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The Book of All Hours #1
Pergament
Románový debut Hala Duncana, první díl dvoudílné série Kniha všech hodin, upoutal především netradičním zobrazením věčného boje krutých sil nadpřirozena.
Lidstvo čelí v roce 2017 příchodu konce světa a naději vidí pouze v úniku do rozsáhlé říše Pergament. Mezi nepochopitelnými silami se rozpoutává bezohledný boj, v němž jsou lidé pouhými diváky, zcela nepodstatnou položkou, protože zde nejde o boj mezi dobrem a zlem, vždyť obě mocnosti od sebe v tomto směru lze rozlišit jen stěží. Na řadě je bezohlednost a touha po přežití, jen ve vzácných případech se jednotlivci dokážou chovat ve prospěch lidstva jako celku, obětovat vlastní život či duši beze stínu sobectví. Duncanovo dílo se soustředí spíše na formu než na děj, velmi důležitou složkou je tu jazyk samotný, spletitý a nádherný, někdy až hypnotizující, ale přesto či snad právě proto jde o skvělé čtení, které nikoho nenechá klidným, klade totiž mnoho zajímavých otázek. Nemusíte se bát, tohle není žádný náboženský či moralizující text, Pergament je mnohem víc než to, je to vstup do říše, jakou jste ještě nikdy nenavštívili.
Skvěle přeložil Richard Podaný.
Lidstvo čelí v roce 2017 příchodu konce světa a naději vidí pouze v úniku do rozsáhlé říše Pergament. Mezi nepochopitelnými silami se rozpoutává bezohledný boj, v němž jsou lidé pouhými diváky, zcela nepodstatnou položkou, protože zde nejde o boj mezi dobrem a zlem, vždyť obě mocnosti od sebe v tomto směru lze rozlišit jen stěží. Na řadě je bezohlednost a touha po přežití, jen ve vzácných případech se jednotlivci dokážou chovat ve prospěch lidstva jako celku, obětovat vlastní život či duši beze stínu sobectví. Duncanovo dílo se soustředí spíše na formu než na děj, velmi důležitou složkou je tu jazyk samotný, spletitý a nádherný, někdy až hypnotizující, ale přesto či snad právě proto jde o skvělé čtení, které nikoho nenechá klidným, klade totiž mnoho zajímavých otázek. Nemusíte se bát, tohle není žádný náboženský či moralizující text, Pergament je mnohem víc než to, je to vstup do říše, jakou jste ještě nikdy nenavštívili.
Skvěle přeložil Richard Podaný.
441 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
138 people are currently reading
3098 people want to read
About the author
Hal Duncan
77 books132 followersHal Duncan is the author of Vellum, which was a finalist for both the William H. Crawford Award and the Locus Award for Best First Novel. He is a member of the Glasgow SF Writers’ Circle. He lives in the West End of Glasgow.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 326 reviews
April 3, 2016
One of my all-time favorite books ever which, as I've noticed is becoming somewhat of a trend when i adore a book, has a low rating on here. I have no idea why my tastes are dissimilar to the majority of readers out there. But from the dozens of crappy cookie-cutter books I see on here that have near perfect ratings,(for reasons that are simply beyond me), I am eternally grateful that they are. I liked the sequel too, but this was leagues better
April 28, 2008
This book was actually painful to read. I'm not entirely sure why I didn't just put it down. It was like reading modern art or listening to modern music, which, if you're into it, is fine, but if you're not, you just see something meaningless or hear disharmonies, that's only art or music because someone said so. Reading this, I felt like Duncan wrote bits of assorted stories on cards and then shuffled them together and called it a book. Some of the bits are chronological, some of them even make sense. Some involve the same characters, although it's hard to always be sure, since everyone seems to have the same name, or to change names several times. But it's not a narrative. There are bits, no more than a few pages each time that tell a coherent story, and the only reason I give this book even part of a star is because some of these bits are good. If he'd stuck with one of these ideas and fleshed it out, instead of flitting all over the place, Duncan might have had something worth reading.
April 21, 2008
The war in heaven and on earth (and on multiple variations of earth) between the old-school archangels, the rebel demons and the conscientious objectors.
This is an amazing book. It's almost impossible to describe, but the closest I can come is that it's like a mixture of Gibson and King's The Stand and the movie Dogma (if it took itself seriously) with elements of Godot thrown in when the characters from the prologue keep showing up throughout the book on an endless journey through a deserted eternity of possible worlds. (Sidebar -- My theory on that storyline is that it absolutely is a shout-out to Beckett, and that instead of waiting for God the characters are becoming God. Anyway.)
I can see why most of the reviewers on Amazon give this either five stars or one, because this book is a lot of work to read. The story is non-linear, there are multiple viewpoints and the scenes take place in multiple time-periods. I was never sure if the characters were the same people being re-born throughout one timeline, or if maybe all the stories were taking place simultaneously, or if maybe they weren't even the same people at all, just archetypes that needed to be re-enacted forever, but honestly? I don't think it really matters.
In the book, Duncan describes the Cant, or the language of all life -- the word of God made real -- as something that can be read up or down or left to right or right to left or as a pictograph beginning in the center. This book is the same way, in a sense. If you try too hard to figure it out, you'll probably get frustrated and give up. However, if you just read it and absorb it, it starts to make sense.
