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Riddance: Or: The Sybil Joines Vocational School for Ghost Speakers & Hearing-Mouth Children
Eleven–year–old Jane Grandison, tormented by her stutter, sits in the back seat of a car, letter in hand inviting her to live and study at the Sybil Joines Vocational School for Ghost Speakers & Hearing–Mouth Children. Founded in 1890 by Headmistress Sybil Joines, the school—at first glance—is a sanctuary for children seeking to cure their speech impediments. Inspired by her haunted and tragic childhood, the Headmistress has other ideas.
Pioneering the field of necrophysics, the Headmistress harnesses the “gift” she and her students possess. Through their stutters, together they have the ability to channel ghostly voices communicating from the land of the dead, a realm the Headmistress herself visits at will. Things change for the school and the Headmistress when a student disappears, attracting attention from parents and police alike.
Set in the overlapping worlds of the living and the dead, Shelley Jackson’s Riddance is an illuminated novel told through theoretical writings in necrophysics, the Headmistress’s dispatches from the land of the dead, and Jane’s evolving life as Joines’s new stenographer and central figure in the Vocational School’s mysterious present, as well as its future.
Pioneering the field of necrophysics, the Headmistress harnesses the “gift” she and her students possess. Through their stutters, together they have the ability to channel ghostly voices communicating from the land of the dead, a realm the Headmistress herself visits at will. Things change for the school and the Headmistress when a student disappears, attracting attention from parents and police alike.
Set in the overlapping worlds of the living and the dead, Shelley Jackson’s Riddance is an illuminated novel told through theoretical writings in necrophysics, the Headmistress’s dispatches from the land of the dead, and Jane’s evolving life as Joines’s new stenographer and central figure in the Vocational School’s mysterious present, as well as its future.
485 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 16, 2018
117 people are currently reading
2200 people want to read
About the author
Shelley Jackson
30 books124 followersShelley Jackson is an American writer and artist known for her cross-genre experiments, including her hyperfiction, Patchwork Girl (1995). Her first novel was published in 2006, Half Life.
In the late nineties, Jackson alternated hypertext work with writing short stories. She published her first short story collection, The Melancholy of Anatomy, in 2002.
Jackson's first novel, Half Life, was published by HarperCollins in 2006. She currently teaches in the graduate writing program at The New School in New York City and at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee.[14]
In the late nineties, Jackson alternated hypertext work with writing short stories. She published her first short story collection, The Melancholy of Anatomy, in 2002.
Jackson's first novel, Half Life, was published by HarperCollins in 2006. She currently teaches in the graduate writing program at The New School in New York City and at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee.[14]
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 96 reviews
October 11, 2021
SPOOKY-BOOKTOBER CONTINUES!!!!
When I myself am dead matter, I will speak the language of things. Then at last I will understand what it is that the world has been trying to tell me, all my life.
writer/artist shelley jackson is experimental AF. one of the pioneers of the hypertext novel, she has also been writing a novella called ‘skin’ for the past sixteen years in which a single word of the story is tattooed on a participant (apply here!), and another ongoing story called “snow,” begun in 2014, which is the same concept, only even more ephemeral; each word is written in a patch of—you guessed it—snow. follow the story on instagram, which will continue until global warming triumphs.
she has written and illustrated a number of children’s books (none of which i have read), as well as a short story collection and a novel both of which i have read and LOVED: The Melancholy of Anatomy and Half Life, but she hadn’t (traditionally) published anything since Half Life in 2006. so when i—having pretty much resigned myself to never getting to read anything else by her—came upon this gorgeous book cover staring back at me while casually browsing in a bookstore, i YELPED, and threw all my money at it. (yelping literal, money-hucking figurative). ‘course, i waited a stupid-long time before reading it, and by the time i picked it up—unbeknownst to me—the paperback had come out five days earlier, making it an extra title in my 2019 project 'to read (at least) one book each month that i bought in hardcover and put off reading long enough that it is now in paperback.' but i do not regret buying the hardcover one bit—this is an especially well-made book, with the paper equivalent of 300,000 thread count sheets that just feels good to read and to hold—a beautiful, weighty object, heavily illustrated with creepy olde-timey photographs and diagrams throughout:
jackson spent twelve years writing this book, in-between all the tattooing and snow-writing, and it was absolutely worth waiting for. dustin called it “seancepunk,” which is not a term i have heard before, but it’s a perfect descriptor, so if he made it up, i am here, applauding him. hi, dustin! in less streamlined terms, it’s postmodern gothic fabulism, structured as a series of documents collected by a historian who, after experiencing a series of eerie coincidences, becomes fascinated by the sybil joines vocational school; a mysterious, somewhat scandalous institution in massachusetts, where children with speech impediments were trained to serve as mouthpieces for the dead; stuttering being a conduit to the deceased in ways far too complex to detail here, but when you read this book, you will learn all there is to know about necrophysics and necronauts and necromancy, with many illustrative diagrams to guide you:
the documents consist of, and alternate between, “The Final Dispatch;” the transcripts of the school’s headmistress sybil joines’ final journey into the land of the dead, dictated to her stenographer over the course of the night of her death in 1919, “The Stenographer’s Story;” being the observations of jane grandison: a biracial orphan whose stuttering gained her entry as a student, whose ambition gained her special favor and access, becoming the headmistress’ right hand and chronicler of her story, “Letters to Dead Authors;” in which headmistress joines beseeches deceased authors (and occasionally, the characters of dead authors) for financial or other forms of assistance in her life’s work and mission, and “A Visitor’s Observations;” the notes of a linguistic anthropologist who...yes—visits and observes the school to develop his thesis on the relationship between language and loss. these are the recurring documents arranged by the historian, interposing them with additional primary and secondary sources, providing the first academic study of the school; one as comprehensive as it is controversial once circumstances arise that cast doubt on the authenticity of some of the documents. oh, and there’s also a murder. have i not mentioned the murrrrderrrrr yet? welp, there’s one of those. maybe more than one, once the backstories of characters start peeking out from the past.
it’s an ambiguous, circuitous, and deeply sad story, filled with characters haunted by more than just the voices of the dead—lonely people seen as flawed or damaged because of their inability to speak clearly, searching for a place to call home: To run away from everything, even my own self, was to find a home I could never lose, because it was loss itself.
it is also occasionally very funny, and there’s some striking imagery around the disconnect between the body and the spirit, the self and the spoken: “the feeling that something fanged was chewing its way up my throat,” or being "like a steak in a dress," a person "built around a riddance." it's a book that delights in language, filled with characters who cannot speak it, unless they are channelling the voices of the dead.
it’s a 500 page book whose progression is sped up by many pages of images, but slowed down by the oh-so-chewy prose; the "outrageously overstuffed sentences:"
It is a fault of our age to consider all that is eccentric—and by eccentric I mean merely and precisely what lies farther than usual from a certain, conventionally defined, probably illusory center—as representing only one of two things: the symptom of a malady whose cure would restore the patient to a place in the center; or a new center, toward which all must hasten. What is true, we nearly all agree on; what we nearly all agree on must, we think, be true. But I would suggest that there are minority truths, never destined to hold sway over the imagination of the entire human race, and furthermore, ideas—less defensible, but to me, even more precious—that are neither true nor false bit (I have sat here this age trying to compose a marrowsky better than fue or tralse, but hang it:) crepuscular. One might even say, fictional. Entertaining them, we feel what angels and werewolves must feel, that between human and inhuman there is an open door, and a threshold as wide as a world.
but that is prose worth chewing on.
it is not a scary book, apart from the horrors of institutions of this (general) kind; orphanages and corrective facilities of the wayback; and here, children are exploited and experimented-upon by a woman with her own childhood horror stories, single-mindedly pursuing answers by any means necessary.
all that and creepy pictures, too?
when can i have more?
come to my blog!
