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juushikaTitle: The Brides of Rollrock Island (Sea Hearts)
Author: Margo Lanagan
Published: New York: Knopf, 2012 (2009)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 300
Total Page Count: 175,985
Text Number: 515
Read Because: mentioned in Five Books Containing Traces of Witches, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: The women of Rollrock island are strange: the witch Misskaella brings them up from the sea. This is the story not of characters, but of a place, a phenomenon, selkies. They function as an extended metaphor of female roles in society, within limitations but also with sympathetic variety. Those limitations—the universal heterosexuality, competitive female relationships, and the way that men (but not women) are victims of their sexual desire—are damning, particularly from an author that intends to write a diverse, feminist fairytale retelling. But where the book succeeds, it explores the selkie myth and then some: the creation of an archetypal evil witch, turning women's power against a society that harms women; the male desire for female subordination and perfection, their idealization and selfishness; that women remain human, even when not human, even when dehumanized, with a full complement of emotion and ability. Lanagan's voice has a dreamy, disjointed poetry, flowing between these subjects, exploring sea-rough Rollrock. This is a beautiful, melancholy book—but it could have been better.
Author: Margo Lanagan
Published: New York: Knopf, 2012 (2009)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 300
Total Page Count: 175,985
Text Number: 515
Read Because: mentioned in Five Books Containing Traces of Witches, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: The women of Rollrock island are strange: the witch Misskaella brings them up from the sea. This is the story not of characters, but of a place, a phenomenon, selkies. They function as an extended metaphor of female roles in society, within limitations but also with sympathetic variety. Those limitations—the universal heterosexuality, competitive female relationships, and the way that men (but not women) are victims of their sexual desire—are damning, particularly from an author that intends to write a diverse, feminist fairytale retelling. But where the book succeeds, it explores the selkie myth and then some: the creation of an archetypal evil witch, turning women's power against a society that harms women; the male desire for female subordination and perfection, their idealization and selfishness; that women remain human, even when not human, even when dehumanized, with a full complement of emotion and ability. Lanagan's voice has a dreamy, disjointed poetry, flowing between these subjects, exploring sea-rough Rollrock. This is a beautiful, melancholy book—but it could have been better.
