Rawr Reader,
Six books in seven weeks. I don't care, I'm so proud of myself. My Reading Goals for this year?
ON. A. ROLL.
Can I just say I wasn't expecting to write another review so soon. I was very comfortable with the idea of waiting till March to write the next one, but this book blew me away and I felt like I had to share this beauty with any and everyone, even if it was only in passing or by chance.
Can I just say I wasn't expecting to write another review so soon. I was very comfortable with the idea of waiting till March to write the next one, but this book blew me away and I felt like I had to share this beauty with any and everyone, even if it was only in passing or by chance.
The synopsis of Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield is provided by Goodreads:
Miri thinks she has got her wife back, when Leah finally returns after a deep-sea mission that ended in catastrophe. It soon becomes clear, though, that Leah is not the same. Whatever happened in that vessel, whatever it was they were supposed to be studying before they were stranded on the ocean floor, Leah has brought part of it back with her, onto dry land and into their home.
Moving through something that only resembles normal life, Miri comes to realize that the life that they had before might be gone. Though Leah is still there, Miri can feel the woman she loves slipping from her grasp.
Our Wives Under The Sea is the debut novel from Julia Armfield, the critically acclaimed author of salt slow. It’s a story of falling in love, loss, grief, and what life there is in the deep deep sea.
Review:
This is one of four books I borrowed from the library and I can tell you I was pretty certain I would like this the least out of the four. I've yet to read two of them, but simply based off synopsis alone, I had it in mind I would read this for an easy quick read to add to my reading goal of the year since it's only 200-something pages.
Suffice it to say, I am disappointed in myself. Don't judge a book off its cover and don't judge a book until you've finished it. (Putting aside books you can't get into after 50 pages, a chapter, or even the first page. Hey, if you don't like a book, you DON'T like it, and THAT'S FINE.) I liked the beginning of Our Wives Under the Sea, thought the author's writing was lovely, but in these truncated glimpses into our protagonists lives I found myself spellbound. The language between the two wives is used with such delicacy that you know beyond all that exists and moves in this chaotic and uncontrollable world, there is love. It can be rooted and anchored into us. It can also be what helps us stay afloat amongst the confusion, the noise of the world, the silence, and the worst of it all: the emptiness.
Leah's return from her research trip shatters Miri's newfound routine of life without her wife. It wasn't merely Leah's absence from her life that required her to reconfigure. Leah's return had been months after her initial return date. What should be a miracle shows itself to be something more than Miri could have ever expected. Miri has to adapt to this new Leah all the while still remain faithful and in love with this woman who's returned. Clinging on to this love—which seems to be drifting away after it had purportedly drifted months before—is not Miri's challenge, it's her life purpose.
It makes the novel seem to float. In essence, this isn't a jam-packed action horror flick. I went into reading being forewarned by tags (and misconceptions) that this would incorporate more horror. (I didn't check out other people's reviews until I read it so that's partially on me.) It's definitely more character study on loss and love than Boo-From-Behind-the-Curtain scary. More magical realism, bending reality and the unknown. So if literary is less your thing, you'll definitely think this book is slow. Not bad, just slow—even with its vignette chapters.
For most of the novel I enjoyed Leah's chapters more. Not only did they deal with the "intrigue" of the research trip and insight into why Leah returns to Miri the way she does, but there was suspense which compensated for the lack of horror I'd been expecting. However the consistency of Miri's devotion made me fall in love with her character and appreciate her much more than in the beginning. The condition in which Leah returns is unexplainable, yet I think that's what all married and committed people would want from their partner: steady reliable love that will be there to lead us home when we've become a bit lost. Miri's chapters grew on me by the end and together, it made their love story one for the ages.
Armfield credits Rachel Carson's The Sea Around Us at the end and I will say I felt that appreciation of power, mystery, diversity, and scope of the ocean Carson describes in lyrical detail also reflected in Armfield's prose.