Like I said, it's a lot of work, and I admit I probably would have given up on this if it weren't one of the most beautifully written books I've read in years. Every few paragraphs I found a line I wanted to underline or read out loud to someone.
So in conclusion, I think Hal Duncan is a brilliant writer and that this is a brilliant book. I'm dying to find out what happens in the concluding volume, Ink, but I'm almost too exhausted by Vellum to read it right away. Highly, highly recommended.
This is an amazing book. It's almost impossible to describe, but the closest I can come is that it's like a mixture of Gibson and King's The Stand and the movie Dogma (if it took itself seriously) with elements of Godot thrown in when the characters from the prologue keep showing up throughout the book on an endless journey through a deserted eternity of possible worlds. (Sidebar -- My theory on that storyline is that it absolutely is a shout-out to Beckett, and that instead of waiting for God the characters are becoming God. Anyway.)
I can see why most of the reviewers on Amazon give this either five stars or one, because this book is a lot of work to read. The story is non-linear, there are multiple viewpoints and the scenes take place in multiple time-periods. I was never sure if the characters were the same people being re-born throughout one timeline, or if maybe all the stories were taking place simultaneously, or if maybe they weren't even the same people at all, just archetypes that needed to be re-enacted forever, but honestly? I don't think it really matters.
In the book, Duncan describes the Cant, or the language of all life -- the word of God made real -- as something that can be read up or down or left to right or right to left or as a pictograph beginning in the center. This book is the same way, in a sense. If you try too hard to figure it out, you'll probably get frustrated and give up. However, if you just read it and absorb it, it starts to make sense.
Like I said, it's a lot of work, and I admit I probably would have given up on this if it weren't one of the most beautifully written books I've read in years. Every few paragraphs I found a line I wanted to underline or read out loud to someone.
So in conclusion, I think Hal Duncan is a brilliant writer and that this is a brilliant book. I'm dying to find out what happens in the concluding volume, Ink, but I'm almost too exhausted by Vellum to read it right away. Highly, highly recommended.
February 19, 2009
I gave VELLUM a good go but in the end I realised it wasn't my cup of tea so I had to give it up after 100 pages. I appreciate the author's intent and his unconventional approach and his breadth of intellectual understanding is frequently astounding. But this is a novel lacking in the basic principles of a story: narrative, characterisation, dialogue, action. A bunch of expletive-driven characters exist in a lawless world, and both good and evil are as uninteresting as each other. The narrative jumps all over the place from the present to the future to the past and it's a book you have to really work at to fully understand but I just don't feel it's worth the effort. I'll be careful to avoid Duncan's work in future.
May 19, 2008
What a frustrating book! The words are so beautiful, the sentences are all finely crafted work... but when it's all thrown together, it is a big jumble of nothing in particular. It's the beginning of eight million (give or take) story lines and none of them seem to go anywhere. I tried to stay with it, but when there's nothing to grasp onto pretty sentences and engaging imagery are not enough to carry an entire novel.
August 6, 2025
The opening pages of this novel with its wonderful scene setting image of burning a map which all great film epics begin with once again absorbed me into this novel and my past. Once again I was ten year old utterly transfixed by lush, 'sweeping' Hollywood historical epics and sword and sandal tales. But unlike those cinematic epics which, even by the age of twelve, I realised were pinchbeck there is no cheap veneer covering the tawdry about 'Vellum'. It is an unalloyed pleasure and completely unique. I was afraid that I would be disillusioned but of 'Vellum' it can truly be said:
"Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety"
I have once again finished this novel...but how many novels instantly inspire a reader to put pen to paper? and I am well aware how much that phrase dates me.
I was afraid that reading the novel again after many years I would find it dated. After all it was written in the immediate aftermath of early 21st century events like 9/11 and the US (i.e. 'coalition' but I can't treat that bit of casuistry with anything but contempt). It is a tribute to Mr. Duncan's imagination that 'Vellum' seems more, not less relevant (of course it also sadly reflects how, let us say, unlike any future that those of us born in the mid to late twentieth century expected to see we are now living in).
To be honest I don't think a work like 'Vellum' would be published today. I can't help thinking that it was one of the last throws of a different publishing era. Would a 'fantasy' novel based on Sumerian, Roman and Greek legends and literature even make it out of a publisher's slush pile (do they still exist?). Would a novel, part one of two, so clearly Scottish in some of its settings and inspiration find favour? When the inspiration is John Maclean, a Scottish socialist, not Hollywood action man and the battles fought are all defeats like St. George's Square, Glasgow in 1919 and Spain 1936-39. All the passion is on and for left-wing causes and dreams. Who could forget Guernica? Who remembers Guernica? (more on that later).
I am sure the publishers, and Mr. Duncan, hoped that 'Vellum' would breathe new life and vigour into the rather moribund, in terms of inspiration, 'fantasy' genre. Unfortunately they had forgotten that the Leni Riefenstahl pastiche at the end of the first Star Wars film went largely unnoticed and there were no further attempts at cultural appropriation or referencing in the many, many dull sequels that followed.
There is no way to pretend that the novel is easy, it is about time/reality fracturing and splitting up into as many possibilities as there are imaginations and we view these different realities, times, places through the same characters, or at least their archetypes. There is not a simple or consistent narrative thread. There are multiple threads and tales and we never know when, or if, we ever were in a reality that corresponds to the one we live in? At one point when one character challenges a psychiatrist to tell him what Guernica means or about the war in Spain the psychiatrist doesn't know. Is this a reality where these things never happened, or happened and the memory was suppressed? or maybe just an example of how the cause celebre of one generation ceases to hold the attention of the next. Who now remembers Sebrenica, never mind how our soldiers stood by and allowed it to happen? (of course the families of the 8,000 dead boys and men remember but who else? 'dark tourists' maybe?).
