The Carhullan Army by Sarah Hall (March 2020)

[Nick]

Welcome to our monthly book discussion. This month we are reading The Carhullan Army by Sarah Hall because it won the 2007 Tiptree Award (now known as the Otherwise Award).



Like most Tiptree winners, I'd never heard of this book, and I've got almost no idea what it's about. It's going to be a complete surprise to me, which is always fun.

Please share your opinions, and watch out for spoilers!

[Jon]

I picked up a used copy for next to nothing as neither of my libraries had access to it. I have a couple of other books to get through first but hopefully I'll pick this up by the end of the week.

[Nick]

Glad you have access to it. I must confess, I picked it because it's one of the few Tiptree novels that my library does actually have.

[Nick]

Page 1 is giving me very strong 'Handmaid's Tale' vibes: a nameless female narrator, in some kind eco-post-apocalypse dystopia, with a somewhat literary prose style.

[Nick]

File 1: so far it's a pretty standard post-apocalypse. There's an oppressive authoritarian government, there's a shortage of everything, people are sick and overworked. There's some kind of religion? But we don't really know anything about it. There's some kind of war over oil, but we don't really know anything about it.

Sister, the heroine, and her husband were standard student left-wing rebels in their youth - so it's kind of surprising to me that she's so vague about what's happening. You'd think a politically engaged, bitter rebel would have more to say about exactly why it's all gone to shit!

Anyway, it's nothing spectacular, but it's holding my attention. This is a slow set-up, but I'm hoping it will get more interesting when we finally arrive at Carhullan.

[Nick]

File 2: The Authority sounds vaguely communist to me? They've let farming go to hell, meanwhile people are wasting their time building industrial parts that no-one's using just because of some central plan.

Our heroine arrives and Carhullan and, oh boy, if you were expecting some peace and love, gentle and nurturing, women in the hills you are in for a big surprise here!

[Jon]

Picked this up tonight and read 100 pages in about 90 minutes. Nice because it's only a little over 200 pages so I'll be done quickly. Unfortunately this is not my favorite type of fiction. Dystopian fiction is very hit or miss with me, usually miss. The story so far is so bleak and while the last 10 pages or so were a little better I just don't see this ending on a happy or upbeat note.

I'm not sure about the world building. It's stated several times that the country is poor from supporting it's army which is posted overseas. If the military is large enough to bankrupt the country you would expect to run across veterans, recruits, recruiters, press gangs, something, but there's nothing. It's like her city sits in the middle of nowhere not connected to anything. I understand that the story is not about that (so far anyway) but it seems a bit off. These wars/conflicts have been going on for years but everyone in town just seems to work at two factories, one making petrochemicals and the other making turbines that get stacked up and never used. Nick I think your comment about the government goes along with this. The world is just very thinly explained if at all.

[Nick]

Jon wrote: " The world is just very thinly explained if at all."

Yes, it's very frustrating. I want to try to read it like Handmaid's Tale and ignore the shakey world-building because it's the people and relationships that matter.

But the story is getting into some serious revolutionary plot - and you can't have an interesting revolution if you haven't clearly explained what you're revolting against!

[Nick]

Jon wrote: "It's like her city sits in the middle of nowhere not connected to anything."

To be fair, I think the city is based on Penrith in Cumbria - which is, in fact, the arse end of nowhere and very poorly connected to the rest of the country!

[Jon]

Not much to say about this one other than it didn't work for me. I'm fine with the main story line although I didn't think it was anything special. Maybe it was in 2007? My biggest problem was the lack of world building which made me question the motivations/lack of with everyone else in the country. Are there no other rebellions? No one but this small group of women says enough is enough? The military is happy to come home and slaughter civilians? The King is dead, long live the . . . wait, no more kings. Huh? It's like the edges of the story didn't fit together and since they didn't fit the message of the main story just fell flat. Either cut away all of the cultural references so the reader has to imagine what the society might be like or describe the society in a way where everything kind of fits together even if it's a bit of a stretch. Instead there was just enough here where I kept thinking 'Wait, that doesn't make sense to me'.

Nick wrote: "To be fair, I think the city is based on Penrith in Cumbria"

There were a bunch of nouns in this that I didn't know the meaning of. Plants, animals, geographical features etc. For example - The beds were made, many with matching khaki blankets - army surplus I guessed - or carthens, and the floors looked swept.

What's a carthen?

[Nick]

Jon wrote: "What's a carthen?"

A sheet, basically, or anything that's sheet-like: blankets, sails, etc. Cumbria has a pretty distinct dialect because they spoke variations of old Brittonic languages for ages - lots in common with Welsh, I think.

Jon wrote: "Instead there was just enough here where I kept thinking 'Wait, that doesn't make sense to me'"

Same, in fact, the more I thought about it the less sense it made to me. I agree that there ought to be a lot more other rebellious groups. And when they went to visit the men, that really got me thinking: there ought to be a lot more families up here. The forced contraception would surely be driving out any couple that wanted a family.
And if the whole country, for inexplicable reasons, has given up farming in favour of imported tinned food, then shouldn't these men be able to claim any abandoned farm and set themselves up happily. Why is Carhullan the only viable piece of agricultural land? Why are they hanging around starving on the edge of Jackie's fiefdom.

I think I'm mostly annoyed at the way the story undercut it's own 'strong independent women' theme. By then end, I thought all of them were idiots for the way they let Jackie ride roughshod over them.