Spear
Nicola Griffith
Publisher: Tor Genre: fantasy, literary fiction Year: 2022
Yesterday I finished Spear by Nicola Griffith and it reminded me of a few things. 1. I love linguistics 2. I love women. I love being a lesbian 3. When the words are put together pretty, my brains does the tingle This is a lesbian fantasy set in the time of King Arthur, but Griffith is clearly a historian and linguist. The fantastical elements blend seamlessly with the realities of peasant life to the point where it feels detailed enough to breathe a whole new life into a tired story. The main character, who spends a large portion of the book unnamed, is a girl who lives in the wild with her mother. Her mother is clearly losing herself, and switches between calling her Dawnged, the Old Welsh word for 'blessing,' and on good days or Tâl, the Old Welsh word for payment—or tax—on bad days. She sees the world in fascinating ways that weave so well into the plot, you don’t realize it might be supernatural until the middle of the book. It could just be the way the author writes… For such a short book, it meant so much to me. The main character is strong, lithe. She wants to serve the king. Many people mistake her for a man because women so seldom go adventuring and she does have broad shoulders and thick arms (swoon) but she is so comfortable with her femininity in her own way. She is a woman, and she recognizes all the different ways to be women. For such a short book, we follow her life as a child, to a teen trying to prove herself to the King's Companions, to a knight in her own right. The prose is absolutely scrumptious. It’s alive and distinct and unique. It has so many nods to linguistic hints like calling someone a "sister-son" instead of “nephew” because the word hadn’t been invented yet. The mysterious magic of the old gods is waning with the arrival of the Christ-priests who are proselytizing. It felt real and dreamy at the same time. I borrowed a copy from the library but I already added it to my Amazon wishlist because I NEED a copy for my own library I will absolutely be coming back to this one
storygraph | bookshop.org | local houston
★★★★★ sword wielding lesbian old welsh linguistic stars