April 17, 2018
Extremely and entirely my shit. Like the X-men but seancepunk. Like Mary Caponegro meets Lovecraft, minus the racism. Like Miss Peregrine's rewritten by Victor LaValle. Like Tom McCarthy's incredible C, but leaning way way into the necro-hermeneutics.
Like nothing and nobody else but Shelley Jackson herself.
Like nothing and nobody else but Shelley Jackson herself.
January 23, 2020
This is an exquisitely written novel about two women and a school for students with speech impediments. The students are schooled in the art of channeling the dead, the process of which is aided by their stuttering. Sybil Joines, the headmistress of the school, has survived a horrific childhood fraught with violence and lack of kinship. Jane Grandison, a student at the school, has had a comparably difficult childhood, alienated by both her race and her stutter. Jane becomes the headmistress's loyal stenographer, a coveted position. The school's teaching methods are unconventional and bizarre, and the actions of Joines become increasingly aberrant as the story progresses. Meantime, children disappear and an adult body is found on the school grounds.
Riddance itself is expressed in two ways: as a way of ridding one of oneself, and as a hole around which everything else is built. Voices emerge from wells - the mouths and throats - of both adults and children. These voices are not always their own, but are allegedly voices of the deceased. Complemented by eerie photographs, charts, drawings, and a healthy dose of dark humor, the novel revolves around communication with the dead while concurrently questioning the nature of both life and death. A psychological study as well as a detailed examination of the surreal, this book is a treat for anyone looking for a different and often challenging read.
Riddance itself is expressed in two ways: as a way of ridding one of oneself, and as a hole around which everything else is built. Voices emerge from wells - the mouths and throats - of both adults and children. These voices are not always their own, but are allegedly voices of the deceased. Complemented by eerie photographs, charts, drawings, and a healthy dose of dark humor, the novel revolves around communication with the dead while concurrently questioning the nature of both life and death. A psychological study as well as a detailed examination of the surreal, this book is a treat for anyone looking for a different and often challenging read.
October 19, 2018
The idea intrigued me, but the execution was not my cup of tea. Having to stop on every page to look up the meaning of a word bogged down the flow of the narrative, and storytelling was sacrificed for pseudoscience (think George Lucas's love of fancy digital effects and the effect it had on the quality of the prequels). A chore to slog through for me, but might be a perfect fit for the right kind of reader.
I received a digital ARC from the publisher via Edelweiss+.
I received a digital ARC from the publisher via Edelweiss+.
August 7, 2018
A small girl, a stutterer, mistreated by family and schoolmates, is invited to attend a boarding school for those like her. Sybil Joines, the headmistress, believes that stuttering, when properly channeled, is a highly evolved method of communication with the dead. Necrophysics, the study of the relationship between this world and the next, is Joines's raison d'etre. But the periodic disappearances of boarders, and alarming events that occur, cause an existential threat to the school that she cannot tolerate. The history of the school is told from multiple points of view that bear witness to the grotesque school. This is a fully realized world, dark and challenging, with three-dimensional characters and accompanying illuminations and artifacts so realistic that you soon forget this is fiction. Riddance is an astounding feat of imagination.
January 25, 2020
Like Jackson's art projects, Riddance is packed with fascinating ideas on how language and text is/can be delivered and perceived. The (often horrifically) unreliable narrators are oddly lovable despite their foibles. Dubious hypotheses are obsessively pursued, tested, and documented.
Exchanges like this, between the stenographer and another student, both African-American, point to one of the elephants in the room:
They go on to discuss why the dead seem to speak mostly a certain flavor of English.
I loved the extensive sprinkling of what look like vintage photos (did I say "unreliable"?), "reproductions" of old documents, and the whole appendix of ectoplasmic objects. As the novel progresses, there are fewer specific references in the text to the photos and documents; they're mostly for atmosphere, and I thought they worked very effectively.
Nothing much happens in the first half of the novel, but Jackson's play with words and black humor easily sustained my interest (no mean feat with my attention span!). Later, as unfortunate events perpetuate the deterioration of the school and the headmistress, there's no shortage of passages like this (spoken by the headmistress, supposedly):
[4.5 stars]
Exchanges like this, between the stenographer and another student, both African-American, point to one of the elephants in the room:
"Why are we working so hard if it is just to be an old white woman's speaking trumpet?"...
"She is herself the speaking trumpet of the dead," she reminded me.
"Who also seem to be mostly white," I said... "Or does the afterlife, too, uphold Jim Crow?"
They go on to discuss why the dead seem to speak mostly a certain flavor of English.
I loved the extensive sprinkling of what look like vintage photos (did I say "unreliable"?), "reproductions" of old documents, and the whole appendix of ectoplasmic objects. As the novel progresses, there are fewer specific references in the text to the photos and documents; they're mostly for atmosphere, and I thought they worked very effectively.
Nothing much happens in the first half of the novel, but Jackson's play with words and black humor easily sustained my interest (no mean feat with my attention span!). Later, as unfortunate events perpetuate the deterioration of the school and the headmistress, there's no shortage of passages like this (spoken by the headmistress, supposedly):
I feel my gorge rise, and that's my salvation, my body takes on mass, the dimensions unfold obediently into space, the glass apple collapses into a pulpous mass I spit out, and I say my moth, my mouth, I mean my mother, doesn't matter. I say something, and so I am something, again, provisionally speaking, provided I'm speaking.
[4.5 stars]
December 30, 2018
Good idea. Excellent idea actually. But so incredibly tedious. The author has a wide-ranging vocabulary, and not just in the field of necromancy, etc. I don't think it's a good idea to use a $20 word when a $1 or even a $5 word will do. She seems to go out of her way to use the most arcane and erudite (see what I mean?) and mostly boring sets of words and even non-words (!) I couldn't get past the first 100 pages. I'd like a story about the young girl - simply the young girl - not the headmistress or the 4th generation of the head mistress, etc. etc. etc. I don't mind a bit of intellectual bru-ha-ha - after all, I read a lot of psychological thrillers and suspense novels; however, this is intellectual to be intellectual. All of this is my opinion, of course - you decide if you want to spend your precious hours concentrating wholly on what the heck is going on, or if you'd like to just enjoy reading.
April 21, 2024
Ne parlo in questo video!
https://youtu.be/qzei5MpNVxE?si=MG0T0...
https://youtu.be/qzei5MpNVxE?si=MG0T0...
October 29, 2023
"All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event--in the living act, the undoubted deed—there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there’s naught beyond. But ‘tis enough. " - Melville, Moby Dick
Gonna very calculatedly tiptoe around making this review a ventpost and I swear I'm feeling like relatively fine-ish (hard to come by nowadays, admittedly) as I'm writing this but some context of why this gripped me so hard may be in order... I've thought a lot, probably more than most people over the past few years in particular, about what it means to, for lack of any better terminology, not want to exist. I don't mean suicide (though that's one of many avenues in which "Riddance" explores its central idea), but simply what it would mean to not be here as a physical being, a self, an Identity Composed of Flesh and Blood and Whatever Other Identifiable Components Society Has Collectively Agreed Upon that make up an individual person. I suffer from a debilitating sensory illness that not only turns my body into my soul's prison warden, but leaves me essentially immobilized and unable to experience 99% of what an able bodied person is capable of. As a result, a desire for nonexistence is almost second nature to me at this point, or at least a deep desire to become incorporeal, to inhabit the realm of wind or light and to just escape the waking nightmare of physical existence. It's not really like I don't want to be here, I do, I just don't want to be here in this body, a feeling which has extended to not wanting to be in any body; if physical form can fail a soul as much as mine has, then it's hard to justify wanting to remain here in the same kind of vessel, no matter how flashy the new coat of paint.
