Fine Walton, if not quite My Real Children, Among Others, The Just City, or Farthing. Its an inversion on the character in a book who escapes or wants to escape into the real world. Here, a character -- or more accurately, the stem cell of many characters -- wants to bring the author into her fictional world. The author shares enough properties with Walton -- living in Montreal, writing SF and other experiments -- to feel real but differs enough to not feel like an autobiographical sketch. There's tale within the tale, a sequel of sorts to Twelfth Night (whose subtitle is "Or what you will") and The Tempest. But much of the book is an opportunity for Walton to ramble on about her love of Florence, especially the food, art, and architecture. In this, it is a classic novel, a la the Hunchback of Notre Dame, feeling free to discourse on whatever the author likes.

Recommended, but more for Walton fans. Read one or more of the books listed above first. ( )

Advance copy provided by NetGalley.

This has got to be the strangest, most original thing I’ve read so far this year, and I loved it. It’s kind of a mash-up of Twelfth Night and The Tempest, with some art history thrown in, all set in Florence, real and imagined, in different centuries. My unfamiliarity with most of that list did not detract from my enjoyment of the novel, but I did come out of it hoping to read and see The Tempest performed some day. I wouldn’t turn down a future trip to Italy either while we’re at it. The author’s love for Florence practically sings from the page.
There was a lot going on here, many layers to the story. I was constantly being startled into switching gears to follow what was happening, but the writing was so good that it was less being startled than being pleasantly surprised as the author pulled me along the thought processes of the characters—one, a fantasy author, and one, her creation. The narration is done mostly by the latter, who is the essence of many of the author Sylvia’s characters. He is self-aware, and his wish to exist outside of the “bone cave” of Sylvia’s mind drives the narrative, which drifts back and forth between past and present, fantasy and reality.
It was beautifully done, and I can’t wait to start making people read it when it comes out this summer. ( )

The narrator annoyed me mightily to begin with, with his peripatetic way of getting to the damn story already. I stuck with it because I almost always find Jo's books to be well worth any adjustment in expectations necessary (with the possible exception of Tooth and Claw, and it's not really her fault she was writing a pastiche of an author I bounce off anyway). Like Dorothy Heydt's The Interior Life I enjoyed the "fantasy" world more than the "real" world, but perhaps like that book the "real" world would grow on me too upon rereading. It's discomfittingly autobiographical: I don't know how much, but abusively toxic mothers abound in Jo's books like evil manipulative parent figures (in the absence of actual parents) in Dianna Wynne Jones'; Jo likewise fell in love with Florence and, well, is an acclaimed fantasy author.

Anyway. The Shakespearean spin on the fantasy-Florence setting is delightful, and once the two worlds begin to interact more clearly / the "real" world plot starts becoming evident I began to accustom myself to the narrator. Mashups are a thing I like greatly after all.

The repeated evocations of the story of Isaac made me expect (Chekhov's gun -style) some kind of sacrifice to be more key to the story's denouement but I guess it was more of a thematic issue referring to various aspects of the story's history(/ies)? It feels like a loose thread but maybe again a reread would clear it up. ( )

DNF ( )

A strange book, once again very different from any of her previous ones I've read. As always, it was beautifully written, but at first decidedly harder for me to get into than Lent (which I adored). Walton clearly loves Florence and the Renaissance, and has me curious about both of them. ( )

I should really stop reading Jo Walton. Every time I read one of her books, I am enchanted by the good ideas and frustrated by the disappointing execution.

This book is narrated by a character you could call a muse, or an imaginary friend, or a schizophrenic hallucination. The narrator lives inside the head of Sylvia, an aging writer, and he becomes the characters in her books. Writing her books is a collaborative process between the author and this muse. The nature of his existence is strange - she does not think of him as something he created, but as another person. He intervenes at crucial points in her life, and (to the extent that his narration can be taken as reliable) there are times when Sylvia and other people can see him.

Sylvia is dying, and she is writing one last book before her death. The narrator does not want to die, and he does not want Sylvia to die, so he is trying to get her to write herself into her fantasy world so that the two of them can live forever there.

"Or What You Will" moves back and forth between the fantasy world that Sylvia is writing, and the narrator's account of her days wandering Florence while she writes, and flashbacks about his role in her life.

