Hild

Not giving this a star rating because I only read as much as I could to figure out that I didn't want to read it and why. I don't know if I just can't read historical novels about historical periods that I know a lot about and study in my spare time, or if this book is just written in a way that puts me off. The prose is really really REALLY lifeless and boring. For my own study purposes, I'm trying to figure out what makes the prose so uninspiring: it's not the content. Although little happens in the first few pages that I tried, it could have been written about in a way that was more interesting. It's not that the sentences don't have active verbs, because they do. I tend to think it's the word choices, wherein the author uses words that are totally unfamiliar to the reader (although not to me, who reads Old English daily) in ways that are not easy to guess from context. Authors often do this with characters who are from a different, non-English-speaking culture, for example a book about Germans during WWII (i.e. [b:The Keep 62571 The Keep (Adversary Cycle, #1) F. Paul Wilson https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386925088l/62571.SY75.jpg 3354329]), wherein the author uses German exclamations or expressions to express a particular emotion that won't come across in English. Griffith tries to do this with Old English, but the words she chooses are so unfamiliar and so out of place, it's just weird. Think of it: no one would do this with Ancient Greek or Phoenician. Griffith's attempt comes off as just trying to create a particular atmosphere those words don't actually lend to the text. I skipped ahead to find some sex or fighting, and although I did, it was really weird and lifeless, the sex scenes just someone doing things to the POV character, as a favor after a long day. The author tells the reader that Hild enjoys having these things done to her, but she seems to react like a block of wood. I don't know why an author would want to have a formative experience like that basically a form of coercion and meaningless, momentary pleasure instead of bonding in a meaningful and intimate way with another person (and it's all totally fictional, so she could have chosen anyone and any situation she wanted). She could have been describing a character masturbating except for the phrase “it felt different from when she did it herself.” I didn't read the whole book, so I admit I can't really see how this scene fits into the wider context, but it looks shoehorned-in, as if the author wanted to assure us that Hild is queer, or just needed to have a sex scene in there for some reason. To the first point, the character in that scene could have been as straight as a ruler: it's not a scene of intimacy or emotional connection, and if it's meant as a characteristically lesbian scene it's not a particularly good representation of lesbians as people with feelings. To the second, there's no requirement that there be sex scenes in books, especially those about young teenagers. If Hild at this age is meant to have a particular sexual orientation, there are plenty of other ways of expressing it.It also may have been meant as an exposition of the character's view of the world, as in Hild becomes a nun because she has a deeper spiritual experience of the world and doesn't relate to people especially well, but then the question is why would I want to read a book about a person who can't relate to people in a meaningful and emotional way? Why would I want to read a boring book about a boring person? (the actual Abbess Hild was not a boring person from the little we know about her)I'm left with the impression that this book is sort of in the Mists of Avalon/Belgariad mode wherein the author is trying to create a particular mood or atmosphere about a bygone era instead of telling a compelling story. This book is for people who romanticise the interface between Celtic/post-Roman Britain and the coming of English to the isles. shrug I think Modern English speakers are just going to have a very hard time relating to the Early Anglo-Saxon period and any attempt to make it relatable is either going to substitute in a modern-ish romance or impose the current “motorcycle gang” motif onto a time it doesn't really belong in (a la Vikings). Or in this case portray a famous nun as a person without feelings. People just don't (often) understand the values of the people in this era, and since we have so few written records, it's hard for authors who want to set a story in this period to both set the mood and find a compelling story.

The author's note raised this book from a 3 to a 4 for me. Ha!

But srs. This is a long, looong historical novel set in the darkest of dark ages: 7th century British Isles, during the period when they went from Anglo-Saxon (aka Viking/Nordic/pagan/Germanic) to Christian (aka when the Romans came back and won - again!). I know nothing - and I mean NADA - about this place in this period in history, so this was basically like reading science fiction. Which I am good at! And enjoy! But yes. I listened to this on an audiobook (so pure - so connected to this illiterate kingdom), and so all the names and places in this review are being phonetically transcribed. Maybe if I had seen it on the page, I would have understood a bit more who X and Y were and how they connect to the present-day England/Wales/Cornwall/Scotland/Ireland. I recognized East Anglia!

