Reread Sept 2022: I reread this relatively soon after first reading it because I realized I simply did not remember the back 200 pages. Indeed, I had not remembered any of the plot beats correctly or in some cases at all, which I think is a good summary of what is wrong with the text. Even through certain elements that I knew I had 0 recollection of, I found myself gently skimming. I often respect, enjoy, envy the prose; but the puzzlebox of the plot required much of my attention, which meant I had less attention for the puzzle box of the prose. It also meant, because the details had less time to clarify and crystallize procedurally as I generally expect from a book written with clarity, my memory for those events was lessened. For books like these, you have to remember what happened to move on. I had read the first chapter of Nona before realizing I had retained no information about what had led to this point, and that was in March. That meant I had to commit at least 10 hours to rereading this book before I could move on in the series, which is like, fine? But it does add a certain heaviness to the act even of reading these books. Breezy they are not. Being challenged in my reading is good, and I always return to these with intense interest. But challenge is the right word.

Muir also has an idiosyncrasy in writing which, on the one hand, might be very smart for the sake of commanding readers' attention, which is not to specify exactly who is speaking until several lines or sometimes paragraphs into the scene, or similarly withheld details. The effect is to compel close reading; when things are less clear, you have to pay attention. This may also be a severe and flagrant failure of editing, however, and it's not one I envy at all. If, then, you make sensory descriptions fundamentally muddy owing to the inchoate nature of our understanding of the magic being described, I am already tired and now I don't have the concentration to spare for lengthy descriptions of pustules bursting. I was constantly thinking about this book when not reading it. I was incapable of doing anything else until I read the last 400 pages in two sittings, and still my attention was wandering when the book was in my hands. In so many ways, this book is a feat of editing, and in other ways the editing failed it.

Structure is another problem, but I haven't fully unpacked how and why. I think individual arcs have been broken into acts in one timeline but not the other. This created a confusion for me, who did not remember what the second timeline was about in the first place. As a secondary but more important result, the action/reaction balance feels very uneven and it fucked with pacing. It's experimental writing, and this is far more forgivable than the lack of prosaic clarity. I'll take some janky pacing when it's this metal.

The other main thing I noticed this read was how careful Muir was to have imagined every scene from other character perspectives. This is by necessity in the first timeline, but every once in a while a character, say Ianthe, would give a clue as to her inner life that would have required the scene to have been at least mentally written entirely from her perspective. I had a lot of admiration for this, and I felt it was reasonably consistent throughout the book, to its acclaim.

Both times I did not love how this book ended. It's almost Nona time, though, so this time I can hopefully retain what actually happened in the book instead of forgetting it out of self-preservation.

*

December 2021:

Fantastic. Not perfect. In places impenetrable. Highly original. I keep thinking when reading these books how far from my imagination they are. This book's execution warrants it four stars; apart from the deliberately unreliable narration, there was a problem with prose that often obscured clarity as well. But in terms of its originality and my favouritism—I live with the knowledge that I am going to read this book at least twice more and be blown away by it every single time—it is unmatched.

Muir's writing is genuinely clever, and her cleverness so often works that it is okay, to me, that it also misfires a not insignificant percentage of the time. This book is dense as hell. Every line does something that seems to bear weight. Few descriptions are rendered using terms that directly correlate to the normal five senses. Part of that is because the characters have access to a different set of senses, but it is a bit odd for the reader. I have a hell of a time generating imagery for these books—again, maybe because its contents are so much more advanced than my own imagination; or maybe because of that obfuscating prose.

I took more than 10 hours to read this book. I took it very slowly. Often I reread passages to ensure I understood. This is, again, partly owing to the deliberately opaque nature of the narrative, and it is partly because my absolute favourite thing about these books is solving the riddles. But it is partly just that the book isn't terribly accessible to the average reader. How much did the editor do to clarify it? It is a book that takes work not only to understand it, but in the actual literal practice of reading it.

I'm not sure this is a significant criticism. In many ways, it gives me courage as a writer. This is also one of those books that suggests to me my own efforts in making my writing more accessible may have gone too far in that direction. How important in writing is accessibility, particularly when you are writing on the subject of insanity? At times very important, but there were several points where I put the book down with my jaw dropped. Is density the price of that kind of impact? Would the impact have been lessened if it was easier to read?

I don't have much more to say. I haven't formed a lot of conclusions about this book, except that I was enraptured. I was utterly unspoiled for this book; only one of my several theories proved itself true. I am constantly surprised by this series. I wish the same experience for others.

I will likely have more notes on my next read, which I suspect will happen next summer. It's a hard book; the work was worth it; it is a dazzlingly original and weird world that constantly twists in new directions. It is rare to find a book like this, and I expect to refer to it often, shortcomings and all.