~ ~ I finished reading listening to "So Small" by Thomas Bergersen and I did everything I could to not be a vessel of tears ~ ~
I give this book 5/5 stars.
Quote:
"The deep sea is a haunted house: a place in which things that ought not to exist move about in the darkness."
*
"I used to imagine the sea as something that seethed and then quieted, a froth of activity tapering down into the dark and still. I know now that this isn't how it goes, that things beneath the surface are what have to move and change to cause the chain reaction higher up."
*
"I remember thinking that the first things had come from the water, which didn't account for the things that had chosen to stay behind."
—Julia Armfield, Our Wives Under the Sea
My Goodreads:
Next To Read:
TBD
Spoilers:
I would love to further explore who this Centre is. It didn't really occur to me to suspect their involvement until near the end even though Armfield left clues in both character's chapters throughout. When sketchier and sketchier things kept happening I wanted to smack my forehead. Who are these people? What had they discovered before? How did they snatch up Leah and Matteo who we know had worked together before—who I feel like were both intuitive enough to research who these people were before going in a vehicle that is only one of its kind into one of the most remote areas on earth.
Once Miri discovered Leah's skin condition I knew she would need to go back. I love how Miri exhausted her alternatives. She tried everything she could to help her wife and when she realized Leah needed peace, not a fix to what was happening, she gave that to her. She tried making Leah comfortable every step of the way. And in a way Leah was holding on too. She wanted Miri to have the closure she needed to losing her wife. She endured therapy and walking and dry land and all of it so Miri could come to terms. And I love how that is mirrored in Leah's chapters in that even tens of thousands of feet below the sea, she was anchored by her love for Miri.
Ahh, true love. I'm a sucker for it.
Speaking of Leah, when she was in the submarine with Matteo and Jelka and they kept hearing-but-not-hearing sounds, I got total Doctor Who "Midnight" (episode 4x10) vibes, which mirrors stranded people hearing ominous sounds outside of their transport vehicle and people beginning to turn on each other/lose their minds. One of my favorite Doctor Who episodes. If you enjoyed this book and you want a bit more horror—check it out.
I would have liked a more substantial answer to what the burning smell was. I don't know if it has to do with marine geology or a metaphor for something like their descent into madness, but considering something does come out by the end it seems too easy to associate it with that.
Confession: part of me believed for a little while Leah's POV chapters might have been the residuals of them if the submarine had exploded when it reached the bottom. Leah, Matteo, and Jelka were somehow ghosts?? and in some form of purgatory where they reached the sea floor and survived in the submarine. (But that seems way too supernatural/outlandish for this short novel and in a way, out of genre, even though it has a bit of magical realism.) Oh, and when the submarine began its slow, soft descent—which was what the vehicle had been programmed to do when all system functions operated normally, I attributed it to the sea creature being the cause. (Obviously in reality it was the Centre's doing, some form of Cabin in the Woods surveillance intervention, but the whole it's completely black outside the vessel and there's burning smells and random sounds made it seem like there had to be a sea creature involved.) In my mind the sea creature was just a continuation of this purgatory. Why Jelka got out first? I want to attribute that to her faith. It was more fervent than Leah's faith. So she "escaped" the submarine first? And Leah loved Miri more than she had faith in her religion which is why she was able to return to land to bring peace to her loved ones.
What's wonderful about this novel is I can be completely out of left field, but because this novel was structured the way it is, it leaves readers to make their own assumptions. It's dangerous, but could this all be in Miri's mind as her own defense mechanism to accept Leah's absence? I don't think it's that trope (this novel is just too beautiful to all be a trope) however there are enough holes I could make that theory.
I borrowed this from my library but I'm going to have to buy this so I can reread this over and over and decide on an answer. I'll mark up and note different parts of the book and connect clues and make my book the novel interpretation of that conspiracy theory guy.
Until Next Time,
Nicole Ciel
P.S. Sorry for all the ocean puns. They just fit so well~
