Mothernight

I've been meaning to write about Mothernight for a while now. I know it is early. And it isn't even out yet. But hell. I am already a fan. And I want to be first to write about it.

OK, first off - what am I on about? Mothernight is Sarah Stovell's first novel. It is published by Snowbooks and will be out next year (but already available to order on Amazon). And it's already made publishing history when Sarah's agent and Snowbooks signed the first ever book contract in Second Life.

Right. So. What is it I like so much about this book?

It's not remotely comedic. In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to find a single jokey moment. It is beautifully written - this is incontestable - and there are admirable sentences aplenty to be sighed over if you are into that kind of thing. But I'm not so very into beautiful sentences - at least not enough for beautiful sentences ALONE to be enough to excite me about a book.

So, what is so special? Our emotions are played with, but you begin to feel that is not the point. You want to know what happened, but that is not the point either. It has an impending and accelerating sense of darkness and drama, but that - although compelling - is not the point either.

The point, for me, is rather cooler, rather more humane, rather more practical - For me, what is special about this book is the cool intelligent way it leads the reader to think about an argument; an argument about how to behave in the aftermath of a tragic event.

Schoolgirls Olivia is in love with her room-mate - the beautiful, cool, remote Leila. But Leila has something in her past that keeps her apart from her father and her stepmother, Katherine. They are invited for the summer to Leila's "home". Olivia discovers that Katherine blames her lover for something that happened when Leila was a child. As the summer draws to it's conclusion, Olivia slowly unravels the truth of what happened all those years before.

Mothernight asks a question almost in the manner of a Greek tragedy. This may sound overblown, but in these tragedies what is going to happen is inevitable and usually pretty clear to the audience - if you are left in any doubt there's usually a helpful prophet or blind person to tell us. The plot is not the point, it is the argument itself, the moral argument that is the drama.

How can you compensate for crimes you committed with full reason in ignorance? (Oedipus) How can you fulfil the duty as an individual to one's family and as a patriotic citizen of the state? (Antigone). Sometimes there is not a complete answer or an answer that satisfies us all. Why does Oediupus take out his eyes? Why does Antigone have to die? They are both good people, yes? Yes, yes, they are. And yet there is no other choice. They have to be punished - being good people doesn't really come into it.

This is very different to the tragic heros and heroines we are used to. From Shakespeare, mainly. Shakespeare is the tragedy of wasted potential: the good person being corrupted - whether by circumstances or character flaw - of someone who could have been truly great throwing it aside.

Greek tragedy has people who have achieved that potential, who are noble, who stay admirable, who are forced by the incompatibility of choices: of duties, of moralities, of competing viewpoints - to make a decision that ends in tragedy. We are not used to this sort of idea anymore. We are fed a constant diet of films and television where goodies are goodies who prevail and baddies are clearly baddies and get punished.

Mothernight is closer to the Greek idea (though I'm sure Sarah will not thank me for such a grandiose comparison!) The question is asked: How does one get past tragedy? The surrounding issues are explored with humanity and thoughtfulness - in a cool argument. It plays with our emotions, but - more than that - it plays with our reason. What is the point of punishment? Of guilt? Both are shown as strong emotions  - as dominant and irrational as the love felt by Olivia for Leila. But unavoidable.

All this may give the impression it is not an emotional book - which is misleading. But, again, I think emotionalism is not the point . Although we feel for the characters, there is always a sense of removed objectivity - a good thing with a subject that could so easily have slipped into easy emotionalism which would have revealed little to us but our own responses.

Mothernight asks a question. But it also accepts what many tragedies do not: that the tragic event itself is not a tidy conclusion, but the catalyst for a whole new set of questions. I loved it.

Comments

[lisa]

Wonderful review!! I have pre-ordered this book, but might just have to pre-order it again. Well done, Ms Stovell!

[Leena]

I agree with you on, well, just about everything - and the removed objectivity was one of the things I most admired about the book. Or rather, the way it was inside and outside simultaneously, if that makes sense. You felt for the characters and yet you watched them feel at a distance and watched yourself watching... (Hmm, that probably stopped making sense now.)

I think I'll save my own review till the book comes out, as I read the earlier version. But, yes - a great book, and a great review too!

[ireneintheworld]

hey snowy

fab review. i'm just off to amazon before i BRUSH my teeth!

irene

[poppy]

Pre-ordered this ages ago. Now excited all over again!!!! In the meantime, Prince Rupert's Teardrop has just arrived from amazon.

ahhhh

[The Mock Duckling]

Lovely to see you two here!