Book Review: The Bell at Sealey Head
Sep. 16th, 2009 09:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyjadwigaPatricia McKillip. The Bell at Sealey Head. (New York: Ace, 2008)
I love Patrician McKillip's many layered, textured, ornate, and beautiful writing and world creation, but I breathed a sigh of relief that she has finally written another novel that begins at a beginning and goes on to the end. Many of her later works have been so intricately coiled that it was almost impossible to work out what was going on (McKillip makes Diana Wynne Jones' Fire and Hemlock look like the work of a piker!) This one has the usual fascinating multilayered, iron-willed characters, but at least most of them know who they are. As usual the writing reads very much like the romantic fantasy art on the cover looks-- a small glimpse into a magical realm where things may be what they seem, or something else entirely, or both. Nobody knows what causes the Bell to ring at dusk over the small seaside town of Sealey Head, but as the last denizen of a historic house fades slowly into death, a scholar comes to town in search of the bell's mystery, a failing innkeeper speculates, a rebellious young woman spins tales, a housemaid investigates mysterious rooms, and local society is somewhat convulsed by visit from the fading landowner's heir and her raucous companions. While not everything is explained-- you're clearly plopped down in the middle of a story and only allowed to see the bits relating to this section, leaving the magical structure to your imagination-- the worldbuilding is consistent enough to make loose ends unjarring. Funny in spots, and very classic McKillip.
I love Patrician McKillip's many layered, textured, ornate, and beautiful writing and world creation, but I breathed a sigh of relief that she has finally written another novel that begins at a beginning and goes on to the end. Many of her later works have been so intricately coiled that it was almost impossible to work out what was going on (McKillip makes Diana Wynne Jones' Fire and Hemlock look like the work of a piker!) This one has the usual fascinating multilayered, iron-willed characters, but at least most of them know who they are. As usual the writing reads very much like the romantic fantasy art on the cover looks-- a small glimpse into a magical realm where things may be what they seem, or something else entirely, or both. Nobody knows what causes the Bell to ring at dusk over the small seaside town of Sealey Head, but as the last denizen of a historic house fades slowly into death, a scholar comes to town in search of the bell's mystery, a failing innkeeper speculates, a rebellious young woman spins tales, a housemaid investigates mysterious rooms, and local society is somewhat convulsed by visit from the fading landowner's heir and her raucous companions. While not everything is explained-- you're clearly plopped down in the middle of a story and only allowed to see the bits relating to this section, leaving the magical structure to your imagination-- the worldbuilding is consistent enough to make loose ends unjarring. Funny in spots, and very classic McKillip.
