Hild (The Hild Sequence, #1) in The Toast

Feb 20, 2014 Meghan rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, historical, england, lgbtq-author

4.75. Spectacular and stunning historical fiction about seventh-century Britain. The obvious comparison is to Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel - the story of how someone close to the king goes about influencing events and trying to not fall out of favor, in Wolf Hall Thomas Cromwell, here Saint Hilda, niece of the king. I could go on and on about what I liked about this, what makes it differ and seem more fantastic and magic than Wolf Hall: the whole book is so immersed in the natural world, with the 4.75. Spectacular and stunning historical fiction about seventh-century Britain. The obvious comparison is to Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel - the story of how someone close to the king goes about influencing events and trying to not fall out of favor, in Wolf Hall Thomas Cromwell, here Saint Hilda, niece of the king. I could go on and on about what I liked about this, what makes it differ and seem more fantastic and magic than Wolf Hall: the whole book is so immersed in the natural world, with the seasonal cycles of animals and plants and people. The whole book is so clear about all the different roles played by women, especially as weavers, spinners and 'peacemakers' - as in, able to be married off to build alliances. And Hild herself is such a singular character - cultivating an aura as a seer and witch, she observes ('quiet mouth, bright mind') and uses her observations to make proclamations and predictions which can influence the king. Like Wolf Hall, a lot depends on keeping the king happy.

Maybe one of the most awesome things about this book was the attention paid to the relationship between two women who become 'gaemacce'. In late childhood, two girls are officially paired off into what is to be a lifetime bond - they will weave together, learning the intricacies of working together, raise each other's children together, and spend their lives essentially as best friends. This is such a striking thing to spend time thinking about: Hild and her struggle to belong with another woman as gemacce is given a lot of importance. Near the end of the book, it's replaced by her struggle to fulfill her sexual needs, but before that she is much more concerned with figuring out who will fill this role of 'female life companion' than with possible husbands.

The language was so interesting in this book, and the details seemed so authentic. While I was sometimes confused by the places and politics and battles, the beauty of the developing Anglisch language, the natural world, the modern feel of Hild's thoughts and struggles made this a compelling book. It only is not a five-star review from me because I would occasionally find whole paragraphs where I wouldn't know what was going on - couldn't remember the character and place names described, which was disorienting. Minor alliances between different lords in different regions were hard to track. There is a helpful glossary in the back and map in front. ...more

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Dec 09, 2013 Adam rated it liked it

Shelves: fantasy, ecofiction, historical-fiction, environmental-history, ebook, urbana-library

Ugh, this one's tough. In theory, Hild is maybe my ideal fantasy book. It has a historical setting, with a very identifiable interpretation of history: materialistic, environmental, feminist, and skeptical. It focuses extensively on environmental details and weaves them into a magic system that is extremely subtle--and the late-Pagan British setting is maybe the one that feels most rich for that marriage of magic and nature. It's explicitly focused on underlying patterns of history--trade, marri Ugh, this one's tough. In theory, Hild is maybe my ideal fantasy book. It has a historical setting, with a very identifiable interpretation of history: materialistic, environmental, feminist, and skeptical. It focuses extensively on environmental details and weaves them into a magic system that is extremely subtle--and the late-Pagan British setting is maybe the one that feels most rich for that marriage of magic and nature. It's explicitly focused on underlying patterns of history--trade, marriage, ethnicity, climate, land management--rather than on battles, kings, and gods. It isn't swept up in a morally defined conflict, instead using its material underpinnings to create a Game of Thrones-style plot that feels like what I gather Crusader Kings 2 is like. The protagonist and most of the characters are women and the activities they participate in are generally the neglected but crucial female modes of production, particularly of cloth, which forms a uniting motif throughout. And it builds its world through narrow-perspective slice of life that frequently strays to acknowledge lower class perspectives.

It's basically a checklist of everything I want a fantasy book to do, matching practically every criteria I've mentioned in reviewing other books or writing about the genre in general lately. Not a ton of those traits was ever clear to me when I first heard about the book, so my expectations weren't even crazy going on. And before I start griping, I want to hedge the clear impression I'm giving that I didn't enjoy it; I did, and I'll talk about that in a bit, but I wanna complain first B|

