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Lifelode

by Jo Walton (Goodreads Author), Sharyn November (Introduction)

3.89 of 5 stars 3.89 · rating details · 107 ratings · 28 reviews

A very unique fantasy novel by Jo Walton — a winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer and the World Fantasy award.
From the introduction by Sharyn November: "Lifelode is what one might call domestic fantasy, set in a quiet farming community—but it's also about politics, God and religion, sexual mores, the make-up of a family, and how people change over time...more

Hardcover, 271 pages

Published February 13th 2009 by NESFA Press (first published January 1st 2009)

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Sep 05, 2012 Gene rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

Jo Walton writes interesting situations and characters you care about.

When I read, I'm frequently running it as a movie in my mind. I saw my wife as Taveth the primary character. Both are farm girls who are excellent in cookery and the domestic arts. They both get taken for granted but rise above this. The youngest son of a good friend of mine fit the role of Taveth's step-son, Hodge, a smart and sensible child who is edging up on wise for his years. (My wife was teaching the young man who I'm u...more

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Aug 29, 2012 Sarah Smith rated it 5 of 5 stars

I love this book. Jo Walton specializes in taking the tropes of fantasy, turning them inside out and into fascinatingly different shapes, smiling, and saying "And why shouldn't this be fantasy too?" And lo, it is. _Lifelode_ is one of her best yet.

Jo Walton's Applekirk is a medieval-ish village in the middle of Time: literally. Further East, toward a quite specific Heaven, time hardly passes at all. A difficult woman goes to Heaven and lives there for some time (she casually talks about meeting...more I love this book. Jo Walton specializes in taking the tropes of fantasy, turning them inside out and into fascinatingly different shapes, smiling, and saying "And why shouldn't this be fantasy too?" And lo, it is. _Lifelode_ is one of her best yet.

Jo Walton's Applekirk is a medieval-ish village in the middle of Time: literally. Further East, toward a quite specific Heaven, time hardly passes at all. A difficult woman goes to Heaven and lives there for some time (she casually talks about meeting a deity at a party), then travels back to bring trouble on her great-grand-descendants. Further to the West, years pass while months pass in Applekirk. A child may go West; an adult returns. And Taveth, "one of the mainest main characters" as Eleanor Skinner calls her, sees people at all their times of life at once, child and maiden and old woman. "I don't see him older than he is now," she says sadly of one of the villagers.

Walton has talked about the influence on her of Rumer Godden's time-mixing books--_China Court_, _Take Three Tenses_--on _Lifelode_. The story is told as taking place at every time at once. It's not just a writerly trick (though it's a top-notch one, and pulled off with panache). Walton's time-mixing is a lovely magical, fantastical analogue for child/adult relationships including the ones with oneself, and she does it so diplomatically and well that _Lifelode_ is a smoother read than Godden's.

Sharyn November calls _Lifelode_ a domestic fantasy, which makes it sound a bit cozier than it is. In Applekirk, Taveth's call to housekeeping is a spiritual experience and a source of magic. Her household is comfortably poly (four adults, four children, one from each of the four possible hetero pairings). Polyfamilies are the norm, dyads are an interesting but rare variation, all priests are naked, and there's plenty of sex--but still more about love. Domestic fantasy, yes, but the kind that efficiently tucks and tidies your mental house into a new look entirely.

Lifelode--the work that shapes a life--should be in the Oxford English Dictionary. And the book should be on your shelf.

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Sep 09, 2010 Juliana rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: feminist, fantasy, glbt, sff

This was an enjoyable read. While I'd have liked to know more about the unusual world of the novel, it certainly works as is. Walton does some really interesting things with time and tense to reflect the strange world the characters inhabit. The theology's also quite interesting, particularly since the characters know that their gods are real and live in the East and can and do act directly in peoples' lives.

