a letter to the luminous deep (2024)
Aug. 12th, 2024 01:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
portico i picked upA Letter to the Luminous Deep by Sylvie Cathrall at my local bookshop, lured in by the twin promises of epistolary and scholars building an archive. it could have gone very, very wrong, but happily for me this book was everything it promised and more.
the book opens with a letter from E. Cidnosin, who lives in an underwater house, to classification scholar Henery Clel, about two elongated fish she saw from her bedroom window and could not find in his book on the subject. from this letter we learn that E. is the daughter of an accomplished architect who built her home--The Deep House--which is the only one of its kind. E. lives there alone, as both of her siblings have left to become scholars elsewhere. her voice is funny, self-depreciative, and curious. you can't help liking her.
the next letter is from E.'s sister Sophy to Henery's brother Vyerin about their siblings, both of whom, we learn, have died. a year has passed since they lost them, and both of them have been grief-stricken. however, sophy located a cache of letters as well as henery's day book in the ruins of The Deep House--also lost--and has come to vyerin with a proposition: what if between the two of them they reconstructed the last year of their siblings' lives through the letters they left behind? they construct an archive, sending each other their siblings' letters and sometimes other relevant correspondence or documents in the order in which they occurred. they also come to like one another quite a lot--deciding to meet at a market with both of their spouses and eventually foregoing the letter writing entirely in favor of finishing the archive in person at vyerin's house.
i liked so many things about this book--the epistolary aspect (done in such a way that the reader always knows where the letter originated from and why), the slow revelation about the universe in which these people live, the sweet and unique romance between e. and henery (two very sweet and unique people), as well as the romance between sophy and her wife, which developed during the period being reconstructed. the prose is wonderful, the world-building deft and interesting. every character stands out on the page. e. suffers from debilitating anxiety, and the way this was presented and talked about in a world which has a very different relationship to mental health than ours was interesting and i appreciated it.
i finished this book a few weeks ago but have struggled to write about it, because it's (ironically!) hard to classify. it's the softest of sci-fi, but still inventive and gripping. it's about a character with obsessive-compulsive disorder, but also not about that at all. it's a romance between two people, and two other people, and also four people (and two children). it's a murder mystery--or is it? anyway. i loved it. 5 out of 5.
the book opens with a letter from E. Cidnosin, who lives in an underwater house, to classification scholar Henery Clel, about two elongated fish she saw from her bedroom window and could not find in his book on the subject. from this letter we learn that E. is the daughter of an accomplished architect who built her home--The Deep House--which is the only one of its kind. E. lives there alone, as both of her siblings have left to become scholars elsewhere. her voice is funny, self-depreciative, and curious. you can't help liking her.
the next letter is from E.'s sister Sophy to Henery's brother Vyerin about their siblings, both of whom, we learn, have died. a year has passed since they lost them, and both of them have been grief-stricken. however, sophy located a cache of letters as well as henery's day book in the ruins of The Deep House--also lost--and has come to vyerin with a proposition: what if between the two of them they reconstructed the last year of their siblings' lives through the letters they left behind? they construct an archive, sending each other their siblings' letters and sometimes other relevant correspondence or documents in the order in which they occurred. they also come to like one another quite a lot--deciding to meet at a market with both of their spouses and eventually foregoing the letter writing entirely in favor of finishing the archive in person at vyerin's house.
i liked so many things about this book--the epistolary aspect (done in such a way that the reader always knows where the letter originated from and why), the slow revelation about the universe in which these people live, the sweet and unique romance between e. and henery (two very sweet and unique people), as well as the romance between sophy and her wife, which developed during the period being reconstructed. the prose is wonderful, the world-building deft and interesting. every character stands out on the page. e. suffers from debilitating anxiety, and the way this was presented and talked about in a world which has a very different relationship to mental health than ours was interesting and i appreciated it.
i finished this book a few weeks ago but have struggled to write about it, because it's (ironically!) hard to classify. it's the softest of sci-fi, but still inventive and gripping. it's about a character with obsessive-compulsive disorder, but also not about that at all. it's a romance between two people, and two other people, and also four people (and two children). it's a murder mystery--or is it? anyway. i loved it. 5 out of 5.
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Date: 2024-08-13 11:45 am (UTC)well this sounds fascinating; sample downloaded!
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Date: 2024-08-13 07:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-08-13 11:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-08-19 03:30 pm (UTC)