Sunday, April 19, 2015

The Enchanted. Rating: Magnificent

"The lady hasn't lost it yet—the sound of freedom. When she laughs, you can hear the wind in the trees and the splash of water hitting pavement. You can sense the gentle caress of rain on your face and how laughter sounds in the open air, all the things those of us in this dungeon can never feel."


You may be able to guess, reader, that I don't love prison books as a rule. Not just because the concept of prison has a lot of immediate potential in my life (although this is a prominent deterrent) - also because they tend to be dully formulaic. Character enters prison, flashbacks to the trial, character encounters mean guards and prisoners with hearts of gold, we find out why prisoner is actually not guilty after all, etc. These books are a potent soporific.

Thus, I was skeptical about The Enchanted. The thing that drew me in was the cover - and who could resist that cover? Lovely. That cover is a coup. I decided, against my better instincts, to read it.

My instincts frequently steer me straight. Once, I had to rely on instinct alone to avoid being recruited by a group of assassins who were giving me shelter - and as you can tell by my frequent use of personal pronouns, I am not currently a member of the Silent Fist, so there is evidence that my instincts are not to be ignored. It is a rare occasion indeed on which ignoring my instincts is fruitful.

I am happy to report that this was one such occasion.


The Enchanted by the luminous Rene Dunfeld 


...is incredibly difficult to describe. It is a beautiful book about terrible things. It is a book about monsters and nightmares and the deepest, darkest parts of men; but it is written so gorgeously that I am breathless in my attempt to describe it. It was almost painful to read, like looking at a field of snow when the sun is shining - stunning, in every possible sense of the word.

This is a book of words as words are meant to be used. 

It is a book about the way that we break each other, and the way that we carry on. 

The setting is an almost fantastically dark prison - our narrator, who remains unnamed, is on death row awaiting execution. This is another reason that I tend to dread prison narratives, as the death penalty is so terribly fraught and authors have a hard time resisting the temptation to use their stories as platforms from which to decry or support the practice. I will assuage your fears, reader: this book does not touch that temptation.
The narrator tells us of those who are in the prison, those who run the prison, and those who pass through the prison. The guards, the warden; those who long for their punishments, and those who are punished in ways that no human deserves. The novel features an ensemble cast, but the standout characters are The Lady, who seeks exoneration for death row inmates (in this story, she is working on a particularly difficult case); and the Fallen Priest, who has fallen far indeed, and dares to hope for redemption. (A side note, reader. I hate the phrase "dare to hope". In most cases, hope is not daring; it is inevitable. It is reflexive. But in this case, the hope is truly daring, because it is incredibly dangerous to hope. So I am making an exception.) 


Now, for Spoilers.


Here is your spoiler: it happens exactly as you think it will.

Honestly, reader, there is not much to spoil. A spoiler would be telling you about the secrets at the end of the book, but they really are not there. Yes, there is an incredibly compelling and deeply developed plot, but it does not swing around on itself to show the reader how clever the author has been. There is not a sharp twist in which one comes to understand everything that has happened and will happen. The book explores, it invades, it shines. It is not here to answer your questions about what exactly the narrator did to end up in prison; it is not here to answer your questions about whether the Fallen Priest will ever be redeemed; and it is not here to help you determine the roots of The Lady and explore her emotional landscape. It is here to be what it is and not what you want it to be. 


The people who you think will be executed do indeed die. Human struggle and suffering is not resolved; it is instead extracted, lit well, laid on a bed of velvet and placed under glass for the reader to examine. 


The Enchanted explores escape - but not, reader, the kind of escape you imagine while sitting at work or lying in bed. The Enchanted explores the escape of which monsters dream.


Rating: Magnificent.

Possible ratings: Magnificent, Divine, Satisfactory, Tiresome, Lamentable, Execrable. This is a blog about words, did you expect stars?

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