I'm also a sucker for the descriptions of everyday life in Applekirk-- there's just som...more

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Aug 28, 2010 Jen rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, 2010

Before I comment further, I have to note that I've known Jo for years, and am always delighted when I get to spend time with her. That said, what I love about her work is very much what I love about her: a willingness to go wholeheartedly into exploring a particular facet of story and the world, in a way that provides new understanding and awareness of our own.

_LifeLode_ is a fantasy novel, set in a world where geography has a strong effect not only on time, but on how the world works. As you m...more Before I comment further, I have to note that I've known Jo for years, and am always delighted when I get to spend time with her. That said, what I love about her work is very much what I love about her: a willingness to go wholeheartedly into exploring a particular facet of story and the world, in a way that provides new understanding and awareness of our own.

_LifeLode_ is a fantasy novel, set in a world where geography has a strong effect not only on time, but on how the world works. As you move East, the possibility of yeya (magic) becomes stronger and stronger, until you are become a god (the process is a little more complicated than that, as the book discusses). As you move west, yeya becomes less and less possible, and people also have less and less free will. Likewise, time flow changes as you travel: a day in Applekirk might be weeks further west. This makes travel particularly interesting.

_Lifelode_ is set in a village, Applekirk, which is far enough east that yeya is a part of daily practical life - small charms to keep away danger, to keep food fresh, to make it easy to carry hot dishes - are all commonplace. But it is not so far East that one generally has to worry overmuch about the Gods being active and present. (Though of course, one has their priests around, as any good community does.)

What I love about Jo's work is her ability to create a clearly functioning and real society, and yet demonstrate how it works in quiet ways. (She's the one who coined the term incluing, the art of dropping this kind of information in so that it feels natural and obvious.) This book is a particularly good example of the art: what we learn about family structures, how people interact with the Gods, how they approach yeya, are all tucked into little phrases and moments, without ever dumping it on your head.

The term lifelode itself is a good example: a lifelode is someone's true work in the world, the thing that they can do really well, that also in some way, fills a need in the world. One of the main characters, Taveth, has the lifelode of housekeeping: while a middle-aged, mother of young-adult children is not the conventional fantasy heroine by a long-shot, this works brillantly in this context.

There is a plot, and exciting things do happen, and the world is changed as a result, but those, I leave to the reader. (less)

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Jul 03, 2009 Dormouse rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: sff

It's a medieval fantasy setting, and the story is set in a small and quiet village. Then plot happens, with people arriving from far-away.
The people from far-away are interesting and they give a bigger perspective on the village, and on the world the story happens in.

Things that happen in a small village still matter: people are born and they grow up and fall in love, have children, celebrate holidays, have sex, teach and learn, grow food, travel and return.

I liked the quiet domesticity in the...more

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Jan 01, 2013 Kim rated it 4 of 5 stars

A domestic, pastoral fantasy, this novel is set in the village of Applekirk whose inhabitants live out their lives in accordance with their traditions and with the seasons. However, ordinary lives for these villagers involve such things as nuclear families comprised of four adults and their assorted children, the practice of "yeya" - a form of magic - and a commitment to honouring their "lifelode", that is, their skill, their passion, their role in life.

Into the village come two people, Rankin,...more
A domestic, pastoral fantasy, this novel is set in the village of Applekirk whose inhabitants live out their lives in accordance with their traditions and with the seasons. However, ordinary lives for these villagers involve such things as nuclear families comprised of four adults and their assorted children, the practice of "yeya" - a form of magic - and a commitment to honouring their "lifelode", that is, their skill, their passion, their role in life.

Into the village come two people, Rankin, a scholar from the rationalist and scientific Western part of the world in which Applekirk exists and Hanethe, former lord of Applekirk, who left to go to the spiritual Eastern region and who returns because she has displeased a god. The presence of Rankin and Hanethe sets off a chain of events which leads to the climax of the novel.