The fantasy novel is bizarre and completely incohesive. It is set in an alternate Florence, where Pico della Mirandola (a real historical person) discovered a way to pause time in the Renaissance and conquer death, so people only die if they want to. In addition to some historical people, there are also a lot of characters from Shakespeare's Tempest and Twelfth Night, for no apparent reason, and some people from Victorian England who get transported into the world. I had a lot of problems with this world. For one thing, the characters discuss the fact that progress cannot happen. So there are a bunch of intellectual magicians who have lived for 500 years and made no progress? That sounds like a very boring existence. It's a very rosy version of the Renaissance that completely ignores the prevalence of disease and how difficult things were for people who weren't very rich. The use of Shakespearean characters feels lazy - they're just there to have some familiar names. Caliban shows up early on, in a scene that sets off a lot of the action of the novel, and yet we never see him again, despite the fact that he promises to return in a few days. That's an entire storyline that just gets dropped.

Sylvia's story is more coherent (content warning: the book has detailed descriptions of her relationship with an abusive husband), but I'm not sure what the point of it is, other than how art can be a solace to the artist. ( )

Our narrator, an idea inside a writer's head, tells us about his writer, Sylvia, who is visiting Florence and working on a new book. He has an idea to give them both immortality, and it's going to take all of their ingenuity to make it happen.

This very meta work reminded me of If On a Winter's Night a Traveler at first, but it's wholly original and a little more in the fantasy genre, which I say more because of Sylvia's writing (her story is part of this story too) than anything that happens in the main narrative. I was kept guessing for much of the story, was compelled to read the last 100 pages or so all in one sitting, and had a smile on my face in the end. ( )

Every Jo Walton book I've read has been a little esoteric, experimental in some way, and never the same way twice. This book wasn't much like anything else of hers I've read, although the muse character had echoes in her other books, of course, and her love of Italy is a thread in many. I loved the tongue-in-cheek references to her other novels, and their joke titles. Maybe it's an acquired taste, but I like how she always keeps you guessing what she's going to try next. ( )

“He has been too many things to count. He has been a dragon with a boy on his back. He has been a scholar, a warrior, a lover, and a thief. He has been dream and dreamer. He has been a god.”

“Writers are not nice people. We can't be.”

“Of course, all books are easier to read that to describe. This is true even when you’re a character in them, when that’s been your whole life, when you began as the author’s imaginary friend and wound up as narrator, protagonist, and bit part player in her over thirty novels. But I don’t know why we’re talking about you. This is a book about me."

I think this last quote sums up this wonderfully inventive novel. How a lonely girl's imaginary childhood friend, returns in her adulthood, rescuing her again, by becoming a key force in the novels that she is writing. She is now a 73 year old acclaimed author and is about to finally do away with her constant companion, but of course, “He” has different ideas. Walton's latest is another marvel of crafty intelligence and a paen to her love of literature. ( )

What a wonderfully impossible book to review in any traditional sense! I received an advance copy from the author, a very kind gesture, and I'm looking forward to talking this book up to library patrons and reader friends alike when it launches in July. Whenever a new Walton book appears I have to reconfigure my favorites settings, as it were; where does the new one fit into the grand scheme of her catalogue, and how deeply do I feel it was written just for me? In this case, Or What You Will feels like a love letter: to Florence and its art and most especially its food, to the notion of many lives lived in one lifetime, to some of the less obvious corners of the fantasy canon, to Shakespeare (and my favorite of his plays, The Tempest), to unusual families and unorthodox friendships, and most of all to readers. ( )

So yeah, as soon as I heard this book was coming, I knew I was going to love it. I mean, a writer protagonist? Shakespeare and the Renaissance? Characters who interact with their author? And I’ve read enough Walton to know that she’s impressively inventive, never tells the expected story, and at the top of her game, is exquisite. What I wasn’t expecting was for this book to be so intricate and powerful, or to actually be giving a 10/10 rating for once.

There’s nothing about this I didn’t love. The characters are wonderful, especially the two mains, and every person and relationship in the book feels real, even the ones in the deeply metafictional bits. The descriptions are sparse but gorgeous. The humour is perfectly measured and very relatable. The novel-in-the-novel is exactly the sort of book Sylvia would write, right down to the rocky parts. The themes, the question’s Walton’s asking, the undercurrents of the novel are … powerful, multifaceted, and more tied into the surface of the book than I might have ever seen.

