Gwyneth Jones (1) (1952–)

I've always struggled a bit with Gwyneth Jones' writing, but I've had Bold as Love on the shelf for years because people whose opinions I respect have called her work Significant. Part of my problem is probably that I've been guilty in the past of rushing her books; now, as a retired person, I don't have that excuse.

But to start with, I found the premise and characters in this novel not to my liking. I've always had something of a semi-detached relationship with the counterculture; and I suppose I identified as a Young Fogey back in the days when I was still young, although my knowledge of and contact with the counterculture was always sufficient for me to know about it, identify those places where I was in tune with it, and smile indulgently at everything else. That also meant that sometimes, I picked up on issues that others didn't immediately see, and my grasp of stuff sometimes confounded people who'd think things like "How does tweedy Robert know so much about lesbian symbiology?", which amused me. But hey, I've been to festivals and slept under canvas. My political alignment helps, too.

And yet, to begin with I was reading the novel and thinking "I don't identify with these characters." There's one character who looks and behaves like a walk-on nihilist grunge villain from Gotham. The novel, published around 2000, throws us into a near-future scenario that is now on a wholly divergent timeline. And Jones' idea of what Whitehall civil servants and politicians were like was perhaps ten years out of date in 2000; Tony Blair's "Cool Britannia" seems to have either passed her by or been treated as mere window-dressing, whereas that generation of politicians and officials were more in touch with the counterculture than people realise - even some of those supposedly in the loop, such as certain SpAds (special advisors), who put out an appeal for "weirdos and misfits" to join government whilst overlooking those already working away under their noses. Well, I've written about that before (https://robertday154.wordpress.com/2020/01/18/weirdos-and-misfits/), so enough said.

I was certainly contemplating not finishing the book if I didn't get any better vibes off it by the 50-60% point. But then some friends assured me that coming to terms with the characters was something of a slow burn; and sure enough, I found myself warming to the central triumvirate: Fiorinda, Ax Preston and Sage. Someone else pointed out that the book was subtitled A near future fantasy and had certain Arthurian themes; and that I could see, also. Perhaps i should have taken more notice of that, as fantasy isn't really my thing, especially if the writer is trying to combine it with a more ostensibly "realistic" setting at the outset.

There are also some other things I found problematical. There's a major thread in the book of rock musicians and child abuse. The attitude in Bold as Love seems to be "Everyone knew but no-one said." I'm sure that's true; it's what people said about Jimmy Saville (after the event). Sadly, that rather holes the argument about it being "fantasy" under the waterline, and some coming to this book now may want to reject it on those grounds. There is also some overt Islamophobia that goes directly unchallenged despite the question of Islam in Britain being addressed positively later on. The same goes for trans issues; Gwyneth Jones' treatment of themes which might resonate unfavourably with some readers twenty years later perhaps just goes to show how far we have come.

So: an important book from a major writer, to be sure; but some readers will have to work hard at it before they begin to get returns. There is an irreverent humour at play throughout the novel, and Jones knows her fantastic literature well enough to pepper the text with in-jokes. And the Gollancz hardcover is a lovely thing with an Anne Sudworth cover.… (més)

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3639413.html

I read the first part of this when it first came out in Interzone, way back in the day, and thought I had read the rest since, but this was mostly new to me. I generally enjoyed it, which is a relief because I bounced off a couple of other books by Gwyneth Jones that I tried in the meantime. I also suspect that I would not have enjoyed it as much when it first came out; the disintegration of the United Kingdom's structure of government doesn't seem either as improbable or as unwelcome as it did in 2001. The setting is a near-future England where Scotland and Wales have become independent and Ireland has reunited, and the counterculture takes over the government so that senior political figures are also playing in their own bands, and if anything a bit better known for the latter than the former. Our heroine, Fiorinda, undergoes a gruesome sexual initiation in the first section of the book and one of the plot strands is her personal quest to come to terms with it; other strands involve the machinations of various factions, some more believable than others. It's a really impressive vision of what a future England could look like, even if it's now twenty years old; slightly dystopian but also with a tinge of optimism.… (més)

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3423925.html

Russ is a fascinating writer, whose work I don't know as well as I would like, and this book goes in great detail (perhaps too much detail) in its recounting of the stories in each of her published (and some unpublished) work. But I don't get a sense of how she fitted into the broader sfnal picture - there is a discussion of the Khatru Symposium, but without really explaining where it came from and what happened after. Russ herself, as a personality, flits in and out of the narrative. I found it a bit frustrating.… (més)