Time is the most important element of the narrative. Taveth, a central character in the novel, is able to see people at different stages of their lives at once - as they are, as the child or the teenager they once were and as the elderly person they will become. Past, present and future happen simultaneously. In addition, Applekirk exists on a continuum where space and time expand as one travels from East to West. Days or weeks of time in the East may be decades in Applekirk and centuries in the West. The sense that time is not fixed and that what happens in life can happen all at once pervades the work.

The novel is not just about time, though. Amongst other things, it's about religion, politics, sexual mores and family life. Applekirk's conventions, practices and beliefs raise questions about our own conventions, practices and beliefs, which I guess is part of the role of good literature.

It took a couple of chapters for me to begin to understand the world of Applekirk and the web of relationships which exists between the main characters. I particularly like that Walton doesn't spoonfeed her readers. She makes them work to become immersed in the world she creates. I also love Walton's beautiful prose, her inventiveness, her humour, her playfulness, her ability to create memoreable characters and her willingness to write a fantasy which celebrates the ordinary things in life.

Thank you to my friend BunWat, for introducing me to Jo Walton by suggesting that I might like to read Farthing and also for entrusting her signed copy of this novel to the vagaries of the international postal system. The book will head home having won another fan.

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Apr 20, 2011 Maree ♫ Light's Shadow ♪ rated it 3 of 5 stars

It was interesting, but not really a riveting read for me. For one thing, very little about the world and the way it worked was explained in the beginning, so I was constantly confused by terms and things that these people took for granted as being normal parts of their lives. There's a way to do it well in a book, but I didn't think that this did it. By the end, I did understand what was going on, but I was rather frustrated by the beginning's lack of explanation. I realize it was probably the...more It was interesting, but not really a riveting read for me. For one thing, very little about the world and the way it worked was explained in the beginning, so I was constantly confused by terms and things that these people took for granted as being normal parts of their lives. There's a way to do it well in a book, but I didn't think that this did it. By the end, I did understand what was going on, but I was rather frustrated by the beginning's lack of explanation. I realize it was probably the author's intent to throw the reader headlong into the world, but it didn't quite work for me.

Everything else about the book was pretty fine. As the story was centered on a town, and therefore unmovable, the adventure had to come to them, as it did in the form of Jankins, the scholar, as well as the great grandmother of the current Lord (H-whatever, don't remember how to spell it). And trouble follows her even more, so there's definitely some action in the book. However, the story is more about family and love than anything else, as is later revealed in the reason for great-grandma's coming.

In Walton's world, there is marriage, but there are also sweetmates who can live with the family as well as lovers to the married couples. One would think that if it was going to be put into a book, it would work well as a family dynamic, but there are still a lot of hurt feelings and jealousy between the women at least, despite their being older adults. This doesn't seem to suggest that this is the way to go, so I'm not sure what point the book is trying to make.

(view spoiler)

The yeya added an interesting aspect to the otherwise plain working world of a farming town. I guess you could call it a type of magic, though everyone has it to a certain extent. I especially liked the idea of certain winds blowing in from various directions causing problems and how everyone seemed to think very carefully about their emotions and where they were coming from to make sure they weren't being affected by the ill winds.

I also liked how time was different as one moved from west to east and how everyone accepted that as completely normal. It was sometimes confusing remembering which was which, but I'd chock that down to my own lack of memory skills rather than a problem with the author.

Overall, good story, some nice action, an interesting world, but nothing that really made me sit up and pay attention.(less)

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Mar 14, 2011 Cheryl in CC NV rated it 3 of 5 stars

I'm not catching on to what readers are saying about what's so different about how this is told. I've read lots of books told in the present tense with flashbacks to different time periods - maybe I just need to get further into it, or maybe Walton is so accomplished she makes it seem effortless & invisible. Also, readers talk about the sexuality & the lifelode of Taveth - well, as it happens, I'm a bisexual polyamorous housewife who cooks & nurtures well, so, we'll see how well I em...more

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Sep 04, 2011 Michelle rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: writers, people who love in-depth character studies

Recommended to Michelle by: the alternative world group

Shelves: fantasy, feminism, award_winner

a couple of years back, there was a news story about a virtuoso violinist who played in a DC metro station during rush hour, just to see if anyone would stop and appreciate beauty in the midst of everyday life (sadly, few did). this book is the literary equivalent: a lovely example of an artist in fine form, on an intimate, personal scale.