But of course the eternal dilemma for anyone who relates to this in their own way (and ofc the dilemma for every question humanity can ask in general) is that we just don't know any way in which an alternative is possible. For all we know we are born into a body, it either fails like mine or you get lucky, but either way it eventually decays and when we die, we're gone. I can hardly abide by that at this point in my life, because if everything I'm experiencing now is the beginning and the end and there's nothing on the other side in any way shape or form for me and my loved ones, then none of this meant anything - not my suffering, not my family's and my friends' suffering, not the struggles and ecstasies of people in their billions for the past however-fucking-long we've been a species. I know that's a controversial take in the modern day where "positive nihilism" and "make your own meaning" are increasingly alluring to people, where ideas of spirituality and the afterlife are now met with skepticism as much as sympathy, but the situation changes when you're at this level of disabled, when neither atheist humanism nor religion can really account for something like this; a vanishingly rare invisible condition which upturns everything you thought you knew about reality, about what being here means, about the nature of Everything (hacky pop science terminology, but whatever). When that happens, and when the entire establishment reveals just how little it accounts for the existence of people like you, you realize the popular conventions of the day just aren't going to cut it anymore. A sort of spirituality arises in the depths of sickness, though not conventionally. As you cannot be with other humans, transcendence is sought in a lonesome search for meaning, a desire to become ever more abstract. I am already a ghost that just hasn't physically died yet, so how could I seek meaning in anything or anywhere other than the incorporeal, the intangible?
And finally that brings me to "Riddance". I was always primed to enjoy something like this, given my love for theory-adjacent fiction and all kinds of genre literature this is influenced by, but this one really did come at a time in my life which has allowed me to immediately resonate with it, because seldom have I ever seen a work of fiction dive full throttle into this idea like this book. Through linguistics, Sybil Joines wants to break through Melville's "pasteboard mask" and to become defined by something other than her physical existence. The Headmistress' ultimate desire is ostensibly to erase the "I" of herself that is traditionally defined by the body; to explore this idea is to attempt to explore the eternal questions of death and "the beyond", as that is the closest avenue we can explore into there being something Other Than This. But death is of course scary and messy and individual, which she knows, as she begins this quest due to the loss of her own family and lack of closure on a torturous childhood - a desire to shirk oneself of the ego that is the inevitable result of a physical brain, yet motivated to do so because of that same human ego.
This is all explored through language, through fiction, as the primary thematic driving force, and especially through Sybil's destructive obsession with it. This is a novel of postmodern intertextuality but it approaches these ideas with a chilling and almost dissociative level of restraint, without showing its hand, so to speak, even when the machinations of its intertextuality are a direct focus. Without spoiling, part of Sybil's experiments are an attempt to prove that language not only has tangible effects on material reality (whether the realm of physicality or the realm of "the dead"), but exists in itself as a sort of "living abstraction". Language is intrinsic to human identity, leading us to believe this may strictly be a human invention, though while reading this book I kept getting the idea - played at within the text - that the entire concepts of language, writing and speech may indeed have some inherent spiritual substance that isn't exclusive to the material world; that when we talk, write or sing, or what the hell ever, we are actually tangibly effecting the substance of existence. Occultism and science is a key dichotomy here; I've increasingly begun to think they aren't so different, that ultimately they are more united by their natures as journeys toward truth (or the closest human approximations of it) and are not diametrically opposed, and this is a major theme in the novel.
I've probably lost readers by this point, but if all that sounds kooky then maybe that's because it is. I simply do not fucking know the answers but I know in my heart that ideas like this increasingly make sense to me, even if many will intrinsically reject them. Fiction, and especially via literature, is my primary avenue at this point for exploring spirituality, the numinous that I know exists even if I, like Sybil (though hopefully not to her egomaniacal extent) am forever in search of its true essence, an essence I know I will never locate but keep hubristically trying to do so anyway as that is the drive of humans. Through fiction, to me, it just makes sense. In the Transmission chapters, Joines literally creates the world she sees through words, it is words that guide her on a spiritual journey. How else am I supposed to understand anything when I literally do not have essentially anything in my life except words?
Like I mentioned earlier, believing this is All There Is is not only not an option for me, it wouldn't even make sense to me anymore partially because of fiction. After all, a book like this exists - a novel that connects and communicates two people who don't know each other, me and the author, but can theoretically do that INFINITELY because of the nature of reading and how a deeply subjective personal experience informs the entire ritual of reading - and this is what all books do. Books are worlds created by people, but they are recreated, expanded upon infinitely not only with every reader, but every single time any of their words are read. If the human brain can create words that become worlds, that we can conceive of infinities through fiction, then I have to believe this is partially evidence that infinity exists. That this is not the end, that there are new worlds waiting for me and others beyond the human brain. If a feeble creature like a human can replicate infinity, and more or less accidentally, through words on a page about people who don't even exist on this plane, then believing that there's something more is only natural, as our bodies and minds are far from the center of the universe, yet are capable of creating universes on their own terms. Like, I don't think it's just an idea, I think it's something to really really think about, and something I want to keep thinking about and developing my own personal philosophy on.
I should hate the Headmistress, especially since she's an abusive teacher, a kind of person I've long struggled with trauma from. But vile as she is, it's difficult not to be invested in her journey when so many of the conclusions I've come to since diagnosis are similar to the ones she came to. I do wholeheartedly want to not exist as the being I am now. Of course where we differ is intent, where Sybil views others as tools in her goal to transcend the body, I instead hope a transcendence for me could free those I love from the burden of having to watch me inhabit this shell. If I could become a spirit, somehow stay here and watch over the ones I love without having to suffer anymore, then I would choose that existence in a heartbeat, to just stop waking up to the everlasting horrorshow of having a body. I think that's where a lot of my spiritual thinking comes from, that desire to be gathered back into the Everything, my essence still here, belonging to the universe as an abstraction rather than a defined form, but not Leaving, not really. But I don't know what's on the other side, and I never will until I get there. Life is a nightmare, but the nightmare does contain books like this one, and the infinities that can be experienced within it, and while I do hope there's another side to all of this, knowing that I can at least experience stories, and the spirituality of words and language that represents that realm I so desperately want to inhabit but just have to wait and hope, is enough to keep me here.
Enough of me, I think in general it's just incredibly refreshing to see a post-millennium American author write this sort of book. The modern trend in American publishing would probably be hostile or at least ambivalent toward something as dense, experimental and committed to its digressive postmodern structure as this is, especially when the narrative is as dedicated as it is to its supernatural occult fixations. I read that it took Shelley Jackson over a decade to write this and it really shows as it's the kind of book that's so thorough and complexly conceived that any novelist would be happy to have it under their belt. Cutting through all my amateur philosophizing, this book is an aesthetic masterpiece period, adjacent to "weird fiction" though also moving far beyond the pulp mechanics of weird lit and becoming something entirely itself, a mind boggling chimera between occult theory fiction and postmodernism via the framework of gothic storytelling whose central idea is always at the forefront of the events, but written in a way that allows the book to traverse various divergent themes that are held together by a passionate, indeed religious, dedication to Jackson's conception of "necrophysics". It's an endlessly captivating character study featuring some of the undoubtedly best prose I've read in a post-2010 novel, complex and dense but still crystal clear in what it communicates, even as many of its linguistic mysteries are appropriately left open. It's also very funny and witty in the midst of all its morbidity, like all the best books. This is the kind of novel that needs a wider readership - Jackson seems to be an unsung cousin of the whole school of "weird theory" that's been circulating in underground literature for a little bit now, the Ciscos and Butlers etc, and judging by this book she undeniably deserves to be named among the higher echelons of the style.
