Inanna

Such a promising idea. I love this recent trend, and want to see more of it, but am not sure where I stand on this one. It’s tagged as Adult, but its writing felt more like Young Readers: simple declarative sentences, dialog suitable for comic bubbles. A curious blend of characters, most of them flat and uninteresting. Most of them.

The story cycles between three first-person narrators whose stories periodically intertwine. Gilgamesh, no surprise, is the dullest. Inanna, surprisingly (because, like, title character??), comes a close second: she shows little initiative, mostly letting herself be carried by events. It’s the third narrator, Ninshubar, who made me keep reading: original and intriguing, perhaps because Wilson wasn’t constrained by the original Epic? Her chapters, and those from other narrators in which she was present, made the book worthwhile.

Want to give three and a half stars, can’t justify four so am rounding down. Please don’t interpret that as a “don’t bother!” With the right frame of mind and expectations, I would’ve enjoyed this much more and believe that you might too.

The audiobook narration of this is outstanding. I find the sounds of the names going round in my head: Enkidu, Ereshkigal… the narrator really adds a lot to this story.

I’ve read some reviews that say multiple

first-person POV narrators is a terrible idea. I say pfooey to that. Although I did go back and read through the Ninshubar chapters again when I’d got about half-way because I’d got a bit mixed up. That helped.

It’s a fast-paced book and I could easily go back and read it again now. But, instead I’m going to get Snow Crash off the shelf and read the librarian’s infodumps about Enki. That book led me to this one.

I’ll probably go straight into Gilgamesh. Inanna ends on a note with some strong forward motion—not quite a cliffhanger, but it certainly makes me want to continue.