The Ammonite Violin and Others Book

I've said before that Caitlin R. Kiernan is a writer whose work I sometimes respect more than enjoy, and that's once again the case with her most recent collection here.

The Ammonite Violin reprints stories from her sort of personal fiction newsletter(?) Sirenia Digest, and, as such, the stories are often a little more raw than you might find in other collections. In his introduction, Jeff VanderMeer says that reading The Ammonite Violin gives the sense of reading something new, even for those familiar with Kiernan's work, and I think that's also true. The stories of The Ammonite Violin, moreso than any of her other work that I've read, excepting maybe The Red Tree, seems to get at the heart of what Kiernan is trying to do with her writing.

This means, as VanderMeer points out, that there's "little action in the conventional sense." The stories are mostly what could be described as vignettes or character studies, but they use mythology and suggestion and poetic language to give the sense of unexplored vistas surrounding whatever non-action is occurring.

I had a few problems with The Ammonite Violin. I found it a little repetetive, too many stories that were too similar, featuring similar motifs and situations and relationships and descriptions. There are stories I like more than others. I really enjoyed the title story, "For One Who has Lost Herself," "In the Dreamtime of Lady Resurrection," and a few others. I think my very favorite was "The Lovesong of Lady Ratteanrufer," with its fairy tale-like structure and its incredible mythology of rat gods and fire-breathing snakes.

Like everything I've ever read by Kiernan, this was occasionally problematic for me, but always intriguing and inspiring.