Sorry about this review - I went into this thinking I would speak less about myself, but it sort of ended up being inevitable given how personally resonant this was. I struggle to think of who exactly I'd recommend this to in terms of demographics, it's not hard to see why this is niche, as it's very committed to that esoteric central thesis like I said, doesn't hold the reader's hand in explaining its main ideas and is a slow burn, and I could see it not appealing at all to people who aren't inclined to something as theory-and-philosophy-heavy as this is. It is, however, unlike anything else, even among its metafictional contemporaries, and is probably very worth reading for anyone who finds comfort in the idea of transcending reality and the misery of physicality through fiction, through the abstract. I will no doubt be revisiting this one as well as making Jackson a priority author in 2024; what I would have assumed would be an enjoyable October read ended up being a deeply resonant favorite for me. Challenging but endlessly compelling, absurd and creative, and gives voice to thoughts I've had about life that I never properly articulated; this is everything I want out of a modern novel.
"Maybe this is why I like the long lost better than the living. I would not want them back: I like them just because they're lost. The dead are not quite there, and it is being there that's what is wrong with the living. We are too much with us. The truest part of me was trained on that crystal world outside me, or even was that world. Sticks and berries. . . Why weigh them down with meat and bone? The Long Pig of the self? Too, too solid. A wasting sickness, I thought, was the way to die. To melt, to cease, to suck your own bones dry. To wear at last so thin that you can see the world through your almost unfogged flesh. Then, when you are crystal clear, to die."
Gonna very calculatedly tiptoe around making this review a ventpost and I swear I'm feeling like relatively fine-ish (hard to come by nowadays, admittedly) as I'm writing this but some context of why this gripped me so hard may be in order... I've thought a lot, probably more than most people over the past few years in particular, about what it means to, for lack of any better terminology, not want to exist. I don't mean suicide (though that's one of many avenues in which "Riddance" explores its central idea), but simply what it would mean to not be here as a physical being, a self, an Identity Composed of Flesh and Blood and Whatever Other Identifiable Components Society Has Collectively Agreed Upon that make up an individual person. I suffer from a debilitating sensory illness that not only turns my body into my soul's prison warden, but leaves me essentially immobilized and unable to experience 99% of what an able bodied person is capable of. As a result, a desire for nonexistence is almost second nature to me at this point, or at least a deep desire to become incorporeal, to inhabit the realm of wind or light and to just escape the waking nightmare of physical existence. It's not really like I don't want to be here, I do, I just don't want to be here in this body, a feeling which has extended to not wanting to be in any body; if physical form can fail a soul as much as mine has, then it's hard to justify wanting to remain here in the same kind of vessel, no matter how flashy the new coat of paint.
But of course the eternal dilemma for anyone who relates to this in their own way (and ofc the dilemma for every question humanity can ask in general) is that we just don't know any way in which an alternative is possible. For all we know we are born into a body, it either fails like mine or you get lucky, but either way it eventually decays and when we die, we're gone. I can hardly abide by that at this point in my life, because if everything I'm experiencing now is the beginning and the end and there's nothing on the other side in any way shape or form for me and my loved ones, then none of this meant anything - not my suffering, not my family's and my friends' suffering, not the struggles and ecstasies of people in their billions for the past however-fucking-long we've been a species. I know that's a controversial take in the modern day where "positive nihilism" and "make your own meaning" are increasingly alluring to people, where ideas of spirituality and the afterlife are now met with skepticism as much as sympathy, but the situation changes when you're at this level of disabled, when neither atheist humanism nor religion can really account for something like this; a vanishingly rare invisible condition which upturns everything you thought you knew about reality, about what being here means, about the nature of Everything (hacky pop science terminology, but whatever). When that happens, and when the entire establishment reveals just how little it accounts for the existence of people like you, you realize the popular conventions of the day just aren't going to cut it anymore. A sort of spirituality arises in the depths of sickness, though not conventionally. As you cannot be with other humans, transcendence is sought in a lonesome search for meaning, a desire to become ever more abstract. I am already a ghost that just hasn't physically died yet, so how could I seek meaning in anything or anywhere other than the incorporeal, the intangible?
And finally that brings me to "Riddance". I was always primed to enjoy something like this, given my love for theory-adjacent fiction and all kinds of genre literature this is influenced by, but this one really did come at a time in my life which has allowed me to immediately resonate with it, because seldom have I ever seen a work of fiction dive full throttle into this idea like this book. Through linguistics, Sybil Joines wants to break through Melville's "pasteboard mask" and to become defined by something other than her physical existence. The Headmistress' ultimate desire is ostensibly to erase the "I" of herself that is traditionally defined by the body; to explore this idea is to attempt to explore the eternal questions of death and "the beyond", as that is the closest avenue we can explore into there being something Other Than This. But death is of course scary and messy and individual, which she knows, as she begins this quest due to the loss of her own family and lack of closure on a torturous childhood - a desire to shirk oneself of the ego that is the inevitable result of a physical brain, yet motivated to do so because of that same human ego.
This is all explored through language, through fiction, as the primary thematic driving force, and especially through Sybil's destructive obsession with it. This is a novel of postmodern intertextuality but it approaches these ideas with a chilling and almost dissociative level of restraint, without showing its hand, so to speak, even when the machinations of its intertextuality are a direct focus. Without spoiling, part of Sybil's experiments are an attempt to prove that language not only has tangible effects on material reality (whether the realm of physicality or the realm of "the dead"), but exists in itself as a sort of "living abstraction". Language is intrinsic to human identity, leading us to believe this may strictly be a human invention, though while reading this book I kept getting the idea - played at within the text - that the entire concepts of language, writing and speech may indeed have some inherent spiritual substance that isn't exclusive to the material world; that when we talk, write or sing, or what the hell ever, we are actually tangibly effecting the substance of existence. Occultism and science is a key dichotomy here; I've increasingly begun to think they aren't so different, that ultimately they are more united by their natures as journeys toward truth (or the closest human approximations of it) and are not diametrically opposed, and this is a major theme in the novel.
I've probably lost readers by this point, but if all that sounds kooky then maybe that's because it is. I simply do not fucking know the answers but I know in my heart that ideas like this increasingly make sense to me, even if many will intrinsically reject them. Fiction, and especially via literature, is my primary avenue at this point for exploring spirituality, the numinous that I know exists even if I, like Sybil (though hopefully not to her egomaniacal extent) am forever in search of its true essence, an essence I know I will never locate but keep hubristically trying to do so anyway as that is the drive of humans. Through fiction, to me, it just makes sense. In the Transmission chapters, Joines literally creates the world she sees through words, it is words that guide her on a spiritual journey. How else am I supposed to understand anything when I literally do not have essentially anything in my life except words?
Like I mentioned earlier, believing this is All There Is is not only not an option for me, it wouldn't even make sense to me anymore partially because of fiction. After all, a book like this exists - a novel that connects and communicates two people who don't know each other, me and the author, but can theoretically do that INFINITELY because of the nature of reading and how a deeply subjective personal experience informs the entire ritual of reading - and this is what all books do. Books are worlds created by people, but they are recreated, expanded upon infinitely not only with every reader, but every single time any of their words are read. If the human brain can create words that become worlds, that we can conceive of infinities through fiction, then I have to believe this is partially evidence that infinity exists. That this is not the end, that there are new worlds waiting for me and others beyond the human brain. If a feeble creature like a human can replicate infinity, and more or less accidentally, through words on a page about people who don't even exist on this plane, then believing that there's something more is only natural, as our bodies and minds are far from the center of the universe, yet are capable of creating universes on their own terms. Like, I don't think it's just an idea, I think it's something to really really think about, and something I want to keep thinking about and developing my own personal philosophy on.