I am not a great reader of the experimental or avant garde in story telling. Like most Irish people I pay tribute to James Joyce's experimental linguistic hyperbole by not reading him. Yet, and I don't compare Hal Duncan to Joyce, I loved this novel on my first reading (I have read it several times since). I was confused because it is confusing, there is no single narrative and it is only by taking it on its own terms that you will enjoy it. If your idea of 'fantasy' literature is the faux medievalisme of J.R. Tolkein's derivative, and way less talented, successors then this isn't a novel for you. It demands something from the reader. I certainly didn't get everything the first time and I was annoyed, and at first confused, that two of the characters, unrelated, have the same surname 'Carter' though that would change as their archetypes emerge and change.
I can't say enough to encourage you to read this novel. I have just pulled out my hard copy original and am amused the way the flyleaf goes out if it's way to talk of "...an incendiary masterpiece...multi-stranded, multi-charactered...that blows traditional concepts apart..." which back in 2005 I suspected that meant there was queer stuff going on but the publishers were not going to frighten off any of the sf/fantasy crowd who were notoriously conservative (homophobic to be honest) readers. I wasn't disappointed (and possibly a lot of closeted gay sf/fantasy readers weren't as well) when within less then a dozen pages you are introduced to Puck, the fairy fuck, and the central, if ever changing love interest who is at at the core of the novel and also a great deal of the mythology on which it is based and which has amusing and quite startling relevance to Christianity. The young god who dies and comes back has some fascinating roots. Although there is a central and important female character this is very much an old fashioned boys own adventure story and even the gay stuff is no more then making plain what all those novels like Coral Island were afraid to say.
Once more let me say I loved this novel when I discovered it 20 years ago (it is now 2025) and I still love it through many readings. It won't be for everyone but those who do like it will probably love it as much as I do.
"Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety"
I have once again finished this novel...but how many novels instantly inspire a reader to put pen to paper? and I am well aware how much that phrase dates me.
I was afraid that reading the novel again after many years I would find it dated. After all it was written in the immediate aftermath of early 21st century events like 9/11 and the US (i.e. 'coalition' but I can't treat that bit of casuistry with anything but contempt). It is a tribute to Mr. Duncan's imagination that 'Vellum' seems more, not less relevant (of course it also sadly reflects how, let us say, unlike any future that those of us born in the mid to late twentieth century expected to see we are now living in).
To be honest I don't think a work like 'Vellum' would be published today. I can't help thinking that it was one of the last throws of a different publishing era. Would a 'fantasy' novel based on Sumerian, Roman and Greek legends and literature even make it out of a publisher's slush pile (do they still exist?). Would a novel, part one of two, so clearly Scottish in some of its settings and inspiration find favour? When the inspiration is John Maclean, a Scottish socialist, not Hollywood action man and the battles fought are all defeats like St. George's Square, Glasgow in 1919 and Spain 1936-39. All the passion is on and for left-wing causes and dreams. Who could forget Guernica? Who remembers Guernica? (more on that later).
I am sure the publishers, and Mr. Duncan, hoped that 'Vellum' would breathe new life and vigour into the rather moribund, in terms of inspiration, 'fantasy' genre. Unfortunately they had forgotten that the Leni Riefenstahl pastiche at the end of the first Star Wars film went largely unnoticed and there were no further attempts at cultural appropriation or referencing in the many, many dull sequels that followed.
There is no way to pretend that the novel is easy, it is about time/reality fracturing and splitting up into as many possibilities as there are imaginations and we view these different realities, times, places through the same characters, or at least their archetypes. There is not a simple or consistent narrative thread. There are multiple threads and tales and we never know when, or if, we ever were in a reality that corresponds to the one we live in? At one point when one character challenges a psychiatrist to tell him what Guernica means or about the war in Spain the psychiatrist doesn't know. Is this a reality where these things never happened, or happened and the memory was suppressed? or maybe just an example of how the cause celebre of one generation ceases to hold the attention of the next. Who now remembers Sebrenica, never mind how our soldiers stood by and allowed it to happen? (of course the families of the 8,000 dead boys and men remember but who else? 'dark tourists' maybe?).
I am not a great reader of the experimental or avant garde in story telling. Like most Irish people I pay tribute to James Joyce's experimental linguistic hyperbole by not reading him. Yet, and I don't compare Hal Duncan to Joyce, I loved this novel on my first reading (I have read it several times since). I was confused because it is confusing, there is no single narrative and it is only by taking it on its own terms that you will enjoy it. If your idea of 'fantasy' literature is the faux medievalisme of J.R. Tolkein's derivative, and way less talented, successors then this isn't a novel for you. It demands something from the reader. I certainly didn't get everything the first time and I was annoyed, and at first confused, that two of the characters, unrelated, have the same surname 'Carter' though that would change as their archetypes emerge and change.
