Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood, by Mick LaSalle. Thomas Dunne Books, 2000

The author is calling the five years between when talkies became the thing and the enforcement of the Production Code- 1929 to 1934. It’s a time that many don’t even know existed; they think that strong women who had sex, had out of wedlock babies, got divorced, didn’t exist until the late 60s. Two women in particular embodied the woman of the era (five years barely constitutes an era!): Greta Garbo and Norma Shearer. Now, everyone who has even a passing interest in film knows Garbo’s name, but many don’t have a clue who Shearer was. She was intensely driven and consistently strove to break barriers in film; she wore thin, close fitting costumes with no underwear, she had roles where she did the things women in real life were doing but weren’t considered ‘nice’. The fact that she was married to Irving Thalberg, boy-wonder producer at MGM helped; he gave her the green light for the movies she wanted to do.

Shearer and Garbo were the flag bearers, but they opened the way for many, many other female actors. The pre-Code era was the era of actresses: Mae West, Barbara Stanwyck, Dietrich, Loretta Young, Constance Bennett, Jean Harlow, and many more started their film careers during this era. The characters they portrayed were, as the title says, complicated women. They were women with choices, until the characters who were given the okay during Code years. During the decades of the Code, if a woman had sex outside of marriage she had to be punished- she died, got thrown in jail, lost her children, or found herself out on the streets. Women had to take whatever men dished out; they were martyrs to marriage and motherhood. If they had careers, they had to give them up or at least make them second to their duties as wives and mothers, and never have more success than their men did.

I found the book very interesting; I’ve been a fan of old movies ever since I was a kid. I knew vaguely about pre-Code movies, but didn’t realize how much was done during those five short years. The book gives both the history of the pre-Code years and the biographies of Garbo and Shearer- especially Shearer. She dominates the pages. And I can see why the author chose her as his icon of the era; while many thing of Mae West when they think about this era, her first movie wasn’t made until 1932. It was fun to read about this era but sad that the Code came into being; the movies weren’t just about sex but about women having their own lives and destinies rather than being appendages of men. They were about how women were really living their lives after the changes of the roaring 20s. They had careers, they didn’t put up with cheating husbands, they gave their opinions. The were complicated! Five stars.

Nettle and Bone, by T. Kingfisher. Tor, 2022

I found Kingfisher’s latest delightful. Written in the style of fairy tales, it is set in a fantasy world where magic of different sorts works. Our heroine, Marra, is the third child of the king and queen of a tiny realm that includes a deep water harbor, a valuable asset. The powerful kingdoms to their north and south both want to control the harbor, and the queen knows what must be done. The oldest daughter, the beautiful and sweet Damia, is wed to the northern prince, with the understanding that their oldest child would rule the north, while the second would rule the harbor kingdom. It’s no time before Damia dies, however, and the middle daughter, Kania, less beautiful and much less sweet, is carried off to be the prince’s next wife and broodmare. At 15, Marra is bundled off to a nunnery to live, hopefully safe and forgotten by the world. Here she lives for 15 years, shoveling animal stalls, working in the kitchen, delivering babies, and spending vast amounts of time learning needlework. Little news gets there, but finally there is a funeral to be held in the northern kingdom; the girl child of Kania and prince Vorling has died. Taken from the nunnery to attend, Marra finds that things are not well in her sister’s life. Not only is she nearly constantly pregnant and failing to produce a viable child, much less a prince, but Marra sees bruises on her sister, who admits they were put there- frequently- by Vorling. This, Marra decides, can not be allowed to go on. Here starts her quest for justice.

Since she is not a nun, but just living there, the abbess cannot stop Marra when she leaves. She seeks the help of a dust-wife, who is a powerful witch who can work with the dead. When Marra tells her what she wants- to free her sister by killing Vorling- she agrees that she will help IF Marra can accomplish three tasks: weave a cloak of owl cloth and nettles, create a living dog from a pit full of bones, and catch the moonlight in a jar. Marra manages the first two, and they are off on their quest. Along the way they gather helpers; a magical godmother, an ex-knight who is held slave in a goblin market, a hen possessed by a demon (but the best layer of the flock), a cursed chick who finds things, an inn keeper with a demonic parasite. The odds are against them, and they have no firm plan, but try they will….

The characters are wonderful. There is no Chosen One, and no one has a gods given Purpose. These are the people who are frequently over looked in stories. Their adventures are fantastical and, at times, absurd. There is a hint of Pratchett in this world, but with few puns and a much more believable set up. This book was a couldn’t- put-it-down one for me. The world is not a pretty, high fantasy one, but a world you could believe once existed on earth. Five shiny stars!