I should hate the Headmistress, especially since she's an abusive teacher, a kind of person I've long struggled with trauma from. But vile as she is, it's difficult not to be invested in her journey when so many of the conclusions I've come to since diagnosis are similar to the ones she came to. I do wholeheartedly want to not exist as the being I am now. Of course where we differ is intent, where Sybil views others as tools in her goal to transcend the body, I instead hope a transcendence for me could free those I love from the burden of having to watch me inhabit this shell. If I could become a spirit, somehow stay here and watch over the ones I love without having to suffer anymore, then I would choose that existence in a heartbeat, to just stop waking up to the everlasting horrorshow of having a body. I think that's where a lot of my spiritual thinking comes from, that desire to be gathered back into the Everything, my essence still here, belonging to the universe as an abstraction rather than a defined form, but not Leaving, not really. But I don't know what's on the other side, and I never will until I get there. Life is a nightmare, but the nightmare does contain books like this one, and the infinities that can be experienced within it, and while I do hope there's another side to all of this, knowing that I can at least experience stories, and the spirituality of words and language that represents that realm I so desperately want to inhabit but just have to wait and hope, is enough to keep me here.
Enough of me, I think in general it's just incredibly refreshing to see a post-millennium American author write this sort of book. The modern trend in American publishing would probably be hostile or at least ambivalent toward something as dense, experimental and committed to its digressive postmodern structure as this is, especially when the narrative is as dedicated as it is to its supernatural occult fixations. I read that it took Shelley Jackson over a decade to write this and it really shows as it's the kind of book that's so thorough and complexly conceived that any novelist would be happy to have it under their belt. Cutting through all my amateur philosophizing, this book is an aesthetic masterpiece period, adjacent to "weird fiction" though also moving far beyond the pulp mechanics of weird lit and becoming something entirely itself, a mind boggling chimera between occult theory fiction and postmodernism via the framework of gothic storytelling whose central idea is always at the forefront of the events, but written in a way that allows the book to traverse various divergent themes that are held together by a passionate, indeed religious, dedication to Jackson's conception of "necrophysics". It's an endlessly captivating character study featuring some of the undoubtedly best prose I've read in a post-2010 novel, complex and dense but still crystal clear in what it communicates, even as many of its linguistic mysteries are appropriately left open. It's also very funny and witty in the midst of all its morbidity, like all the best books. This is the kind of novel that needs a wider readership - Jackson seems to be an unsung cousin of the whole school of "weird theory" that's been circulating in underground literature for a little bit now, the Ciscos and Butlers etc, and judging by this book she undeniably deserves to be named among the higher echelons of the style.
Sorry about this review - I went into this thinking I would speak less about myself, but it sort of ended up being inevitable given how personally resonant this was. I struggle to think of who exactly I'd recommend this to in terms of demographics, it's not hard to see why this is niche, as it's very committed to that esoteric central thesis like I said, doesn't hold the reader's hand in explaining its main ideas and is a slow burn, and I could see it not appealing at all to people who aren't inclined to something as theory-and-philosophy-heavy as this is. It is, however, unlike anything else, even among its metafictional contemporaries, and is probably very worth reading for anyone who finds comfort in the idea of transcending reality and the misery of physicality through fiction, through the abstract. I will no doubt be revisiting this one as well as making Jackson a priority author in 2024; what I would have assumed would be an enjoyable October read ended up being a deeply resonant favorite for me. Challenging but endlessly compelling, absurd and creative, and gives voice to thoughts I've had about life that I never properly articulated; this is everything I want out of a modern novel.
"Maybe this is why I like the long lost better than the living. I would not want them back: I like them just because they're lost. The dead are not quite there, and it is being there that's what is wrong with the living. We are too much with us. The truest part of me was trained on that crystal world outside me, or even was that world. Sticks and berries. . . Why weigh them down with meat and bone? The Long Pig of the self? Too, too solid. A wasting sickness, I thought, was the way to die. To melt, to cease, to suck your own bones dry. To wear at last so thin that you can see the world through your almost unfogged flesh. Then, when you are crystal clear, to die."
February 10, 2020
“...I had the uncanny feeling that the SJVS [Sybil Joines Vocational School] was created expressly for me, was summoned forth by my interest in it, towing its history behind it like a placenta.”
This book took me down the rabbit hole on an unforgettable journey. But to be honest, when I first began reading it, I was so confused. I didn’t know if I were reading the story or some sort of foreword or preface. Nothing made much sense. I kept reading in hopes that the veil would lift and I’d finally understand what was going on. Though confusing, the things I read about fascinated me so I continued on, piecing together an idea of what was transpiring. It wasn’t until I was well into the story that I finally understood—and appreciated—the fact that this story is not written as a typical book, with a plot, conflict and resolution. Instead, I would liken it to an epic fantastical mystery. It is not action-packed yet somehow still manages to be thrilling and immersive.
Through various documents, including letters to dead authors (no, that’s not a mistake!), readers come to know Sybil Joines, a woman who suffered a painfully cruel upbringing due to her speech impediment. She is the headmistress of a bizarre school called The Sybil Joines Vocational School for Ghost Speakers & Hearing-Mouth Children, where kids who stutter are invited to partake in an entirely different sort of curriculum whereby they are trained to communicate with, or rather, speak for the dead.
The concepts are unique and often philosophical, pondering life and death. The contraptions introduced are wildly imaginative which makes reading about their usage entertaining (and sometimes humorous).
This book is very well written and highly engrossing despite its slow pacing. It has an air of mystery within a creepy atmosphere. Readers will undoubtedly struggle at times to make sense from the seemingly senseless but somehow the author even succeeds at making those challenges enjoyable.
It’s a shame that this book has so many low ratings and negative reviews. I readers need to approach this one with an open mind and plenty of patience. It might take a while but the journey is worth taking.
This book took me down the rabbit hole on an unforgettable journey. But to be honest, when I first began reading it, I was so confused. I didn’t know if I were reading the story or some sort of foreword or preface. Nothing made much sense. I kept reading in hopes that the veil would lift and I’d finally understand what was going on. Though confusing, the things I read about fascinated me so I continued on, piecing together an idea of what was transpiring. It wasn’t until I was well into the story that I finally understood—and appreciated—the fact that this story is not written as a typical book, with a plot, conflict and resolution. Instead, I would liken it to an epic fantastical mystery. It is not action-packed yet somehow still manages to be thrilling and immersive.
Through various documents, including letters to dead authors (no, that’s not a mistake!), readers come to know Sybil Joines, a woman who suffered a painfully cruel upbringing due to her speech impediment. She is the headmistress of a bizarre school called The Sybil Joines Vocational School for Ghost Speakers & Hearing-Mouth Children, where kids who stutter are invited to partake in an entirely different sort of curriculum whereby they are trained to communicate with, or rather, speak for the dead.
The concepts are unique and often philosophical, pondering life and death. The contraptions introduced are wildly imaginative which makes reading about their usage entertaining (and sometimes humorous).
This book is very well written and highly engrossing despite its slow pacing. It has an air of mystery within a creepy atmosphere. Readers will undoubtedly struggle at times to make sense from the seemingly senseless but somehow the author even succeeds at making those challenges enjoyable.
It’s a shame that this book has so many low ratings and negative reviews. I readers need to approach this one with an open mind and plenty of patience. It might take a while but the journey is worth taking.
December 2, 2019
DNF. I tried. I really did. The concept was more than intriguing, and I love a creepy slow-burn of a story. This was not creepy, nor was it a slow-burn, because that would imply some movement at all. At 142 pages in, I've been introduced to the two main characters, learned something of their very traumatic childhoods, and passed by a host of obnoxiously obtuse and interchangeable minor characters. There might be a missing girl? Honestly, I've lost track of all these threads, which the author has given me no reason to care about.
Another review (glowingly) referred to the prose as "chewy". Respectfully, I disagree. It's just pretension, and a clunky pretension at that. I have a decent vocabulary and felt like I was getting tested on every page. I'm wondering if the author is aware that people usually read novels for pleasure?
