Beyond Selidor

Wow, that's a lot of stuff to talk about! To keep this reply within a reasonable number of words, I'm going to try to limit what I say about each book to a handful of sentences, but am happy to elaborate further.

Spinning Silver: I just really, really, really love Miryam. I love how her skills (thrift, bargaining, mercantile abilities) are made heroic, so that they resonate like the acts of a fairytale or folklore heroine. On a broader level, I really appreciate how the book itself is an act of reclamation (by a Jewish author) of really terrible, longstanding antisemitic tropes, taking things that have been truly damaging throughout history, and making them a story of family, community, and survival.

Pagan Chronicles: To be honest, I think it was this series that gave me my love of a) found families and b) hurt/comfort. I adore Pagan and Babylonne (and to a lesser extent Isidore and Roland) beyond all reason, and I love that the entire series is basically a family saga of dispossessed, traumatised orphans finding home, family, and purpose in each other. As an immigrant, Pagan's experiences of building a successful (and intellectually enriching) life outside the country of his birth really resonate with me. I also love the compassion and generosity of spirit with which the series is written: the characters have endless empathy for human frailty, and for the compromises people are forced to make when they are weak, and at the mercy of the powerful. But they also have a clear-eyed, unforgiving contempt for the abuses of power perpetuated by those in authority, and I really, really, appreciate that.

A Memory Called Empire: I could say so, so much about this series, but in short, it hits me right in the depths of my immigrant heart. I wrote a bit about it in a recent post: this story just gets what it is to leave your home, to put down roots elsewhere while knowing doing so is fraught with difficulty, and to love the literature and pop culture of a hegemonic culture with the awareness that this love is tinged with a kind of complicity.

As to folktales, fairytales, and mythology: I'm more familiar with those from Britain and Ireland, and in general I find myself drawn to stories that are about women, transformations, and reclamations of self (so things like swan-maidens and selkies). I also like stories that deal with journeys to otherworlds, or underworlds, and mortal characters having to remember various rules to help them survive such journeys, and return home. I also really, really like stories which hinge on names, bargains, truths, half-truths, and circumlocution.

Please feel free to talk to me about any of the books/etc that you've asked me about! I'm astonished in particular to find someone who's read the Pagan Chronicles — that's incredibly rare, in my experience, and I'm delighted!