 

 Seasons of a Magical Life: A Pagan Path of Living, by H. Byron Ballard. Weiser Books, 2021

 

At first glance, this book is yet another ‘wheel of the year’ book for pagans. But it’s different from most; for one, the author adds in some celebrations. Surprisingly, she chose to name and time them to the Christian calendar, adding in Rogation days and Ember days. She also explains how the Christian calendar fits nicely with the pagan wheel of the year. This framework defines the rest of the book, going through the seasons. Rather than just talk about how to celebrate the holy/holidays, she talks about living your life in tune with the old ways. She tells it through tales of her own life, and it’s grounded in a country way of living. Gardening, putting food by, mending, weaving, cooking, bread baking, herbs; it’s all there. The instructions for these activities are very brief, but can work as a starting place to interest a person in finding out more about any of it. The stress is very much on connection with nature and the earth.

The writing is good in most places, but there were a couple of spots where it bogged down and I just skimmed. I’m old, so I’ve read some of this many times before. One thing that interested me was that she is aligned with old Appalachian folk magic, rather than following the Celtic path that so many wheel of the year books do. Good for someone new to earth centered spirituality, or looking for a slightly different slant on the subject. Four stars.

 

Paladin’s Grace, by T. Kingfisher. Argyll Productions, 2021

Severed heads – found minus bodies- are what’s on Paladin Stephen’s mind when he is accosted on the street by a fugitive woman, who demands they pretend to be having sex against the wall to throw off her pursuers. As he walks her home, he discovers she’s a perfumer, living in a poor part of town. She’s got secrets; she was sold as a child and then again as an adult, and she’s been criticized and gas-lit into having a horrible image of herself. Stephen is the follower of a berserker god, one who died unexpectedly, leaving his followers with no steering. They did what berserkers do when upset; they went berserk. In the end, only a handful were left. They now help the Rat god, a sect with healers and lawyers. Now they live with constant guilt, and horrible self images. In other words, Stephen and Grace are perfect for each other, if only they could believe that someone could love a person as lowly as themselves.

Meanwhile, there is a visiting potentate, a couple of assassination attempts, more severed heads, thieves, and a lot more, all set in a world of several churches with real live gods, talking quadrupeds (there is one on the police force), magic that works, and a lot more.

I found this world very appealing. It’s well built (it’s the setting for several other novels by the author), and I liked most of the characters. It’s basically a rom/com set in pre-industrial times. I loved Stephen and Grace, even though their lack of ability to just bloody talk to each other made me crazy at times. It’s also a mystery- well, two different mysteries, actually. I really enjoyed the story and the characters, although the ending has a bit of a deus ex machina feeling to part of it. I fully intend to read everything else set in this world!

 Gallant, by V.E. Schwab. Greenwillow Books, 2022

 

Fourteen year old orphan Olivia has never known a home other than Merilance, an orphanage. She is non-verbal, and is bullied and shunned. That’s all right with her; she prefers to be alone, anyway. Her only possession, other than the gray dresses the orphanage provides, is her mother’s old journal, a green notebook with a “G” on the cover. She’s got that book memorized, even though most of it makes no sense to her.

She’s about to age out of the orphanage and be sent somewhere to be a scullery maid or the like, when a letter arrives from her uncle, inviting her to come home to Gallant. And so, off she goes. She cannot remember ever having been off the premises of Merilance, so the trip by hired car is exciting. Her reception, however, is exciting in a less than good way: no one was expecting her, she has no living uncle, the estate is home to only three people-her cousin, the housekeeper, and the groundskeeper- and that cousin tells her to get out. Obviously, she does not heed this advice/order.

Olivia has always been able to see ghosts- she calls them ‘ghouls’- so the fact that the house is full of them doesn’t bother her. They are, though, quite a bit more solid seeming than the ones at Merilance. But that’s not the oddest thing about the place; at the foot of the garden, on the other side of a rock wall, stands another Gallant. It’s almost a mirror image, but the inhabitants are very different. Between both these Gallants, she may be able to figure out her family history; why she is an orphan; and why she is being told to flee.

I enjoyed the book; I stayed up one night with it. But, it’s not solid five star. The writing itself is exquisite, and it leads one on and on. But the plot is thin, and characters other than Olivia are pretty shallow, too. You’d think that, with so few characters, they would have a chance to be fleshed out. Sadly, no. Hannah and Edgar, the staff, are shadowy figures of goodness. Matthew, her cousin, is volatile and storms around and changes his mind rapidly and confusingly. (I’d have things to say about others, but it would be too spoiler-y.) So even though I loved the book on some levels, (and will look at what else the author has written) I can only assign it four stars.