DNF: The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow

[dhampyresa]

The problem with this book is that I'm French.

Alix E. Harrow's The Everlasting is a novel about deconstructing a country's founding myth. Said myth is inspired by Arthuriana and, especially, Joan of Arc. I'm not against Joan of Arc motifs (hell, it's one of the things I love about Margaret Rogerson's Vespertine). I am also pro deconstructing founding myths! Including French founding myths, including Joan of Arc.

However.

However, I think if you're going to be deconstructing a country's myths it should be your own country. Whether its because the book is in English or the author is USAmerican or the fictional country is England-coded (the main narrator so far (25%) is called "Owen Mallory") or a combination but this feels particularly disrespectful. Leave Jeanne alone and go bother George Washington or something.

Comments

[isis]

Huh, you know, I did not twig at all to it being Jeanne d'Arc-ish, possibly because it was so obviously pseudo-England that I never considered it had anything of France to it.

[erinptah]

Yeah, same! I spent the whole book thinking of her as "if an Arthurian knight got to be a woman." Especially with all the dragonslaying, and a quest for a Holy Grail thrown in.

[muccamukk]

I loathed 10,000 Doors of January, and Harrow's judgement here doesn't sound any better :(

[sovay]

Whether its because the book is in English or the author is USAmerican or the fictional country is England-coded (the main narrator so far (25%) is called "Owen Mallory") or a combination but this feels particularly disrespectful.

It is so England-coded that Jeanne did not occur to me. I got Matter of Britain vibes by the hundredweight and then I argued with it on its own demerits for six e-mails with skygiants in February.

(tl;dr I was annoyed by this novel for other reasons, including the structural collapse, the thematic sclerosis, and the near-total refusal to interrogate almost any of the premises it seemed to have established in its first, strongest section, but your additional reaction does not make me want to rethink my opinions.)