Running through death

Book of the week: Sarah Hall's Daughters of the North.



Daughters of the North is told from the perspective of a nameless 1st person narrator, who insists that her readers/torturers/interrogators refer to her as 'sister.' The story is set sometime in the non-too-distant future, when global warming, religious fundamentalism, and resource shortages have turned Britain into an despotic bureaucracy. 'Sister' begins the story in a small town in the North of Britain, with a breeding monitoring device in her vagina, and an increasingly loveless marriage. She seeks a female commune located in the nearby mountains. She finds the commune, has the device removed, and falls in love with one of the 'sisters.' Eventually she begins to train with the military branch of the commune in order to begin an assault on the ruling authorities of the country. The novel, as the paperback's cover is quick to point out, is reminiscent of novels by Margaret Atwood and Ursula Le Guin, two authors I rather enjoy.



This has to be one of the few novels I wish could be a little longer. Hall's narrative is fragmented, and intentionally so, but to the point where its themes feel underdeveloped. The novel has some interesting things to say, and, more importantly, some interesting questions to ask, especially for those of us who find that the current political environment in the U.S. (and perhaps Britain) isn't as conducive to civil liberties as we'd like. At the heart of the novel is a familiar question, asked in such a way as to be relevant for our times: at what point does a country's government cease to deserve its citizens' loyalty? Watching the John Adams mini-series has reminded me that the men and women who founded this country were profoundly aware of the complexities of this question. Like Thomas Jefferson, I think, Sarah Hall wants us to keep perpetually asking the question. The novel addressed gender politics as well, but I suspect that most readers will find that Le Guin and Atwood addressed these questions more robustly in The Left Hand of Darkness and The Handmaid's Tale.



For the runner, by the way, the novel had a lot of great descriptions of running, training, and hiking in the mountains. The novelist, I think, HAS to be a runner.



Run of the week: I did a little over 18 miles today (18.3 in 2:55:50), as I continued to prepare for a marathon in late May. I do a fair amount of my training on the local university campus. Rounding one of the lakes, I found a small group of people having what I think was a funeral at the edge of the lake. They seemed to be placing ashes into the lake, singing songs. It was slightly awkward at the time; I had to find a way to run through a funeral without drawing too much attention to myself (running around them would have involved drawing even more attention to myself) but they didn't seem to mind. As I continued to run, it hit me that this wasn't such a bad idea for a funeral. Possibly my mind has been poisoned by too much John Denver, but having my ashes scattered in a setting with a lake, trees, ducks, and the odd kid trying to feed the ducks, seems like a pretty peaceful way to go back to the dust whence I came.