Bookmarque and Marissa read MORTAL LOVE by Elizabeth Hand

My first book by Elizabeth Hand was A Haunting on the Hill just this last fall. I didn't much care for it but did like her writing, so I picked up Black Light and Waking the Moon in March and devoured them. Bookmarque suggested I try Mortal Love, and here we are. Has anyone else in the Pub read it, or would like to read it? Join in the discussion!

I'll post tomorrow about my impressions so far.

Yay, thanks for adding this. And yes, if anyone else wants to join in, feel free. This is copied from my thread although I am further into the book now -

Because I loved it on my first reading and Marissa has been doing a deep-dive into Elizabeth Hand’s work and I suggested we read it together, I’m 88 pages into Mortal Love. Which puts me in mind of that old song, 88 Lines about 44 women and this is almost as nutty. I remember it a bit, but it’s such a convoluted novel with so many threads and timelines, that it’s only impressions. So far we have several storylines that seem a bit too disconnected to make sense, but the threads are there and eventually will weave into a whole. More or less.



I have my notebook from the first time I read it and this time different things jumped out at me (blue glowing fingernails, the brachet appearances (also scars obliquely referenced a second time) and of course the acorns. The first time I didn’t write down anything about Nick’s bizarre behavior after specifically inviting Daniel to meet Larkin and then getting hostile and warning him off. To no avail, but why put them together in the first place? I think my feminist hackles are more easily raised than they first were and I was really insulted and incensed by the opening scenario where a woman is locked up in a mental hospital for being alluring and sexually open. She seems to have no say in the matter. Infuriating.

Anyway…I also noted how sad Val’s story was from start to finish. It seems like it hangs out in the middle of everything, but it bridges the past and the present quite well and I’m pretty sure the other threads will be attached like spokes on a wheel. All in all quite mysterious and satisfying. I like this so much better than a lot of her other books. My purchase date is some months after my first reading dates, so I must have gotten this from the library and then decided I needed a copy.

I'm not going to try to disguise information, but nothing here is a spoiler per se.

Now every time I dip into the book, I find it harder to leave. It’s so engrossing and the quality of the unknown and the unexpected just keeps you turning pages.

On p 105 we get the first major tie between characters and timelines when a young Dr. Learmont pops up in Radborn Comstock’s life. In this same vignette we’re brought back to the Folklore Society and what seem to be its beginnings. If you recall this is where Larkin brought Daniel with promises of unseen drawings that could be important to his book. I had to leave poor Radborn in the back of the cart in the middle of nowhere since dinner was ready, but I'll get back to it this morning. Such a bleak and hopeless scene on what promised to be a rescue from failure (and Mrs. Beale!!).

Oh and speaking of Larkin, is that name a nod to Michael McDowell’s Cold Moon Over Babylon?

She doesn’t say outright (at least not yet) that Lady Wilde is Oscar’s mother, but it’s broadly hinted.

Another dragonfly motif appears on p 134 and also possibly the coat from Val’s story. That coat seems to fit any and all wearers in any time.

The modern Learmont is interesting - a big pharma billionaire, but built on the backs of what?

>3 Bookmarque: I'm not quite as far as you--weekend guests and getting ready to go on a small vacation later this week have chopped up my reading time, plus (as you said) the multiple timelines and threads have made paying close attention difficult. I'm looking forward to having more reading time while we're gone. I'm currently with Larkin and Daniel having lunch in a louche (I love that word) restaurant and picked up on her waiting to eat until he takes a bite (and remembering Nick's warning)--shades of Persephone and Hades?

My copy is arriving tomorrow. But I know I won't keep up with the two of you. But looking forward to reading your comments!

Oh, good. Please join us, Jill!

While reading I realized it's a nice backdrop for a pendant/necklace I finished today -

>7 Bookmarque:
Nice placement.

>7 Bookmarque: Very nice!

I have managed to find all my Elizabeth Hand books - except this one. So I am rereading Black light instead.

Ok so my notes are all over the place and interwoven as much as the novel itself, with timelines and trajectories intersecting -

At some point Learmont is said to have not aged a bit in decades so is the modern Learmont the same man? Is that why he wants Radborne’s painting in the modern timeline? And of course Val has to deliver it to him in London, thus putting him in Daniel’s path as he careens off the tracks because of Larkin. Did I pick up on the fact that brother Simon also knows Nick in London? Either way, that’s the connection. The woman in that painting is the same one that appeared to him at Simon’s party (p 29) when he was a callow youth and found the old jacket which was new in another time frame in the novel.