Honestly, I could do pretentious prose or I could do the total lack of plot/movement/characterization. I cannot do both.
Another review (glowingly) referred to the prose as "chewy". Respectfully, I disagree. It's just pretension, and a clunky pretension at that. I have a decent vocabulary and felt like I was getting tested on every page. I'm wondering if the author is aware that people usually read novels for pleasure?
Honestly, I could do pretentious prose or I could do the total lack of plot/movement/characterization. I cannot do both.
February 3, 2019
While I did not enjoy this book I appreciate the incredible imagination that went into building this intricate and complex story. Unfortunately I found the writing tedious and impenetrable. I finished and loved "House of Leaves" so I have a pretty high tolerance for this type of literary device but in this case it didn't take very long for me not to care. I had such high hopes for this book and it just didn't work for me.
i-want-money
February 2, 2019Someone I'm very eager to start reading one of these days. Especially of course the Burtonesque sounding The Melancholy of Anatomy.
Meanwhile, this her latest reviewed by Daniel Green ::
http://www.full-stop.net/2019/01/31/r...
Meanwhile, this her latest reviewed by Daniel Green ::
http://www.full-stop.net/2019/01/31/r...
April 22, 2018
Like a voice from another world... that pulls you into that world, Riddance is hypnotizing. You won't want to wake up.
dnf
October 13, 2018Amazing concept, but this format is a struggle for me. Riddance is not a bad book in the slightest, but I'm not the right reader.
February 16, 2020
4.5 stars
January 2, 2020
I desperately wanted to love this book. Spiritualism + a spooky school full of displaced children with special powers + a form of time travel...this should have resulted in a novel directly within my wheelhouse. Instead, I found myself frustrated with its meandering pseudoscience and lack of plot. The format of the book is appealing at first: an academic and historical dive into events that occurred at the Sybil Joines Vocational School for Ghost Speakers & Hearing-Mouth Children (which, truly, is a fantastic name for a gothic boarding school). However, the author ultimately focused far too much effort on explaining the logistics of her created pseudoscience, especially towards the end of the novel. This was wildly annoying, because at that point, I got it and just wanted to know what actually happened those final fateful nights. I definitely agree with other reviews here. It seems as though the author was trying too hard to be “literary” and forgot that a compelling plot is what drives most readers to finish a novel. I forced myself to complete it, which was sheer stubbornness on my part, but would likely not read it again.
October 17, 2018
This story starts with an "editor" in the present day, who comes across the Sybil Joines Vocational School for Ghost Speakers & Hearing-Mouth Children (SJVS) through a newspaper clipping inside a book at a rare/used bookstore, then becomes curious about said school, starts researching it, and ends up finding references to it everywhere (including an online review of a pair of loafers). The subject of the newspaper clipping is a murder at SJVS, and that mystery becomes the central focus of the remainder of the novel. Kind of.
I've seen Riddance compared to the Miss Peregrine's series, and while I definitely acknowledge some similarities, mainly the "school for children who are different, run by an eccentric woman who becomes something of a mother figure," there's SO much more than that going on here.
Forget straightforward linear narrative. We receive the story of SJVS, Sybil Joines herself, the stenographer (a student at the school, Jane Grandison), the land of the dead, and the murder alluded to in the "Editor's Introduction" via alternating sections:
• "The Final Dispatch," dictated by Sybil Joines from the land of the dead and recorded by Grandison
• "The Stenographer's Story," which gives a bit of Grandison's own childhood background and experience at SJVS
• Various readings, including snippets from "A Visitor's Observations" about the school and faux-scientific explanations of necrophysics, and
• "Letters to Dead Authors," in which Sybil Joines writes to Herman Melville, Charlotte Bronte, Edgar Allan Poe, and others
The continual rotation between the above perspectives, periodically interspersed with photos, diagrams, and "historical documents," creates a very slowly-forming picture of the school, its history and inhabitants, and the murder in question. There are also a few inserted "editor's notes," which add to the feeling that SJVS was a real place and this murder a real crime. I thought the structure was an inventive and effective choice on Jackson's part, and I really enjoyed it.
I can't get over how well thought out this novel was. On top of being entertaining and spooky, which is pretty much always what I want from an autumn read, it has some fun "science" that made my brain hurt after a while (the dead, versus the dead dead, and the dead dead dead), an extremely unsettling atmosphere, and a lot of ideas to stew over (the nature of the "self," the meaning of (self-)erasure, and the white-washing of history, just to name a few). I feel like this is one that merits an immediate re-read, so you can experience the beginning with the increased understanding you ended with. If you're into all things dreary, uncanny, and supernatural, I definitely recommend it.
I've seen Riddance compared to the Miss Peregrine's series, and while I definitely acknowledge some similarities, mainly the "school for children who are different, run by an eccentric woman who becomes something of a mother figure," there's SO much more than that going on here.
Forget straightforward linear narrative. We receive the story of SJVS, Sybil Joines herself, the stenographer (a student at the school, Jane Grandison), the land of the dead, and the murder alluded to in the "Editor's Introduction" via alternating sections:
• "The Final Dispatch," dictated by Sybil Joines from the land of the dead and recorded by Grandison
• "The Stenographer's Story," which gives a bit of Grandison's own childhood background and experience at SJVS
• Various readings, including snippets from "A Visitor's Observations" about the school and faux-scientific explanations of necrophysics, and
• "Letters to Dead Authors," in which Sybil Joines writes to Herman Melville, Charlotte Bronte, Edgar Allan Poe, and others
The continual rotation between the above perspectives, periodically interspersed with photos, diagrams, and "historical documents," creates a very slowly-forming picture of the school, its history and inhabitants, and the murder in question. There are also a few inserted "editor's notes," which add to the feeling that SJVS was a real place and this murder a real crime. I thought the structure was an inventive and effective choice on Jackson's part, and I really enjoyed it.
I can't get over how well thought out this novel was. On top of being entertaining and spooky, which is pretty much always what I want from an autumn read, it has some fun "science" that made my brain hurt after a while (the dead, versus the dead dead, and the dead dead dead), an extremely unsettling atmosphere, and a lot of ideas to stew over (the nature of the "self," the meaning of (self-)erasure, and the white-washing of history, just to name a few). I feel like this is one that merits an immediate re-read, so you can experience the beginning with the increased understanding you ended with. If you're into all things dreary, uncanny, and supernatural, I definitely recommend it.
November 13, 2018
I really wanted to love this book. Instead I skimmed to even finish it. Maybe others will enjoy it more.
June 2, 2024
Vedere voti così bassi a questo gran libro è una sofferenza, ma è perché ha raggiunto i lettori sbagliati
October 23, 2025
“Che cos’è il linguaggio, se non il blaterare senza fine dei morti? Adesso, a sorprendermi davvero, sarebbe che qualcuno dicesse qualcosa di nuovo.”
All’inizio Riddance mi ha ricordato I bambini Indaco di Clemens J. Setz, ma è un paragone che non regge, perché il libro di Setz è un romanzo normale e accessibile, mentre Riddance si presenta esattamente come la sua copertina: complesso da decifrare e anche da catalogare. È un saggio, un trattato, un romanzo postmoderno, a tratti anche un manuale. È un libro che parla di linguaggio, che diventa materia anche in senso stretto. È anche un libro sull’incomunicabilità, sull’emarginazione, sull’elaborazione del passato, sulla scrittura e sulla morte. E chissà quante altre cose diventerà nella mia testa, ora che l’ho finito, perché l’autrice scrive da profondità irraggiungibili e la sua voce si sente anche a libro chiuso.