I can't say enough to encourage you to read this novel. I have just pulled out my hard copy original and am amused the way the flyleaf goes out if it's way to talk of "...an incendiary masterpiece...multi-stranded, multi-charactered...that blows traditional concepts apart..." which back in 2005 I suspected that meant there was queer stuff going on but the publishers were not going to frighten off any of the sf/fantasy crowd who were notoriously conservative (homophobic to be honest) readers. I wasn't disappointed (and possibly a lot of closeted gay sf/fantasy readers weren't as well) when within less then a dozen pages you are introduced to Puck, the fairy fuck, and the central, if ever changing love interest who is at at the core of the novel and also a great deal of the mythology on which it is based and which has amusing and quite startling relevance to Christianity. The young god who dies and comes back has some fascinating roots. Although there is a central and important female character this is very much an old fashioned boys own adventure story and even the gay stuff is no more then making plain what all those novels like Coral Island were afraid to say.
Once more let me say I loved this novel when I discovered it 20 years ago (it is now 2025) and I still love it through many readings. It won't be for everyone but those who do like it will probably love it as much as I do.
September 23, 2014
This was me the entire time I was reading this:
I mean seriously, ask me anything about this book and I'll be like "I don't know".
Who was the main character? I don't know. What was the plot? I don't know. How did it end? I don't know. What is the Book of all hours? I don't know. Why did the author switch between three different fonts? I DON'T KNOW.
Okay, it's my fault, torturing myself, because I could tell almost from the start I wouldn't like the book, but I kept reading because I do not leave books unfinished (DAMN YOU, ELL). The narrative is just ALL over the fucking place, jumping back and forth in time ALL THE TIME and I'm sure some people like that but it was just too much for me.
And also, switching between three different fonts? WHY!? Switching between first and third person!? NO! Switching WHO THE FIRST PERSON NARRATIVE WAS WITH NO EXPLANATION!? NO NO NO NO OH MY FUCKING GODS.
I don't know, there were gods and like fifteen different stories and they all seemed cool but not a single one of them was told, not one was concluded, and in the end I feel as if I've read fifteen first chapters or outlines for stories that went nowhere.
I don't know what the story was, I don't even know what the fucking the epilogue was about and that was the only part of the entire book where the story was told straight-forward, every paragraph directly referencing the one before it and that was of course refreshing as fuck after the rest of the book, but I STILL DON'T KNOW WHAT WAS GOING ON.
And what the fuck is an eclogue??? Like shut up it's fucking red...
Honestly, we're at a point where I honestly cannot tell if this was written ironically or not: "He has my Mark I Curzon-Youngblood in his hands - was probably using it to form the psychic link - so I take it off him, flick the safety off. The chi energy flows into it and I can feel the power in my hand, that mystic orgone life-force of the universe. Never mind the bollocks; here's the real sex pistol. And you can analyze that however you want."
What does it even mean!? Is it ironic??? Are we playing it straight - I have no idea!!! I could write a book longer than this one about all the things I did not understand about it.
No, I did not like this book. I only decided to read it because the cover was orange. Not falling for that one again.
I mean seriously, ask me anything about this book and I'll be like "I don't know".
Who was the main character? I don't know. What was the plot? I don't know. How did it end? I don't know. What is the Book of all hours? I don't know. Why did the author switch between three different fonts? I DON'T KNOW.
Okay, it's my fault, torturing myself, because I could tell almost from the start I wouldn't like the book, but I kept reading because I do not leave books unfinished (DAMN YOU, ELL). The narrative is just ALL over the fucking place, jumping back and forth in time ALL THE TIME and I'm sure some people like that but it was just too much for me.
And also, switching between three different fonts? WHY!? Switching between first and third person!? NO! Switching WHO THE FIRST PERSON NARRATIVE WAS WITH NO EXPLANATION!? NO NO NO NO OH MY FUCKING GODS.
I don't know, there were gods and like fifteen different stories and they all seemed cool but not a single one of them was told, not one was concluded, and in the end I feel as if I've read fifteen first chapters or outlines for stories that went nowhere.
I don't know what the story was, I don't even know what the fucking the epilogue was about and that was the only part of the entire book where the story was told straight-forward, every paragraph directly referencing the one before it and that was of course refreshing as fuck after the rest of the book, but I STILL DON'T KNOW WHAT WAS GOING ON.
And what the fuck is an eclogue??? Like shut up it's fucking red...
Honestly, we're at a point where I honestly cannot tell if this was written ironically or not: "He has my Mark I Curzon-Youngblood in his hands - was probably using it to form the psychic link - so I take it off him, flick the safety off. The chi energy flows into it and I can feel the power in my hand, that mystic orgone life-force of the universe. Never mind the bollocks; here's the real sex pistol. And you can analyze that however you want."
What does it even mean!? Is it ironic??? Are we playing it straight - I have no idea!!! I could write a book longer than this one about all the things I did not understand about it.
No, I did not like this book. I only decided to read it because the cover was orange. Not falling for that one again.
did-not-finish
June 26, 2012I should know better than to trust awards by now. Judges and critics seem to love all things pretentious. Why exactly did I think this would be different?
It might have been the idea. That there is a book of universe where all hours--all that was, all that is, all that could be--are written down. That you can change the world by scratching the vellum, spilling the ink, jumping from one page to another. That there is madness in the chaos and that madness has a seed of truth and reason in it if we only look closely enough.
Well, I tried and I couldn't find any. I'm giving up at the end of part one and on page 267 of 602. I don't know if everything suddenly makes sense on the last page, because I don't do that. I don't jump to the last page to see if a book will end the way I want it to before deciding to read it. The ending isn't what matters to me, the journey in between the covers is.