More blue fingernail people and the ‘phossy jaw’ lady - ew, that’s pretty nasty. Same as the one that led Swinburn to Cobus for the hallucinatory Eve/vagina in the earth thing? Both products of his fevered brain?

Why did Learmont put the hospital in the middle of nowhere so it’s more difficult to do anything unless there is a less-than-legal/ethical aspect? Swinburn alludes as much to Radborne while also implying that R is Evienne’s next mouse. I kind of hope he is, since he’s such a casual misogynist, would serve him right.

Love the reference to Jack Torrance.

256 - Daniel’s awakening is horrifying and so visceral that you can see that he’s been consume as has about everything else in the boat, dried and left a husk.

283 - NOW the significance of Val using old notebooks, pens, ink and pigments - D must think that Radborne did all of it, not Val, his grandson.

And another beautiful cover -

And i'm finished. I need some time to collect my thoughts.

I finished it as well during our getaway to Jekyll Island, but I think I need to read it again because there are so many threads twining and weaving through this book. I enjoyed it, but not perhaps as much as Black Light.

I am two-thirds of the way through the novel (which I am really enjoying). There are just as many threads as you note, >12 Marissa_Doyle: What I am wondering about as I read is how (or whether) we think about the presence of Gothic elements in the 21st century. In some ways, the presentation of those elements in a story has had to shift in an age of jet planes, cell phones and a more general urban environment.

Additionally, to me at least, this isn't really about Tristan and Isolde (although I can see how one might make a case for that).

Quick follow-up to #13 above. Of course, the significance of Tristan and Isolde doesn't emerge until the final third of the book which I finished today. This is really quite a remarkable novel. And as both of you have said, one which requires a bit of time to properly digest.

I still want to think about the characteristics of the Gothic in the context of this style of fantasy (reminiscent of fantasy works by McKillip and Tolkien, certainly; maybe some of Charles Williams as well.)

Honestly, it really is unexpected and (at the risk of repeating myself) remarkable -- to the extent that I have to wonder why I don't remember it making a splash at publication. I mean, Michael Dirda did give it a big thumbs up in the Washington Post, but otherwise I don't remember a lot of buzz about this.

Ever since I first saw this thread, I've been interested in the painting used for the cover. The artist isn't named, although the cover designer and the source of the painting are (rude, that). After wasting some effort scanning around, I happened to look at Goodreads, where one of the reviews identified the artist as D G Rossetti. Obvious, you would think. The woman's face is from Rossetti's painting La Ghirlandata, currently held in the Guildhall Art Gallery in London.

I happened upon a story/podcast today about Wilkie Collins. In the article a professor from Dalhousie University is quoted as follows with regard to the difference between the Gothic novel and the Sensation novel.

"The Gothic novel is an older form that turns on a lot of mysteries and secrets and lies, on sexual secrets, on blackmail, on threats and dangers and sort of suspense. But the British Gothic novel is typically set in remote places and in distant times, hence the term Gothic.

"The difference with the sensation novel is that it takes a lot of those same parts, the same elements of mystery and suspense, of betrayal or mixed identities or blackmail or murder or adultery, and it moves them home to the here and now. Henry James, who was not himself a sensational novelist, said that they addressed the most mysterious of mysteries, the mysteries that are at our own doors."

Now Mortal Love manages to combine all of that into the story, but I honestly initially thought I'd characterize the book as being more of a Sensation novel. I keep bouncing back and forth. It is a Gothic novel as it touches on things like a sense of fear regarding moral decay, inexplicable sightings, etc. I wondered whether anyone else had ideas?

And yes, >15 haydninvienna:, the cover art is quite striking, particularly the little blue bird up there in the upper right.

Ok I've been back from Norway for a week and need to get Mortal Love back on the shelf instead of cluttering up the living room. My final thoughts based on notes taken while reading -

298 - Why drug and lead Radborne out into the moor? To what end? This was pretty senseless to me except for the additional confusion for the reader.

336 - Juda's revelation came as a bit of a surprise in the sense that she reveals so much. The blue nails were there of course, but her power/effect seems to be different than Larkin's. Just that J has self-control where L doesn't or are there gradations. Either way the whole watery world/worm hole was a bit out of left field. The thing with Val and L being ancient lovers or whatever was a nice romantic touch and I hope both can find some peace. D is left tortured and alone with a gaping need that will never be filled - that's pretty darn tragic, but in some ways he brought it on himself. His headlong dash onto the moor was a nice bit of mad action and finding them entwined on the ground like roots of a tree was another romantic image. And in a whirl of birds, they were gone.

An otherworldly story with some terrific language and imagery even if it does veer into purple at times.