Hild by Nicola Griffith

[lightreads]

Hild by Nicola Griffith

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Fictionalized account of the early life of the seventh-century Anglo-Saxon woman who would later become a pivot point in the conversion to Christianity, and a saint.

I read this directly after Kay's Under Heaven, which was accidentally brilliant. Both are fictionalized historical accounts of great cultural transition, and yeah they're set about half a world and a century apart and their respective projects are different, but sometimes contrasts are the most illuminating.

This was a subtle, very human endeavor set against all Under Heaven's contortions and greek choruses, and I liked this much more. Hild straddles multiple spheres: she is a member of the queen's inner circle, and thus embedded in all the political, gynecological, marital machinations thereof; she is the king's seer and the only woman to attend his councils; she is an owner of slaves; she is chattel to be dealt or withheld. The historical accuracy or inaccuracy here is of no interest to me, except that my definition of good historical fiction is the kind where the people feel simultaneously real and familiar, and also dislocatingly alien because their world is not ours in fundamental ways. Griffith got at that.

All that said, this book is the very definition of a thing that is good and that is also not my thing. What I said above about not caring about the historical accuracy? I seriously don't, and will glaze over at anyone who attempts to buttonhole me about it (not a guess, I have tested this out). (Though I will pause to say that I eyeroll at all the people complaining the LGBT content is inherently anachronistic. Yeeeeeah. Because, as we all know, the twenty-first century invented queerness and absolutely no one was queer and unbothered by it before then.) Anyway, I suspect you do have to care about the historical accuracy to really enjoy this book. You also probably need to be the sort of person who likes maps, family trees, the intersection of politics and religion, and keeping track of roughly two hundred people with similar names. (Though I did enjoy a rousing game of 'guess the Anglo-Saxon spelling' in which I would look up words from the audiobook and then goggle.) So basically, not for me, but I can see why a bunch of people really, really dig this.




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Comments

[cahn]

*nods* Yeah. I personally loved it (maps, check, family trees, check, intersection of politics and religion, CHECK TIMES ONE THOUSAND, keeping track of two hundred people, check). But there are some people I would unreservedly recommend it to and others I would actually dis-recommend it to (my sister, for example, is not into detailed historical accuracy and politics/religion and all the things I loved about it, and would mostly get annoyed at it).

I wasn't sure where you fell on that spectrum. Data points are always good!

[avendya]

Thank you for reviewing this, because all of the thing you are "meh" about are my catnip. I know where this month's Audible credit is going.