This reads like something written by and to a schizophrenic. The writing is slow, it switches between first and third person limited and has multiple points of views. The protagonists change names as they change times and phases in their lives. The chapters are long but the paragraphs are too short for any kind of real immersion to the story. Instead being more and more intrigued by the surfacing layers I found myself thrown out of the story time and time again. And finally, it was just too much.
Reading Vellum reminded me of reading The Lord of the Rings; I could see the brilliance but I was just too damn bored to fully appreciate it.
It might have been the idea. That there is a book of universe where all hours--all that was, all that is, all that could be--are written down. That you can change the world by scratching the vellum, spilling the ink, jumping from one page to another. That there is madness in the chaos and that madness has a seed of truth and reason in it if we only look closely enough.
Well, I tried and I couldn't find any. I'm giving up at the end of part one and on page 267 of 602. I don't know if everything suddenly makes sense on the last page, because I don't do that. I don't jump to the last page to see if a book will end the way I want it to before deciding to read it. The ending isn't what matters to me, the journey in between the covers is.
This reads like something written by and to a schizophrenic. The writing is slow, it switches between first and third person limited and has multiple points of views. The protagonists change names as they change times and phases in their lives. The chapters are long but the paragraphs are too short for any kind of real immersion to the story. Instead being more and more intrigued by the surfacing layers I found myself thrown out of the story time and time again. And finally, it was just too much.
Reading Vellum reminded me of reading The Lord of the Rings; I could see the brilliance but I was just too damn bored to fully appreciate it.
August 10, 2011
Pretty much the definitive 'Marmite' book, but if you want to your ideas of narrative stucture challenged, then this is the book for you.
Flexible chronological structure is cool nowadays, but Duncan flips between timelines and realities without even changing paragraphs, weaving together multiple narratives to tell ancient myths to a new audience while also telling his own, thrilling story that jumps from quiet love story to thrilling techno action adventure, often on the same page.
The narrative structure isn't just a gimmick though; Duncan raises questions about language and the nature of stories throughout the book (and it's sequel, Ink, just as impressive). About half the book consists of retellings or re-enactments of ancient stories, showing how we constantly re-use the same old ideas again and again.
Not an easy read by any stretch of the imagination - quite apart from the textual complexity, there are some distinctly uncomfortable and graphic scenes, but if you're willing to take the time, you may just come to love it.
Highly recommended.
Flexible chronological structure is cool nowadays, but Duncan flips between timelines and realities without even changing paragraphs, weaving together multiple narratives to tell ancient myths to a new audience while also telling his own, thrilling story that jumps from quiet love story to thrilling techno action adventure, often on the same page.
The narrative structure isn't just a gimmick though; Duncan raises questions about language and the nature of stories throughout the book (and it's sequel, Ink, just as impressive). About half the book consists of retellings or re-enactments of ancient stories, showing how we constantly re-use the same old ideas again and again.
Not an easy read by any stretch of the imagination - quite apart from the textual complexity, there are some distinctly uncomfortable and graphic scenes, but if you're willing to take the time, you may just come to love it.
Highly recommended.
November 12, 2018
Bloody hell.
No really, bloody hell, what a remarkable piece of art this novel is, dancing, whirling through mythology, time and space, to a beat long since abandoned as the drummer's just thrown up over his own shoes. This is the type of new weird that would make Shelley and Byron wet themselves in terror - like Ned Beauman writing fantasy fiction after spending all day on opium, this is crazed, jumps around the narrative with no truck for linearity or actual words describing this. The war is spilling through the cracks of the Vellum into realities and my word I can't wait to read Ink.
Also many many points for gay rep here - the Puck/Matthew Shepherd stuff is handled brilliantly and Jack's scenes with Tom/Puck/whoever he is this week are wonderfully written too.
No really, bloody hell, what a remarkable piece of art this novel is, dancing, whirling through mythology, time and space, to a beat long since abandoned as the drummer's just thrown up over his own shoes. This is the type of new weird that would make Shelley and Byron wet themselves in terror - like Ned Beauman writing fantasy fiction after spending all day on opium, this is crazed, jumps around the narrative with no truck for linearity or actual words describing this. The war is spilling through the cracks of the Vellum into realities and my word I can't wait to read Ink.
Also many many points for gay rep here - the Puck/Matthew Shepherd stuff is handled brilliantly and Jack's scenes with Tom/Puck/whoever he is this week are wonderfully written too.
March 28, 2015
Very difficult read. Multiply split perspectives, and something that can only loosely be called a plot following multiple timelines. Stuck through it in part because the author's ability with words and frankly, nothing else to read. I agree with one of the other reviewers who thought the author might have shuffled notecards with the plot around and put it together.
August 26, 2008
I can recall my physics professor once saying to me, “The beauty, Joel, is in the complexity. We [scientists] must patiently peel away each mysterious layer to reveal a beauty hidden within.” A quixotic statement, I thought, to which I immediately responded with raffish undergraduate repartee that I didn’t care for hidden things since their existence was, to me, evidence of a disingenuous mind. He didn’t respond to that – just simply smiled; a pregnant smile that, years later when I think of the exchange, causes me to lower my head in quiet embarrassment for my, then, youthful self.