Io la vedo Shelley Jackson, che lavora a Riddance per 12 anni e questo nel frattempo diventa una creatura organica, irrequieta e multiforme; la materializzazione della storia che aveva in mente. Capiamo subito che è qualcosa di “vivo”, sebbene parli di morti. Nell’istituto professionale al centro della storia, i bambini balbuzienti danno voce ai defunti. Attraverso trascrizioni, ritagli di giornale, fotografie, lettere ecc., Jackson ci racconta tutto di un argomento di cui non sappiamo nulla.
Non è stata una lettura facile, sono ritornata più volte sugli stessi passaggi e penso che lo rileggerò. Certe sessioni di lettura duravano 3 pagine. Richiede silenzio e immersione. È un’opera d’arte e di ricerca che proviene da una mente creativa come poche ce ne sono in letteratura. La prosa è ipnotica e ricercata, merito anche della traduzione sublime di Valentina Maini.
Se cercate qualcosa di davvero, ma davvero, fuori dalla vostra comfort zone, qualunque essa sia, dovete leggere questo libro.
All’inizio Riddance mi ha ricordato I bambini Indaco di Clemens J. Setz, ma è un paragone che non regge, perché il libro di Setz è un romanzo normale e accessibile, mentre Riddance si presenta esattamente come la sua copertina: complesso da decifrare e anche da catalogare. È un saggio, un trattato, un romanzo postmoderno, a tratti anche un manuale. È un libro che parla di linguaggio, che diventa materia anche in senso stretto. È anche un libro sull’incomunicabilità, sull’emarginazione, sull’elaborazione del passato, sulla scrittura e sulla morte. E chissà quante altre cose diventerà nella mia testa, ora che l’ho finito, perché l’autrice scrive da profondità irraggiungibili e la sua voce si sente anche a libro chiuso.
Io la vedo Shelley Jackson, che lavora a Riddance per 12 anni e questo nel frattempo diventa una creatura organica, irrequieta e multiforme; la materializzazione della storia che aveva in mente. Capiamo subito che è qualcosa di “vivo”, sebbene parli di morti. Nell’istituto professionale al centro della storia, i bambini balbuzienti danno voce ai defunti. Attraverso trascrizioni, ritagli di giornale, fotografie, lettere ecc., Jackson ci racconta tutto di un argomento di cui non sappiamo nulla.
Non è stata una lettura facile, sono ritornata più volte sugli stessi passaggi e penso che lo rileggerò. Certe sessioni di lettura duravano 3 pagine. Richiede silenzio e immersione. È un’opera d’arte e di ricerca che proviene da una mente creativa come poche ce ne sono in letteratura. La prosa è ipnotica e ricercata, merito anche della traduzione sublime di Valentina Maini.
Se cercate qualcosa di davvero, ma davvero, fuori dalla vostra comfort zone, qualunque essa sia, dovete leggere questo libro.
January 23, 2019
I felt about this book the same way I felt about the movie Stalker: the drudgery and repetition are part of the point, and you either are super into it or you hate it.
I'm super into it, so I loved this. But I understand why other people didn't.
I will also warn folks that there is some really upsetting animal cruelty that is necessary to the plot but very unpleasant to read. You can easily skip it, because it's obvious that it's coming and the really bad stuff is all in the same paragraph.
Overall, though: what an amazing idea. And what amazing characters.
I'm super into it, so I loved this. But I understand why other people didn't.
I will also warn folks that there is some really upsetting animal cruelty that is necessary to the plot but very unpleasant to read. You can easily skip it, because it's obvious that it's coming and the really bad stuff is all in the same paragraph.
Overall, though: what an amazing idea. And what amazing characters.
February 18, 2019
This is one weird book. In a good way.
It has many voices: Sybil Joines herself, her (Black) student, amanuensis, and next-in-line, the man who is assessing the place, and the author, who is writing its history.
What is the "place"? It's in the title--a school for children who stutter, who can channel ghosts. They can even go through their own mouths into the world of ghosts. Which might be another world. Or another of many worlds.
Not an easy read, and the pictures add to the strangeness. But worth the trouble.
It has many voices: Sybil Joines herself, her (Black) student, amanuensis, and next-in-line, the man who is assessing the place, and the author, who is writing its history.
What is the "place"? It's in the title--a school for children who stutter, who can channel ghosts. They can even go through their own mouths into the world of ghosts. Which might be another world. Or another of many worlds.
Not an easy read, and the pictures add to the strangeness. But worth the trouble.
December 26, 2024
Che cazzo ho letto.
Probably il miglior libro di quest'anno. Cioè Shelley Jackson parte con una roba abbastanza tipica delle storie gotiche e dopo manco 20 pagine ti ritrovi una prosa di alto livello con svariati meta livelli, inaffidabilità a manetta e disquisizioni sulla morte che è la scrittura che la vita che è l'horror vacui. Sarebbe da leggere in originale/rileggere per beccare ulteriori indizi o Easter eggs. Una roba very gourmet.
Probably il miglior libro di quest'anno. Cioè Shelley Jackson parte con una roba abbastanza tipica delle storie gotiche e dopo manco 20 pagine ti ritrovi una prosa di alto livello con svariati meta livelli, inaffidabilità a manetta e disquisizioni sulla morte che è la scrittura che la vita che è l'horror vacui. Sarebbe da leggere in originale/rileggere per beccare ulteriori indizi o Easter eggs. Una roba very gourmet.
June 11, 2019
a 500 page treatise on time, language, identity, history - not for the casual reader (for the reader of: Heidegger, Ben Marcus, Tyehimba Jess, Thalia Field) - one of the heaviest books of the new millennium
May 26, 2022
Riddance revolves around a strange school in which children with stutters are trained to become spirit mediums. (Stutterers are particularly suited for the task, as their difficulty speaking in their own voices provides space for the dead to speak through them.) In particular, it recounts the life stories of Sybil Joines, a white woman who founded the school in the late 1800s and serves as its headmistress, and Jane Grandison, a mixed-race student who becomes the Headmistress's amanuensis and aspires to one day succeed her in running the school. Along the way, it provides lengthy disquisitions on the nature and purpose of language.
In theory, it seems that the Headmistress and Grandison are supposed to share the role of protagonist. In practice, it is much more Sybil's story than Grandison's -- even if their life stories are given equal page time (I didn't count), the inclusion of Sybil's correspondence and transcripts of her journeys through the Land of the Dead give her more focus. She also seems a more central figure, narratively, than Grandison. In particular, it is established through a frame narrative by a modern scholar researching the school that every successive headmistress is Sybil; that is, their job is to channel Sybil so that she may continue running the school after her death. Thus, Grandison's ambition (which she does, ultimately, achieve) is to abnegate her own identity to become a vessel for Sybil.
In Grandison's narrative, she explicitly raises several questions about race in the context of spirit-channeling that the novel then immediately drops and never returns to. Why, she asks, are all the spirits channeled by Sybil and her students white people who are fluent English-speakers? The reader will never know, as the issue is not explored -- simply mentioned and then forgotten. What, she wonders briefly, does it mean for her as a mixed-race person to become the headmistress and allow a white woman to speak through her? Is the opportunity for a position of authority worth that cost? This issue, too, is never mentioned again, and the reader is not privy to the thought processes that lead her to go through with it in the end.
In addition, for a novel that purports to be about language, it seems to have very little understanding of linguistics. Of course, it is possible to talk about language in a literary sense without delving into linguistics, but the problem is that the novel does attempt to get into topics such as grammars and writing systems, and when it does, the lack of research is evident. For example, the Headmistress at one point creates a writing system for English based on drawings of the mouth and tongue positions required to make a given sound. This is described as resulting in twenty-six characters, one for each letter of the alphabet. The problem is that sounds (or, in linguistics terms, phonemes) in English don't correspond neatly to the alphabet at all -- standard American English has thirty-eight to forty different phonemes. And I'm sorry, but if you don't know the difference between a phoneme and a grapheme, I am not interested in anything you have to say about writing systems. This is basic stuff.