Taveth is the housekeeper of the country manor house of her village. she "sees through time", catching echoes of future events and past selves in everyday lif...more

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Oct 02, 2011 gwen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Jo Walton just blows me away with her technique, every time -- this time, she somehow wrote a fantasy novel about domestic life, the sort of quiet ordinary moments of the lives of a farming community in some alternative universe where gods meddle in everyday life. All the characters can use "yeya," or magic (sort of, not exactly), and the main character (who happens to be brilliantly feminist, touching on questions about what it means to have a "lifelode," or calling, to keep house and care for...more

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Nov 15, 2010 Susan marked it as wishlist

Great book. Most people I know would HATE it because of the non-linear time and such, but it was great.

One of the only times I've noted an author commenting on the great cover art -- though if you look st Stefan Martiniere's full painting, it does not fit AT ALL.

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Apr 12, 2010 Renee rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy

Lifelode is a hard book to review. It would also be hard to give a synopsis that is not complete nonsense as well, based on the way it is written. I suppose regaling you with how it is written is the best way to begin, given the fact that this will most likely be a "make it or break it" sort of technique for any given reader. I will use an analogy...bear with me.

Picture a wall of pictures. The pictures tell a complete story, and if they were fashioned in linear order, you would be able to see th...more

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Oct 04, 2011 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: sffantasy, glbt

I really think Jo Walton is the most remarkable SFF writer working today. Her books aren't just different from everything else in the genre; with the obvious sequelly exceptions, they're completely different from each other, the only family resemblance being fine writing and a careful hand with worldbuilding that pays as much attention to how families work as to how magic does.

I would have loved this even more if she'd managed to carry out her stated intention of writing a story in which nothing...more

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Nov 13, 2010 Lori (Hellian) rated it 4 of 5 stars

What a lovely book! Don't have time to write a review now, but that's no reflection on how much I enjoyed this, and also thought about the characters while not reading, and what the book had to say. Needless to say, housekeeping is most definitely NOT my lifelode, yet that's what I am. And from witnessing the absolute art form of Taveth's housekeeping, my new, made up recipe last night was a huge success!

But this book is most definitely not about housekeeping, it's finding our life work that is...more

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May 16, 2011 Elizabeth rated it 5 of 5 stars

When I've finished a book I really enjoy, I often flip back through it, readings bits and pieces at random, and reliving the experience. This is the first book I've encountered that is tailor-made for such an activity; it is written in the present tense, but in overlapping time periods, so that all the events happen,as they do in memory, both sequentially and simultaneously. It is also a book about the trajectory an individual life can take, an exploration of the interplay between choice and ser...more

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Oct 16, 2012 Maureen E rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, historical

If you’re a Twitter friend, you may remember when I started Lifelode, because I got all excited over the fact that it’s basically China Court by Rumer Godden in a magical world. And since China Court is one of my heart books and Jo Walton perfectly caught the weird loveliness of her present tense everything happening at once style, I expected to adore this one.

And I liked it a lot. Like I said, Walton really caught the style perfectly, and the sense of both the home-liness and the turn of wider...more

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Mar 16, 2011 Nikki rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, welsh-writing, lgbt

I've loved everything I've read by Jo Walton, but it's so hard to rate them in relation to each other, because they're each so different. I enjoyed Lifelode more than Tooth and Claw, but perhaps less than Farthing -- yet I rated both four stars. I loved Among Others most of all her work so far, and I'm not sure Lifelode matches up... Maybe I should be rating all her work that I've read so far five stars, except Tooth and Claw.