Duncan’s debut novel, Vellum: The Book of All Hours, is as complex as vector physics but to lovers of fantasy will be just as rewarding. In this novel, and I use the term sparingly since much of the book is in some ways reminiscent of Dante Alighieri’s, Inferno, it is the year 2017 and angels and demons, called unkin, are gearing up for the final battle between good and evil; a battle neither side can win. There is a book, The Book of All Hours, a tome commissioned by God that holds, in God’s own words, a minute by minute meditation of His plans for eternity. Allegedly, when the war between Lucifer and God commenced not all angels participated in the struggle. Apparently, there were some who fled to earth, taking God’s blueprint for eternity with them for safe keeping. Once on earth, these angels entrusted the book to the Carter family who cared for it – until they lost it. Enter Reynard Carter, a thief, who steals the book in 2017 from the library of the university he attends. Now that the book has been “found”, the unkin, are more than a little interested in retrieving it since whichever side possesses the book, and its power to alter reality, will ultimately win the war. That is this reviewer’s understanding of it and if it sounds a bit bizarre on its surface – that’s because it is. But, remember, all fantasy is bizarre on its surface so this is not an indictment of Duncan’s work in any way.
Vellum: The Book of All Hours, at its core is a wonderfully complex book layered in history, mythology, and an awareness of contemporary social ills. Layered, but not hidden; which allows Duncan’s non-didactic approach to the novel’s political undercurrents to flow freely and naturally. Poetry lovers in general and spoken word artists in particular may find such euphoniously written lines as, “…they’ll have slave ships ferrying dead sinners to their Western Lands to toil in plantation purgatories…” deeply satisfying. However, there is a word of caution that must be interjected here. Readers looking for a quick, mindless read or something in the vein of a dumbed-down, Da Vinci Codeish literary frolic should leave this book on the shelf. Juxtaposed with Brown’s, Da Vinci Code, Vellum will feel like taking a graduate level course – without satisfying any of its pre-requisites. In short, you simply cannot skim this one and not come away with something that resembles Milton’s, Paradise Lost set to underground Irish hip-hop.
I suppose when all is said and done, the embarrassment I feel at the recollection of my physics class tit-for-tat, stems from the realization that it is the disingenuous mind that thinks in terms of hidden things. My professor’s pitying smile, I know now, could only have meant that. The honest mind, instead, seeks the truth beneath the layers. Vellum, if you’ll forgive my previous hyperbole, is not as complex as vector physics. There’s no exaggeration in saying, however, that it could be just as rewarding.
© Joel Glenn, Book Critic –The NYLS Book Review, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Duncan’s debut novel, Vellum: The Book of All Hours, is as complex as vector physics but to lovers of fantasy will be just as rewarding. In this novel, and I use the term sparingly since much of the book is in some ways reminiscent of Dante Alighieri’s, Inferno, it is the year 2017 and angels and demons, called unkin, are gearing up for the final battle between good and evil; a battle neither side can win. There is a book, The Book of All Hours, a tome commissioned by God that holds, in God’s own words, a minute by minute meditation of His plans for eternity. Allegedly, when the war between Lucifer and God commenced not all angels participated in the struggle. Apparently, there were some who fled to earth, taking God’s blueprint for eternity with them for safe keeping. Once on earth, these angels entrusted the book to the Carter family who cared for it – until they lost it. Enter Reynard Carter, a thief, who steals the book in 2017 from the library of the university he attends. Now that the book has been “found”, the unkin, are more than a little interested in retrieving it since whichever side possesses the book, and its power to alter reality, will ultimately win the war. That is this reviewer’s understanding of it and if it sounds a bit bizarre on its surface – that’s because it is. But, remember, all fantasy is bizarre on its surface so this is not an indictment of Duncan’s work in any way.
Vellum: The Book of All Hours, at its core is a wonderfully complex book layered in history, mythology, and an awareness of contemporary social ills. Layered, but not hidden; which allows Duncan’s non-didactic approach to the novel’s political undercurrents to flow freely and naturally. Poetry lovers in general and spoken word artists in particular may find such euphoniously written lines as, “…they’ll have slave ships ferrying dead sinners to their Western Lands to toil in plantation purgatories…” deeply satisfying. However, there is a word of caution that must be interjected here. Readers looking for a quick, mindless read or something in the vein of a dumbed-down, Da Vinci Codeish literary frolic should leave this book on the shelf. Juxtaposed with Brown’s, Da Vinci Code, Vellum will feel like taking a graduate level course – without satisfying any of its pre-requisites. In short, you simply cannot skim this one and not come away with something that resembles Milton’s, Paradise Lost set to underground Irish hip-hop.
I suppose when all is said and done, the embarrassment I feel at the recollection of my physics class tit-for-tat, stems from the realization that it is the disingenuous mind that thinks in terms of hidden things. My professor’s pitying smile, I know now, could only have meant that. The honest mind, instead, seeks the truth beneath the layers. Vellum, if you’ll forgive my previous hyperbole, is not as complex as vector physics. There’s no exaggeration in saying, however, that it could be just as rewarding.
© Joel Glenn, Book Critic –The NYLS Book Review, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
March 8, 2012
Might as well talk about 'Ink' and 'Vellum' together, since they're really one work.
Conveniently, Duncan describes his work himself, within the text of the book:
"...the Book has as many histories as the world itself, and it contains them all in its Moebius loop of time and space, of contradicting stories somehow fused as one confused and rambling tale, a sort of truth but full of inconsistencies and digressions, spurious interpolations and interpretations, fiction told as fact, fact told as fiction..."