Reading this was absolutely an experience. The structure! The ideas! The feels! It’s Walton setting the bar, pushing the envelope, upping her game, any of those sorts of metaphors, and one of those books that resets what a novel can be and forces me to ask, “How did she do that?”

Is it going to hit this hard for everyone reading it? I doubt it, as pretty much everything in it was tailored to my tastes. It’s a complicated book, in terms of structure and message, and Walton isn’t pandering to her readers so drops in-jokes and references that not everyone is going to get. (I didn’t.) It’s also one of those novels where nothing’s out of place and where the themes and story almost seem to spark off each other. In other words, it’s a book you need to pay attention to, but will absolutely reward you if you do.

This was an easy 9.5 for me, but I’m upping the rating because, again, how did Walton do that? I didn’t think a book like this was possible.

To bear in mind: protagonist is an abuse survivor, is a widow, is fighting cancer
10/10 ( )

Oh wow. This is probably not Jo Walton's best book, but it is the book that most speaks to me, though I am no more a Shakespeare scholar than I am a classicist, still when, on the last page, the two names were spoken, they were the names that I had given. And in many ways this is the closest book to reading Le Guin that isn't Le Guin.
It is fanciful and real, and though the author says it is meditations on Renaissances and death and subcreation it is also very much about making and remaking self and the plurality of self. Also, she states, so much better than I can:
"There is a pernicious lie in Western culture that Sylvia has tried to combat in her books for years, and it is this: a child who is not loved is damaged beyond repair. Relatedly, anyone who has been abused can never recover. These lies are additional abuse heaped on those who have already suffered. Being told that the worst thing in the world has happened to you and you cannot recover can be a self-fulfilling prophecy." ( )

Sylvia Harrison is a bestselling author nearing the end of her life. After her husband’s death, she travels to Firenze, Italy to write her final novel. Traveling with her is our unnamed narrator, a being who has been Sylvia’s companion for countless years. He fears her death, but knows of a way for them to live forever. He just has to convince her to do it.

As a writer who has had countless discussions with the people in her head, I was immediately drawn to this book. I was also intrigued because it involved possibly entering one’s own made up world. Having created many, I have spent years wondering what it would be like to do so. I thought this book would be fascinating and provide much food for thought on all this. Indeed it kept me thoughtful, but also left me wanting.

The Plot: A Book of Two Stories
This is really two very different, very intertwined stories. One involves the life of Sylvia Harrison as told by the unnamed Narrator as well as the Narrator’s own story. The other is Sylvia’s final novel. It was fascinating to read, woven into the Illyria novel Sylvia is writing, the Narrator’s comments and tangents as well as the conversations he and Sylvia had.

The Illyria story is a follow-up to a trilogy of books the reader is not privy to as they were written early in Sylvia’s career. It was based on Twelfth Night by Shakespeare, but no prior knowledge of the play was necessary. I certainly didn’t have any problems keeping up with it, but I suppose it might have had more meaning if I had been familiar with it. At first, I thought it was utterly fascinating and I couldn’t wait to get to know the characters and their predicaments better, but, as it went on, it seemed to stall and stick on one problem before it was very quickly resolved with very little drama. It was odd, kind of like a first draft, which I suppose it might have been, but it was weird getting a deeply flawed story woven though a professionally published book. It somehow made the story of Sylvia and the Narrator more interesting, though I did really enjoy the Illyria story. The most annoying thing, though, was that it was a follow-up to the trilogy, so it’s impossible for the reader to know what was going on in that world, but the actual author went full steam ahead, so the bits and pieces recalling what had happened before felt like ill-fitting puzzle pieces and out of place and only there because the reader literally has no idea what those books contained.

The story of Sylvia and the Narrator, though, was quite amazing. I really enjoyed getting her life story from someone who was and wasn’t a part of her. Their conversations were fascinating as it came from a place of deep familiarity and friendship even though the Narrator wasn’t a real person. It was somehow both a story of their relationship and of the ramblings around the Narrator has done in Sylvia’s head. It felt like he was sitting there, quite at ease, telling her and their stories with candor, respect, and love. I absolutely loved it. I do have to admit that it was a little hard to get into at first, especially since the Narrator seemed quite intent on telling some historical stories that were amusing, but still frustrating, for a couple of chapters, and then it just glided right into the Illyria story. I think. Still, I thought it was fascinating and thought-provoking and clearly dealt with the ideas of death and life after death and immortality.

