Something borrowed, something old, something not quite new.

books:


	• Waking the Moon Elizabeth Hand Eos, 1996 - 512 pages average customer review:based on 67 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Surprised I Liked It!

I really don't like "this type" of book. I never have - and I thought I never would. You see, I lost a bet. If I had won, my friend had to read David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest. I'll rig the next bet if I have to.

There's no need to go into the story line. Amazon's description and the other reviews have plenty on that. What caused me to enjoy the book was the characters. Each of them reminded me of someone I know (or knew).

There was a more intelligent slant in Hand's book than others of "this type" that I had tried before.

I even bought the sequel! (No lost bets required.)

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Rich, textured, depth, realism, emotion.

Despite a few clumsy transitions from description to action here and there, and despite an awkward timesharing between super-magical and super-real, this book is excellent. The characters are vivid, real enough to touch. The historical magic is handled intelligently and with a sense of high drama (if even well-done melodrama turns you off, beware). The book has style and strength. The prose is evocative, richly texturely, deeply involving. The topics range from practical love and human conflict to cultural issues spanning time and country. There's enough romance - of people, of place - to fill your head until you're breathless. I highly recommend it. Highly.

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Middle Ground?

Is there any middle ground with this book? The reviews here seem to stake out extreme positions, but is a more nuanced review possible?

Hand is a fine writer. The writing flows smoothly and easily. At times the pace slowed a bit leaving me reluctant to pick the book up at times, but these periods alternated with ones when I could not put it down. Hand uses the sense of smell well to mark characters and events. She was evocative in this use and it worked well. A few other hints were a bit more heavy handed, but not unbearably so.

Yet, when all is said and done, the book is frustrating. If the solution to overcoming Othiym is so simple, why not do it earlier? If the Benandanti have been protecting the world from Othiym's return for thousands of years, what were they doing the past 18 as Othiym returned? It seems as if they were only watching their own members get killed off. Sweeney, our heroine, goes wild her first semester, then after mid-semester trauma flat-lines into Plain Jane for the next 20 years.

The incongruities here make it difficult to take the story seriously. In the end, as good as the writing is, one leaves feeling empty and wondering why you pushed through nearly 500 pages of text for a bland outcome.

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Something borrowed, something old, something not quite new.

The title caught my eye--as it sure wasn't the *awful* cover art. I liked the switching of POVs--each of the principle characters had something to add to the story. I found the semi-spontaneous poetry outbreaks a bit off, but since so many of the quotes where from T.S. Elliot and Constantine Cavafy, at least they were *good* poems!

I *did* have my frustrations with the story, not the least of which was that you apparently have to be insane to be a priestess or avatar. I especially liked Sweeny and Oliver's view that neither the Benandanti or the followers of Othiym were 100% right--but this concept was not developed. (I also didn't like Sweeney's *name*...kept thinking of Sweeny Todd.)

Descriptions of certain items, like the lunala itself, were pretty vague. It was described as being similar to a torque, but worn like a pendant (huh?), yet was large enough to be used as a sacrificial weapon that could be held in two hands. And could someone explain how one *stomps* terra cotta tiles in bits witout slicing up one's feet? And how on earth did Sweeny know what to do to stop Angelica's rise to godhood much less have the physical strength to do it? (She's been working a *desk job*, and that doesn't exactly build up muscle.) Silver isn't steel, but it doesn't break easily, either.

I liked many of the characters, but several just *vanished* or were not explained. Francis Connelly, the protege of the Benadanti leader was never seen in the second half of the book. Granted, he was annoying, so I didn't miss him. Just who or what was Handsome Brown? Hasel was never developed, so his fate had no emotional impact on me.

In her author's notes, Ms. Hand lists some of her sources. Of the onces I recognized, Marjia Gimbultas and Charles Pellegrino, have either had their academic accuracy strongly questioned (to my knowledge, Pellegrino is an *engineer* who built robots), and even "The Golden Bough" is now considered a dubious source--and has been for a while.

That side, I loved the description of the Divine (now I want to see it!), and the behind-the-scenes stuff at the museum was wonderful.

A nice enough read, if "men bad, women good, women only be whole if they behave as badly as men" one-or-zero theme doesn't turn you off. If you're uncertain, try a second-hand copy.

This book seems designed for a sequal. I'm not sure I'd read it.

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Dark, mysterious, juicy...

I'll readily admit that Hand is darker and more Goth than my taste usually runs...but there is something in this story that resonated with me on a level I'm still - years and years later - trying to explain. Maybe it's the unlikely heroine, maybe it's the undercurrent of archetypal imagery, maybe it's the thread of history and myth woven deftly together with a prose that's somehow both rich and accessible...I don't know. I don't even know that I need or want to understand it...I just know that there is an elemental truth buried like a treasure in this novel, and I come back year after year, trying to uncover it.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Steeped in the explosive passion and seductive power of Anne Rice, this novel is an unforgettable tale of modern love and ancient ritual. Within the imposing towers ofWashington, D.C.'s University of the Archangels and St. John the Divine, a clandestine order prevails. The Benandanti has secretly manipulated every government, every church, every institution in the world since antiquity. But now the Moon Goddess has returned. And she wants her world back.

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