At least, that's the goal.
It starts off promisingly: a student seeks to steal a secret vellum manuscript - the Book of All Hours - a book which determines and reflects reality, which contains all possible realities... a book written in the language of angels, upon the skin of angels, which contains the entirety of the time-space continuum. This is connected to a War in Heaven, agents of the angels that walk upon the earth, and a lot of Sumerian mythology. It began by reminding me of Storm Constantine's Grigori books, and Catherynne Valente's Palimpsest. Neither of those is a bad thing.
However, there's a problem with writing a book about a book that is supposed to contain all things, when you intend the format of your book to reflect that of your fictional book. How do you edit it? What should go in, and what shouldn't? I would have had trouble editing this book, I have to admit. And, in the end, I don't think it worked.
It's obvious that Duncan wrote several reasonably coherent narratives, then chopped them up at mostly-random, and mixed them together. He also wrote a lot of random Other Stuff (thoughts in his head that day?) and stuck those in too. (It reminded me of doing college creative writing assignments, when I sometimes pieced disparate pieces of my writing together in order to make up a page count by a deadline.)
Yes, the reader can piece the narratives together as s/he goes along, but do the "inconsistencies and digressions, spurious interpolations and interpretations" serve a purpose? I kept hoping that they would. I have to admit that my interest was waning by the end of the first book, but I read the whole second book with the hope that it would all get pulled together. I don't feel that that happened.
Duncan is obviously a smart guy. He's very obviously well and widely educated. There are a lot of interesting ideas in these books, and many of the small vignettes are expertly and beautifully written. He has a nice command of the English language. However, I couldn't help feeling that he might be more suited to writing essays than novels. I bet he's good at academic papers, too.
About halfway through the second book, I was thinking about why I really wasn't enjoying it, and I realized that all of the characters, no matter which reality they're currently in, whether they speak in a broadly-written accent, are young or old, or even (in one case) female, seem like they're actually the same person: Hal Duncan(?)
I kid you not, after I realized that, on the very next page, I came across this quote: "there's a deeper connection between them - Jack, Puck, Anna, Joey, Don and himself...Finnan too, wherever he is. The seven of them, seven souls, but maybe really only one...identity."
Yep. They're all the same person. And they're too busy being archetypes, metaphors or mouthpieces most of the time, to be convincing characters.
Duncan says, "Let us consider reality itself as a palimpsest." OK, consider that considered. I even really like the idea. I like a LOT of the ideas in this book. But I feel that those idea would have come through better through the use of a more consistent format - not even necessarily a traditional format, but just a more consistent one. For example, part 3 (the first half of 'Ink') is largely taken up by the characters putting on a performance of a version of 'The Bacchae.' However, Greek drama plays little part in any of the other sections of the book. It feels out-of-place. As do many of the other "spurious interpolations" within the text.
I feel like Duncan said, "well, it's inconsistent because I want it to be inconsistent." But I still prefer consistency. And characters with individual identities.
I often really like things that others describe, negatively, as "pretentious." But this is one of those rare occasions where I am feeling moved to use "pretentious" in a negative sense. This book is pretentious.
Conveniently, Duncan describes his work himself, within the text of the book:
"...the Book has as many histories as the world itself, and it contains them all in its Moebius loop of time and space, of contradicting stories somehow fused as one confused and rambling tale, a sort of truth but full of inconsistencies and digressions, spurious interpolations and interpretations, fiction told as fact, fact told as fiction..."
At least, that's the goal.
It starts off promisingly: a student seeks to steal a secret vellum manuscript - the Book of All Hours - a book which determines and reflects reality, which contains all possible realities... a book written in the language of angels, upon the skin of angels, which contains the entirety of the time-space continuum. This is connected to a War in Heaven, agents of the angels that walk upon the earth, and a lot of Sumerian mythology. It began by reminding me of Storm Constantine's Grigori books, and Catherynne Valente's Palimpsest. Neither of those is a bad thing.
However, there's a problem with writing a book about a book that is supposed to contain all things, when you intend the format of your book to reflect that of your fictional book. How do you edit it? What should go in, and what shouldn't? I would have had trouble editing this book, I have to admit. And, in the end, I don't think it worked.
It's obvious that Duncan wrote several reasonably coherent narratives, then chopped them up at mostly-random, and mixed them together. He also wrote a lot of random Other Stuff (thoughts in his head that day?) and stuck those in too. (It reminded me of doing college creative writing assignments, when I sometimes pieced disparate pieces of my writing together in order to make up a page count by a deadline.)
Yes, the reader can piece the narratives together as s/he goes along, but do the "inconsistencies and digressions, spurious interpolations and interpretations" serve a purpose? I kept hoping that they would. I have to admit that my interest was waning by the end of the first book, but I read the whole second book with the hope that it would all get pulled together. I don't feel that that happened.
Duncan is obviously a smart guy. He's very obviously well and widely educated. There are a lot of interesting ideas in these books, and many of the small vignettes are expertly and beautifully written. He has a nice command of the English language. However, I couldn't help feeling that he might be more suited to writing essays than novels. I bet he's good at academic papers, too.
About halfway through the second book, I was thinking about why I really wasn't enjoying it, and I realized that all of the characters, no matter which reality they're currently in, whether they speak in a broadly-written accent, are young or old, or even (in one case) female, seem like they're actually the same person: Hal Duncan(?)