Ultimately, despite an intriguing concept, Riddance fell flat on several counts, and I felt its halfhearted attempts to address racial issues were almost worse than not mentioning them at all.
In theory, it seems that the Headmistress and Grandison are supposed to share the role of protagonist. In practice, it is much more Sybil's story than Grandison's -- even if their life stories are given equal page time (I didn't count), the inclusion of Sybil's correspondence and transcripts of her journeys through the Land of the Dead give her more focus. She also seems a more central figure, narratively, than Grandison. In particular, it is established through a frame narrative by a modern scholar researching the school that every successive headmistress is Sybil; that is, their job is to channel Sybil so that she may continue running the school after her death. Thus, Grandison's ambition (which she does, ultimately, achieve) is to abnegate her own identity to become a vessel for Sybil.
In Grandison's narrative, she explicitly raises several questions about race in the context of spirit-channeling that the novel then immediately drops and never returns to. Why, she asks, are all the spirits channeled by Sybil and her students white people who are fluent English-speakers? The reader will never know, as the issue is not explored -- simply mentioned and then forgotten. What, she wonders briefly, does it mean for her as a mixed-race person to become the headmistress and allow a white woman to speak through her? Is the opportunity for a position of authority worth that cost? This issue, too, is never mentioned again, and the reader is not privy to the thought processes that lead her to go through with it in the end.
In addition, for a novel that purports to be about language, it seems to have very little understanding of linguistics. Of course, it is possible to talk about language in a literary sense without delving into linguistics, but the problem is that the novel does attempt to get into topics such as grammars and writing systems, and when it does, the lack of research is evident. For example, the Headmistress at one point creates a writing system for English based on drawings of the mouth and tongue positions required to make a given sound. This is described as resulting in twenty-six characters, one for each letter of the alphabet. The problem is that sounds (or, in linguistics terms, phonemes) in English don't correspond neatly to the alphabet at all -- standard American English has thirty-eight to forty different phonemes. And I'm sorry, but if you don't know the difference between a phoneme and a grapheme, I am not interested in anything you have to say about writing systems. This is basic stuff.
Ultimately, despite an intriguing concept, Riddance fell flat on several counts, and I felt its halfhearted attempts to address racial issues were almost worse than not mentioning them at all.
December 10, 2020
Sybil Joines Vocational School teaches children with stutters to speak for the dead. Spiritualism, stutters, found documents, hidden pasts, and a mouth/necronautical aesthetic which is creative and frequently gross--there's a lot going on here, and it makes for a hot mess of a book. It's unnecessarily long, and while some elements combine well, primarily the two pseudo-simultaneous narratives converging in the climax, I wish others were pared down. The school ephemera grows particularly weird--it's a distinct aesthetic! and in dedication to that aesthetic, one of the more successful "found document" multimedia books I've read. But it's also a bizarre aesthetic, gross and farcical, and it overwhelms the weird elements which are more evocative, like the unusual landscapes of the dead, where self-narrative creates reality; like the language of "hearing-mouth," the dead-speakers folding into their own mouths, the recursive potential of the living speaking the dead speaking the dead speaking....
At its best, this is like nothing I've read, utterly unique in imagery, a tactile take on spiritualism and a critical look at how the empowerment of spiritualism failed to apply to children and people of color, more interested in the living's relationship with death/language/narrative than in plot. At its worst, this is like nothing I've read because it's a crowded mess, overreaching for the sake of novelty, a sort of gritty, satirical approach to kitsch. I suspect my response to the balance of these elements is negatively impacted by my lack of humor. I'm ambivalent--but glad to have read it--but I wouldn't recommend it, not really. 2.5 stars, rounded.
At its best, this is like nothing I've read, utterly unique in imagery, a tactile take on spiritualism and a critical look at how the empowerment of spiritualism failed to apply to children and people of color, more interested in the living's relationship with death/language/narrative than in plot. At its worst, this is like nothing I've read because it's a crowded mess, overreaching for the sake of novelty, a sort of gritty, satirical approach to kitsch. I suspect my response to the balance of these elements is negatively impacted by my lack of humor. I'm ambivalent--but glad to have read it--but I wouldn't recommend it, not really. 2.5 stars, rounded.
November 16, 2025
Questo libro si legge, si ascolta, si attraversa, è un’esperienza sensoriale sperimentale che sorprende e commuove sia per la forma sia per il contenuto.
L’imperfezione diventa strumento per conoscere sé stessi nel profondo e varcare quel confine che separa la vita dalla morte.
La storia si svolge in una scuola per bambini balbuzienti diretta da Sybil Joines, una figura misteriosa che affascina e repelle.
Jackson utilizza varie forme narrative (racconti, trascrizioni, lettere a scrittori/scrittrici morti…) per costruire un labirinto di voci, echi e risonanze, dove perdersi a riflettere sull’uso delle parole permette di dare senso a ciò che sfugge dalla realtà perché appartenente al piano del mistero insondabile.
Un libro sulla possibilità di varcare una soglia e tornare indietro, azione che nella realtà è rara
Pensieri sul margine, sull’originalità, sul valore di ciò che normalmente potrebbe essere considerato un difetto si alternano con silenzi e sussurri.
Riddance è anche una storia di fantasmi, offre prospettive sulla morte e in un mondo di apparenze svuotate è luce sul niente che è infinito. L’eco di chi ci ha preceduto che si manifesta in gesti quotidiani.
Ogni granello ha un’anima, ogni parola ha un peso.
Un libro che insegna ad ascoltare ciò che ci sta intorno, anche ciò che non comunica con un linguaggio convenzionale. Ascolto dello spazio, sia vuoto sia pieno.
Trasgressivo. Ardente. Beatitudine. Per pochi.
Per chiunque a patto che non si sforzi di capire ma si lasci possedere.
L’imperfezione diventa strumento per conoscere sé stessi nel profondo e varcare quel confine che separa la vita dalla morte.
La storia si svolge in una scuola per bambini balbuzienti diretta da Sybil Joines, una figura misteriosa che affascina e repelle.
Jackson utilizza varie forme narrative (racconti, trascrizioni, lettere a scrittori/scrittrici morti…) per costruire un labirinto di voci, echi e risonanze, dove perdersi a riflettere sull’uso delle parole permette di dare senso a ciò che sfugge dalla realtà perché appartenente al piano del mistero insondabile.
Un libro sulla possibilità di varcare una soglia e tornare indietro, azione che nella realtà è rara
Pensieri sul margine, sull’originalità, sul valore di ciò che normalmente potrebbe essere considerato un difetto si alternano con silenzi e sussurri.
Riddance è anche una storia di fantasmi, offre prospettive sulla morte e in un mondo di apparenze svuotate è luce sul niente che è infinito. L’eco di chi ci ha preceduto che si manifesta in gesti quotidiani.
Ogni granello ha un’anima, ogni parola ha un peso.
Un libro che insegna ad ascoltare ciò che ci sta intorno, anche ciò che non comunica con un linguaggio convenzionale. Ascolto dello spazio, sia vuoto sia pieno.
Trasgressivo. Ardente. Beatitudine. Per pochi.
Per chiunque a patto che non si sforzi di capire ma si lasci possedere.
March 9, 2020
3.5 stars
I'm not sure where to start. If I were forced to describe the "plot," I'd tell you that it was about a missing girl at a school where children who stutter are taught to channel the dead.
But that's really just window dressing. This is a book about language. Imagine your brilliant, philosophically-minded best friend wrote a novel about a ghost story. The friend who often goes on tangents about things you know are very smart, but are way over your head. That's this book.
I went back and forth between being enthralled by Jackson's use of language and bored to tears by scientific mumbo jumbo.
In short, Riddance is delightfully, gleefully up its own ass.
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