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July 2007
Always by Nicola Griffith
Jessamine Bowman lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Self-defense is not just a skill; it's a worldview. Like the scientific method—or religion, or motherhood, for that matter—once you accept its precepts you can't help but see things differently. As Aud begins to teach self-defense skills to a class of ten women in the basement of an alternative bookstore in Atlanta, she is determined to keep things simple. She starts by teaching them how to punch a bag. As she studies the women to learn their individual strengths and weaknesses, she is horrified by the ignorance and vulnerability she sees. Her job is to provide them with the basic tools and techniques of self-defense, but where to start? In her third Aud Torvingen novel, Nicola Griffith uses luminous prose and the magic of words to create a multi-dimensional contemporary world that most readers will relate to, but Aud Torvingen is not like most women. Most women learned very young how to play the roles expected of them. Girls' games were built on the notion: Play Mom, play nurse, play teacher. They played and played and played until they learnt to inhabit the roles. Aud's extensive training in self-defense has formed her worldview, and in Always she discovers how much it has distanced her from the lives of most women, the lives of the very women she has pledged to protect. If you haven't met Aud Torvingen in her two earlier appearances, The Blue Place and Stay, you now have the pleasure of meeting her in Always. Beginners welcome, no experience needed. For readers who have already discovered Nicola Griffith's writing and have impatiently awaited the publication of Always, wait no more. Always is a tour de force. Aud Torvingen is back, and even better than before! In two parallel storylines, Always weaves the story of Aud as she travels to Seattle to visit her mother and conduct some minor business with her reflections on the unexpected consequences of her teaching experience in Atlanta a few months earlier. The reader inhabits Aud's mind and body at the most intimate levels as she searches for the people responsible for the "accidents" that threaten to undermine the success of her business venture, and as long-buried memories and emotions from her past arise during her encounters with her mother and her mother's new husband. In addition, Aud must work through the physical and emotional results of an act of violence that places her in the role of victim for the first time in her life. When Aud discovers the incident has impaired her senses to an unknown degree, she is bereft of the confidence she has always had in the mastery of her physical body. Nicola Griffith is a phenomenal writer and Always provides an extraordinary reading experience. Griffith focuses on both the body and its environment with great precision and beauty to make Aud become physically and emotionally alive to the reader. Griffith presents Aud's visceral understanding of the world through her extensive knowledge of biology and physiology and the latest discoveries of neuroscience. She emphasizes the need to understand and respect the messages of the body as a vital component in balancing body, mind, and spirit. Griffith's prior experience in teaching self-defense to women shines through the Atlanta storyline as Aud teaches the basic skills of self-defense to her class and to the reader alike. Griffith is equally adept at providing access to Aud's emotions with great tenderness and understanding. Although superior physical training allows Aud to appear in control at all times, she is intensely aware of her imperfections and blind spots, both past and present. She strives to be the best she can be at any given time and in any given circumstance. She wants to understand more, or better, the people and situations she encounters as she forms new relationships and develops existing ones. She is constantly questioning. And she is always learning. What may seem ordinary to the reader is not ordinary to Aud. As she begins to dismantle the preconceptions and misconceptions of her students, the lessons resonate throughout her personal and professional life. The basic tenets of self-defense provide the platform to explore the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects of living a healthy life. "I want to change, just a little, how people see their world after walking around looking at it through Aud," Nicola Griffith says. In Always, she has written a self-defense primer for living in the contemporary world. What makes Always transformative is the way the reader inhabits Aud's multi-dimensional sensory landscapes, both internal and external, and finds their own worldview altered by the experience. Nicola Griffith is the critically-acclaimed author of Stay, The Blue Place, Slow River, and Ammonite. She has won multiple awards, including the Nebula Award, the James Tiptree, Jr., Award, the World Fantasy Award, and five Lambda Literary Awards. Her writing has never fit too neatly or too long into any genre. Although Always may be superficially classified as crime/thriller due to the Seattle storyline woven throughout the book, Aud's "alien" worldview ultimately draws the reader into the even greater mystery of what it means to be female in the world today. I highly recommend Always to discriminating readers of every ilk. Genre? Feminist/Fantasy/Transgressive. |
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