her surname is cooler than mine).

OH GOD!! I’m so sorry, adorable kitty! Snowflakes are the best in the world!

I read Birthgrave after Sabina Kane. I read somewhere that Tanith Lee was considered groundbreaking and also feminist. As in, her books had feminist elements in it. So I was like, WELL, how bad can a book that is actually concerned about its female lead character be, right? Finally I can read a book by an intelligent writer and the main character won’t be a total custard pudding (I couldn’t find a satisfactory synonym for disappointing in the thesaurus, so custard pudding it is). Right?

So. Wrong. I cannot even begin because it was the most awkward book I have ever read. The main character is a nameless woman from a race of gods or superhumans or something that has been killed of by another god. Or superhuman. She is allowed to live for some reason, she’s marked by this person/god/whatever and it seems she has some sort of superpowers. I forgot what they were because I didn’t really want to remember anything about this book. So she goes off into the world all by her lonesome and proceeds to hook up with every single abusive victimiser that crosses her path. Every single one. Even though I’m pretty sure she could have used her superpowers to get rid of them. Or she could have used her common sense and just avoided them. So basically I was reading a book about a mysterious, powerful woman who gave in to cruel, crude men (usually after they rape her/attempt to rape her/attempt to kill her) over and over again. It was sick.

I didn’t at all see how this was feminist. Was the point supposed to be that even a powerful woman has to operate within the system of male patriarchy, and so must submit? Or was it more like Sucker Punch ‘feminism’, which was not empowering at all, but instead left a bitter aftertaste when you thought about sexual exploitation being sold as empowerment? Birthgrave felt more Sucker Punch than Tess of the D’Urbervilles.

This poster by Alex Pardee is the only representation of Sucker Punch that doesn’t make me want to punch the screen. 

According to some reviews, Birthgrave is a feminist work because the woman survives all of these men to become some kind of awesome sorceress type. I don’t know if that actually happened because I didn’t finish the book. I don’t actually care if she became the most amazing sorceress ever in the entire world, I felt the constant abuse of her vulnerability (which I can only see as something she allowed happen) was unnecessary and it didn’t do anything for the character except to make me think that even in the fantasy world you have women like Rihanna. Spoiler: Anyway, it seems it was a good call for me not to have read the ending because apparently UFOs show up and save the day. Yes ladies out there, get yourself into as many abusive relationships that are never your fault at all for enabling them, and right at the end you’ll get saved by aliens. Isn’t that what we’ve always wanted?

Cheerful recommendation: I can’t believe I’m saying this, but after reading Birthgrave I would actually recommend Polgara by David Eddings. Or Sabriel by Garth Nix. A book with a proper heroine and less horrific circumstances. 

ps. I am aware of how flippant and sexist Eddings is with his female characters. I recommended Polgara because I am trying to say that I think Birthgrave is even worse than that.