The rain shall make a door for me, and I shall pass through it

[dolorosa_12]

Via fandomcalendar I learnt about an upcoming fanworks exchange that is very much to my tastes: Interlibrary Exchange. The event kicks off in May with nominations, and assignments will be due in mid-August (with what appears to be a six-week period to create them). The exchange is devoted solely to canons based on novels, and the mod goes into more detail about what is and isn't eligible in an FAQs post here. The main comm for the exchange is libraryarchivist.

I'm really enthusiastic about this, as all my fandoms are book fandoms, and I've been missing the old fanworks exchanges for book fandoms that previously happened during the northern summer but seem to have disappeared in the past few years. I'll have to see what ends up in the tagset, but as long as there's at least something I can write I'll be keen to participate. I hope it may be of interest to some of you as well.

It's time for today's book meme question, which asks for:

14. A book balanced on a knife edge



I'm choosing to interpret this question as meaning a book which could have gone either way, in terms of being incredible, or a resounding failure. For me, this means something ambitioius, strange, and memorable. For this, I have selected Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke.

I'm sure by now this book needs no detailed explanation — an alternative fantasy history of Britain, told in the discursive, expansive style of a nineteenth-century novel, in which the magical talents of the two eponymous characters are pressed into the service of the state. In the hands of a lesser writer, the resulting doorstopper of a book could easily have been a failure. Instead, what we get is a delight from start to finish — wry, haunting, and with a slowly-building sense of unease and wrongness. My favourite part of the book has always been the slow intrusion of the magical and the otherworldly into everyday life, and the weird, wild implacability of Clarke's fairy otherworld beings. I love the sense of the Raven King haunting the margins and footnotes of the book, then slowly intruding into the main text. And in general I just love that this was Clarke's first published novel (and for so long, her only published novel), written with such assurance and confidence.




15. A snuffed candle of a book

16. The one you'd take with you while you were being ferried on dark underground rivers

17. The one that taught you something about yourself

18. A book that went after its premise like an explosion

19. A book that started a pilgrimage

20. A frigid ice bath of a book

21. A book written into your psyche

22. A warm blanket of a book

23. A book that made you bleed

24. A book that asked a question you've never had an answer to

25. A book that answered a question you never asked

26. A book you recommend but cannot love

27. A book you love but cannot recommend

28. A book you adore that people are surprised by

29. A book that led you home

30. A book you detest that people are surprised by

Comments

[regshoe]

Ever since I first read the book I've been quietly marvelling that this was Clarke's first published novel. It's such an impressive achievement! And I completely agree about the slow build-up of the magic and the real significance of the story, in plot and presence—it's really, really well done.

[dolorosa_12]

It really is just a staggeringly good book, and I love and admire it so much.

[chestnut_pod]

Ah, Interlibrary Exchange looks right up my alley, and conveniently timed, too. Thanks!

[dolorosa_12]

I'm pleased to hear it! I really hope it's a success — while we certainly have an abundance of exchanges, there are not many that are limited to books, and I really want this one to be a regular occurrence.

[merit]

I've been more or less only consuming books and there's hardly any good book fandoms these days (sob) though I also haven't been writing much fic either. Hmm.

[dolorosa_12]

All my book fandoms are fandoms-of-one anyway, so anything more than that just feels like an added bonus! I'm just happy that there's an exchange catering so perfectly to my own needs and interests (although whether I'm able to match my offers to any requests in the exchange remains to be seen).

[lirazel]

Oh thank you for telling me about that exchange! That's exactly my kind of thing and I didn't know about it at all!

And yes: JS&MN could have been so pretentious and long and boring and instead is just delightful and weird. What a triumph of a novel.

[dolorosa_12]

I'm glad to have helped re: the exchange. I'm very hopeful that it will prove popular enough to become an annual thing, because (from my perspective) the world is crying out for a book fandom exchange during the northern summer! We get a ridiculous number of nomination slots (both for fandoms and characters/relationships) so I will definitely run a nomination coordination post closer to the time the exchange begins. (I'm never going to use ten character slots across ten fandoms!)

If it helps, I follow the Dreamwidth comm fandomcalendar, where people can advertise upcoming exchanges/fests/etc, and that's how I hear about things like this exchange.

I totally agree with you regarding JS&MN.

[scripsi]

I love this book so much!

[dolorosa_12]

Same! It's such a fantastic achievement, especially as an author's first published novel.

[scripsi]

I was a little afraid of reading Piranesi just because I was scared JS&MN was a one-trick wonder. But i love Piranesi too. And now I'm eagerly waiting for the sequel to JS&MN , which may come next year.

[dolorosa_12]

I had the same worries about Piranesi, but I enjoyed it a lot, although I don't think I was quite as blown away with it as some people were.

For some reason I had completely missed the news that she was writing a sequel to JS&MN! How exciting!