Overall, this was actually a splendidly done story, though the end did leave me wanting a little. It was fun, but gave me so much to think about, as well as a good history lesson! The two stories wove together almost flawlessly and I loved how they crossed back and forth.

The Characters: A Fascinating Mixed Bag
I really liked Sylvia, even though we only get to know her through the eyes of the Narrator. She clearly had a difficult life and love was hard to come by (warning: domestic abuse and violence). Still, she persevered and found strength and found her own ways to recover, though it did impact the rest of her life. I liked that she wasn’t perfect, that the Narrator didn’t make her seem so. It made her feel fully human. The only thing that bothered me was that the reader has no real sense of her beyond what the Narrator tells, so the reader is not privy to her thought processes and decision making, so the choice she made at the end of the book felt very abrupt and kind of from left field, almost as though it was just time for the whole book to be finished.

The Narrator was the most intriguing character. I put myself in knots trying to figure out exactly what he was, but I think the point was that he simply did exist and was something special to Sylvia. I didn’t get the feeling that the reader was supposed to know who, exactly, he was, or what, and it somehow made him feel kind of real. I loved trying to figure out whether he was a figment of her imagination or her creativity personified, or maybe she had schizophrenia or split personality. Honestly, the last two intrigued me, but I had a better sense that it might have been the first two, or none of them. What really stole my heart, though, was that the conversations he had with Sylvia reminded me of the ones I have had with my own characters. He was so honest, with the reader, and felt so fully formed. It was amazing.

The one disappointing thing about how wonderfully crafted Sylvia and the Narrator were was that it made Sylvia’s Illyria characters feel flat and kind of boring. None of them were particularly compelling. They each had their own role to play, and simply played it. Upon introduction, they were interesting, but then didn’t progress much past that. None of them were particularly well explored, or really given room to explore anything except the concept of death in Illyria. Perhaps it’s because there’s a whole trilogy that predates the present story and a whole lot of development occurred in them, but then that doesn’t really seem fair considering the reader has no concept of those books as they don’t actually exist.

Overall, the characters were something of a mixed bag, but then I also can’t figure out who were the main characters. It was a fascinating dilemma for my brain, and I still find myself ruminating on it.

The Setting: Quite Italian
I adore Italy, so I was quite happy to learn much of the book took place in Firenze and the fictional version of Firenze, Illyria. As they were basically the same setting, the world building seemed quite simple, but still deep and interesting. I loved getting to know present day Firenze and the Firenze that may have existed during the Renaissance.

Present day Firenze served as a springboard for Illyria. It felt much like the research an author would do for stories set in real life places. It was fun to follow Sylvia around Italy as she did her research, especially as it took her to art museums where bits and pieces of what she saw had an impact on how Illyria was conceived and explored.

Illyria is stuck in the past, in the Renaissance specifically. It didn’t perfectly align with Firenze, and I think that’s what actually made it magical. It was like the real city, but different. There were so many of the same structures, but was still it’s own place. I think I actually found Illyria to be more interesting as more of the whole book took place in Illyria than Firenze, but it did feel like Italy and it did feel like how I imagine a place stuck in the Renaissance would be.

Overall: Magically Unexpected
This was quite an interesting book. I wasn’t expecting it to be anything like this, so I was surprised. At first, I was a little put off, but then the writing just started to flow and the stories started to flow and weave together and suddenly it was kind of magical. Until the end, which was a bit of a letdown. But everything in the middle was compelling and magical. I’m very glad I read this book. It’s given me much to think about, much to consider, and I might never look at my characters the same way again. The characters were a bit hit and miss for me, but I loved the setting and thought the stories were quite interesting, though not without their flaws. Also, the Narrator is a pretty amazing guy.

Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillian-Tor/Forge for a free e-ARC. All opinions expressed are my own.

Too modern

I am not particularly fond of first person narratives even when there is a straightforward plot and linear story. This narration by an imaginary friend – even if the friend is of vital importance – left me very cold. Ms Walton's writing is lovely but the book is too modern (or as other reviewers say "meta") for me.

I received a review copy of "Or What You Will" by Jo Walton from Macmillan-Tor/Forge through NetGalley.com. ( )