I've been trying to put my finger on what makes Hild so rarely satisfying. It sometimes feels like it neglects Hild's perceptions or reactions to things, but the novel is literally 530 pages of her perspective reacting to events. It feels like the overall plot is somehow insufficiently explained, but everything is always described in abundant detail. Both of those hint at real issues. Hild's POV is full of things happening to her, things she notices, but lacks a rationalizing voice to unite those experiences into a story. At first I thought that the politics were confusing intentionally, because she was a child. But it soon became clear that Hild understood the politics in agonizing detail; in fact, that's her super power. She just didn't ever explain her reasoning to the read. I get the sense that one could do a careful read of Hild and reconstruct Griffith's notebooks, build out the web of economic, ethnic, and interpersonal conflict that spun the wheels whose turning we observe in the book. The details are all there. But damn there's a lot of them and it is a lot of work to keep track of all that (especially when every other character's name is both flummoxing to my poor modern-English brain and has at least one Ae or Ea, if not two).

The larger issue is that it isn't actually built from story elements. It's got action and dialogue, but they are ephemeral, tangential to the main narrative mode. It feels more like a diary. So the dozens of politically-relevant side characters are only ever name dropped, rather than introduced in scenes that provide memorable dialogue and characterization. And those not-scenes don't add up into arcs with build-up, tension, and payoff. Hild feels tense at times, but never from circumstances that effectively translate to the reader. Both the political plot and Hild's arc (where all the environmental details and pseudofantasy elements reside) are comprised of what feel like false starts, isolated and repetitive incidents that don't feel adequately connected to prior or later elements.

That's the big gripe. I left the book confused about most of the main events. I'd like to think I'm smart and don't need everything spelled out for me, but I guess this just crossed a line that required more work than I was willing to put in? And it's sort of missing the point; putting together those pieces is not obviously more rewarding than seeing an author bring them together using memorable scenes and imagery. I love and encourage this kind of slice of life approach in fantasy and related genres, but it feels like Griffith lost a baby with the bathwater here. She feels insistent on the relevance of the masculine plotting, even in its detail, like she can't let it go even though she's determined not to appear to care about it. :/

The are a bunch of smaller points that sort of fall out as a consequence of that bigger issue. None of the political game is satisfying. The environmental stuff doesn't add up to anything more than window dressing, and it doesn't link up to the magical stuff, which is all demystified immediately anyway and never presented with much awe or evocation. The transition to Christianity feels like an intentionally chosen historical moment, but the process has no weight in either the material sphere or Hild's personal experience; it often feels drawn forward by its own inevitability, which is precisely the opposite of what historical fiction should achieve.

Despite all that, Hild is consistent, compelling, and rich, somehow. The fact that Griffith pulled that off with such a casual neglect of practically everything that makes fiction entertaining is an achievement in its own right. All the research (and invention) into daily material culture and social structures pays off in a very satisfying moment-to-moment world. And while they aren't all that clearly related to the larger plot, the people close to Hild are well characterized and create interesting moments of power and self-reflection for her.

I also enjoyed her little indulgent personal development at the Menewood; to put it in perhaps crass terms, it felt like she was playing a round of Age of Empires (or maybe closer to Banished) inside a larger game of Crusader Kings or something. I've seen some requests lately for fantasy recs featuring protagonists experiencing power creep, and I find that baffling, but I'd be totally jazzed to see more characters engaging in that kind of material accumulation and social/environmental management in these books.

I'm curious to see how Hild is interpreted in conversations about neo-medievalism (there's a chapter on it in Helen Young's upcoming edited volume). It's very much a Grimdark fantasy in a few senses, though it downplays those aspects at times. It has the same disdain for heroic masculinity (though to the extent that it neglects it rather than problematizing it), and its violence is no less gory and cruel (though it happens only sparingly). Theoretically it's those aspects of emphasis and presentation that make Grimdark objectionable to some historians, though, so maybe it passes just by downplaying the same material. Curious to see. ...more

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Aug 17, 2014 Casey rated it it was amazing

Absolutely loved. Cannot wait for the sequel. Intricate, insightful, and so imaginative. I know so little about this historical moment, but Griffith evokes such rich textures and tense politics that I am eager to learn more.

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Nov 17, 2013 Alicia rated it really liked it

http://wordnerdy.blogspot.com/2013/11... ...more

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Dec 15, 2013 Crysta rated it really liked it

A great piece of historical fiction, opening up the complex and winding world of Middle Ages Britain. I found, at times, the storyline difficult to follow (who is who's half-son and who is fighting from where?) but I decided to relax, let it wash over me, so to say, and accept that it would make sense in the end. It did. (I would recommend for those for whom that wouldn't work to download/read the "dramatis personae" on Griffith's website which is not available in the print version of the book.) ...more

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