Her range of work is fascinating. Her books are not like each other, a...more

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May 26, 2010 Margaret rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy-and-science-fiction, authors-vw

Applekirk is a small rural community, where time is strange; months may pass elsewhere while years pass in Applekirk. Here, people go about their business, in the farms and in the manor house, leading their lives as they're bid to by each one's own lifelode, that part of their self which tells them what their talent and work should be in life. Taveth is the quiet heart of the manor house, keeping it in order as she keeps its extended family in order, according to her lifelode. She also has a str...more

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Feb 12, 2011 Sarah Pi rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Sarah Pi by: BunWat

Shelves: speculative-fiction

I was a history major in college, and my favorite classes were always those that dealt with social history: how people lived, rather than wars and borders and treaties. This book seems as if it comes directly from those classes. It's a novel that inhabits a place and time fully, taking note of the disruptions that become what we commonly term history.

I loved the author's comprehensive and confident vision of her creation, from the culture to the religion to the food. I loved the domestic quality...more

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Apr 27, 2009 kvon rated it 5 of 5 stars

Jo is an amazing writer. Twice while reading this book I stopped and looked back to say 'Has that been there all along?' It's a domestic fantasy, similar to Chalice by McKinley, set in the border between magic and study. She has fun playing with time and space too; you need a bit of mental flexibility to read this story.

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Mar 04, 2013 Susan rated it 2 of 5 stars

The universe Jo Walton creates here is mildly interesting, but I never engaged with the characters. The use of only present tense, especially in a book with lots of flashbacks, seemed gimmicky and irritated me more the longer I read. I've heard so much about the author; this is the second book by Jo Walton I've read and I want to like her books, but have struck out thus far.

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Jan 14, 2011 Jeffrey rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, award-year-2009, baltimore-city-paper-top-10, read-in-2011

Jo Walton sets up a world in which thought, time, and magic are all geographically gradient and yet tells a small story right smack dab in the center of this universe in, of all places, a small rural community.

Starting with an unusual protagonist, a middle aged stay-at-home mother in a progressive family structure, Walton delves into the nature of family, motherhood, adulthood, and faith when an ancestor with a secret comes home for safety.

I don't want to dig too deeply into the plot, simply bec...more

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Sep 01, 2010 Sydney marked it as to-read

I haven't read this book but I wanted to ask a question about it because I do want to read it but is there a reason the cover is a piece from the cover of Elantris by Brandon Sanderson?

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Jul 24, 2011 Lesley added it

Very good - not perhaps quite reaching the standard Walton set for our expectations with the Small Change trilogy or Tooth and Claw, but a very original fantasy.

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May 01, 2012 Rob rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: genre-fiction, fantasy, read-in-2012

(8/10) Lifelode feels like a small story. Even as it attains epic trappings, with a town readying for battle, the central point of the story remains the domestic sphere and the strange but somehow recognizable family that inhabits it. Rare among fantasy authors, Walton not only gives you an idea of what daily life is like in her world, but seems to take this as her main concern. The result isn't really a knock-your-socks-off novel, but rather appropriately, a humble but solid piece of fantasy.

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Dec 25, 2011 Gretchen rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: reread, 2011

This is a book written like few others, but I didn't find the construction confusing at all, and it tells a satisfying story. It reminds me of Little, Big by John Crowley, another of my favorite books. It's very unique to see a domestic story, and all of the cooking made me hungry!

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Nov 09, 2012 Anthony Faber rated it 5 of 5 stars

An excellent book. Her other work has been marred by minor inplausibilities, but this one is really good and, as is usual with her, comes from an original viewpoint.

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Oct 20, 2011 Jonathan Crowe rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy

My review.

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May 24, 2013 Maggie K marked it as to-read

Shelves: wishlist

May 22, 2013 Elizabeth marked it as to-read

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