Anyway, we follow Hild, the second daughter of a crafty, widowed lady in the court of the ...Northumbrian (???)... king, Edwin. Hild's mom - Brgeswith? - is super crafty, and imbues in Hild (a) a messiah complex (“you are the light of the world! I had prophetic dreams about you while pregnant!”), and (b) a super realpolitik brain. Indeed, Hild grows up canny and observant AS HELL. She becomes a “seer” in Edwin's court - and we know from history/wikipedia that she'll eventually become a nun and Catholic saint. But the spirituality in this book - from the prophetic dreams to the Wodin (Odin?) worshipping to the Jesus stuff - is totally stripped of any otherwordliness. Hild doesn't believe any of it, neither does (it seems) anyone else, not really. It's all a giant political game of endless 3d chess.

So this book quenched my specific thirst for deep, deeeep cut historical fiction. Oh boy, did it. But I didn't love it, mostly because I found Hild - in her various incarnations of precocious toddler, kid, teenager - an unpleasant heroine. I just found her humorless, self-important, self-pitying and a martyr. She reminded me of Harry Potter in the later books, when all his dialogue is in ALL CAPS. I much preferred her ...yamache (?)/bosom buddy/female life partner (?), Begu (?), as well as her house slave, Uladus (?). But hey - that's just me. YMMV. And there are some lovely, epic scenes and moments peppered throughout.

I have Feels about this book.It's historical fiction, which generally means a lot of “Look, Ma, I did the research!” and that is definitely going on here, but I never felt it was dumped on me. Hild (the character) is written in such a way that the information a reader needs to know (or, more often, the writer wants to impart) feels like a natural part of her- with a HUGE caveat: Four-year-olds, and seven-year-olds, do not have the maturity Hild displays at these stages of the story. Maybe when she approaches teenage years, given her position in the royal family and the role created for her, the insight and maturity she is given is a bit more believable. Until the story got there, however, I was firmly rolling my eyes but willing to press on a bit more until that rocky start resolved itself.It's a character-driven story, to the point where nothing happens for extremely long stretches, in an already long book. Which is fine for real life, tedious for a pleasurable read. By half-way I was extremely ready for the book to be over. But the reasons the book is slow are also it's greatest strengths for this medieval historian reader. If you're interested in fifth-century daily life, noble life, political struggles and scheming and the machinations of the court, the loud and noisy manoeuvring of men and the quiet and subtle manoeuvring of women, marriage alliances and childbirth and weaving and healing and the conflict of Ionian and Roman Christianity with each other and with the ‘pagan' gods already established, this novel is full. It's historical fiction in the purest sense - Griffith has taken the highlights of a historical figure whose life we know nothing about, and reverse engineered them into a story of her childhood and how she developed those talents. The only ‘solid' information extant about Hild the Saint is the hagiography helpfully provided by Bede ([b:Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum 18935708 Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum Bede https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1385328180s/18935708.jpg 26943388]) in his documentation of the Christian conversion of the Anglo-Saxons. Griffith is explicit that she made up this story, but I worry that readers will miss that part. An improbable-but-not-impossible role is carved for Hild that makes her a woman of agency in the world of men, but it is her mother's role that is far more usual for a noble woman politicking in the court, and the role of her sister more usual still.

That's it! I admit defeat! I never thought I'd abandon a book with this subject matter, but there is a distinctive line between a well-researched historical novel and one that is full of words without meaning, less-than- zero action, flat characters and dialogues that repeat the same things over and over again. I've been struggling with this for about a month, each time I attempted to continue with my reading I felt as if I was preparing to climb Mount Everest. At least, that would have been rewarding...This doesn't even deserve a star...

So, as Private Reiben said...http://www.getyarn.io/yarn-clip/e851e646-a1e8-44dd-a2d7-6498cbf4ccf5/gif

Parts of this novel were really lush and gorgeous–especially the parts with Hild noticing the natural world around her. But like many readers, I had a very hard time keeping people and places straight, even with the map and glossary and family tree. I feel like there's a lot of subplot that I totally missed, primarily, whatever Breguswith was plotting the whole time. And the ending came out of left field. Why on earth did the author feel the need to create this character in the first place, and then make him Hild's half brother on top of it if she was just going to have them wed? Is there some political or historical significance to this that I'm missing?

So “Hild” is basically fan fiction about a Christian saint.

Although the plot is completely made up, the book is heavy on facts of life in seventh century, which is what makes it so impressive.

I loved the fact that the plot is driven by so many powerful and resourceful women.

I really wanted to give it 4 starts but there's a major plot hole that was very annoying—at some point the main character is told this great secret thing in a very thinly veiled way, which she then discusses with at least two people in a very thinly veiled way again, but later on in the plot she starts acting like she didn't know this secret thing and there's a part where she suddenly “realises” what the secret thing actually is. For a character who's supposed to be highly observant and intelligent, this is just completely unconvincing. Where were the editors?