I kid you not, after I realized that, on the very next page, I came across this quote: "there's a deeper connection between them - Jack, Puck, Anna, Joey, Don and himself...Finnan too, wherever he is. The seven of them, seven souls, but maybe really only one...identity."
Yep. They're all the same person. And they're too busy being archetypes, metaphors or mouthpieces most of the time, to be convincing characters.
Duncan says, "Let us consider reality itself as a palimpsest." OK, consider that considered. I even really like the idea. I like a LOT of the ideas in this book. But I feel that those idea would have come through better through the use of a more consistent format - not even necessarily a traditional format, but just a more consistent one. For example, part 3 (the first half of 'Ink') is largely taken up by the characters putting on a performance of a version of 'The Bacchae.' However, Greek drama plays little part in any of the other sections of the book. It feels out-of-place. As do many of the other "spurious interpolations" within the text.
I feel like Duncan said, "well, it's inconsistent because I want it to be inconsistent." But I still prefer consistency. And characters with individual identities.
I often really like things that others describe, negatively, as "pretentious." But this is one of those rare occasions where I am feeling moved to use "pretentious" in a negative sense. This book is pretentious.
April 29, 2020
8 miesięcy walki. Nie wiem, czy kiedykolwiek przeczytanie książki zajęło mi tak wiele czasu, a na pewno od studiów nie męczyłam się tak z żadnym tekstem. I nie chodzi tu przecież o objętość, bo te niespełna 500 stron mogłoby być lekturą na jeden weekend. Po prostu czyta się to tak, że po drodze wielokrotnie chce się umrzeć. Druga połowa bardziej przystępna niż pierwsza, a wątek wypraw do Aratty (czy na pewno?) jest przepysznie rozpisany, ale to wciąż jest chodzenie bosą stopą po LEGO. Ale problem polega na tym, że gdzieś tam pod całą tą lansiarską, pretensjonalną formą jest naprawdę jakiś odprysk geniuszu, pełna rozmachu wizja, oryginalny pomysł i ogrom pracy wykonanej przy researchu. Nie sposób tego nie docenić. I najgorsze jest chyba to, że po 8 miesiącach męki poważnie zastanawiam się nad przeczytaniem kontynuacji. Jeśli to nie jest syndrom sztokholmski, to nie wiem, co nim jest.
Fani Joyce'a (w sensie te 10 osób, które naprawdę przeczytało "Ulissesa" do końca), tak sądzę, mogę znaleźć w tym jakąś przyjemność. Pozostali będą w większości zmęczeni i skonsternowani. Wspaniała większość odbije się od tej książki z hukiem już po pierwszym rozdziale: brak linearnej, ciągłej narracji, stylizowany momentami język, hermetyczny kontekst (o ile łatwiej czyta się tę książkę, naprawdę znając teksty źródłowe i sumeryjskie mity, na których opieka się Duncan - nawet nie chcę sobie wyobrażać, jak czyta się "Welin" bez tego) i kolejne emanacje tych samych bohaterów sprawiają, że albo jest to arcydzieło postmodernizmu albo najbardziej pretensjonalny gniot w historii literatury. Nie dziwią skrajne oceny - to książka, którą prawdopodobnie zachwycą się nieliczni, a znienawidzi ją większość.
W rzeczywistości jest tu tylko garstka bohaterów (wciąż tych samych), którzy w coraz to innych wersjach samych siebie pojawiają się na licznych miniplanach fabularnych. Mity rozpadają się na mitemy, fani głębokiej semantyki Levi-Straussa (czy też w ogóle teorii mitu w kulturze, bo i dla fanów archetypicznej definicji mitu jest tu koszyk pełen łakoci) być może będą się tu świetnie bawić. Nawet jeśli Duncan jawnie się popisuje.
Fani Joyce'a (w sensie te 10 osób, które naprawdę przeczytało "Ulissesa" do końca), tak sądzę, mogę znaleźć w tym jakąś przyjemność. Pozostali będą w większości zmęczeni i skonsternowani. Wspaniała większość odbije się od tej książki z hukiem już po pierwszym rozdziale: brak linearnej, ciągłej narracji, stylizowany momentami język, hermetyczny kontekst (o ile łatwiej czyta się tę książkę, naprawdę znając teksty źródłowe i sumeryjskie mity, na których opieka się Duncan - nawet nie chcę sobie wyobrażać, jak czyta się "Welin" bez tego) i kolejne emanacje tych samych bohaterów sprawiają, że albo jest to arcydzieło postmodernizmu albo najbardziej pretensjonalny gniot w historii literatury. Nie dziwią skrajne oceny - to książka, którą prawdopodobnie zachwycą się nieliczni, a znienawidzi ją większość.
W rzeczywistości jest tu tylko garstka bohaterów (wciąż tych samych), którzy w coraz to innych wersjach samych siebie pojawiają się na licznych miniplanach fabularnych. Mity rozpadają się na mitemy, fani głębokiej semantyki Levi-Straussa (czy też w ogóle teorii mitu w kulturze, bo i dla fanów archetypicznej definicji mitu jest tu koszyk pełen łakoci) być może będą się tu świetnie bawić. Nawet jeśli Duncan jawnie się popisuje.
September 25, 2018
There are times when you have to do the research so you can write the book and then there are those times when you want to write the book to give you an excuse to do all the research. Maybe its a chicken and egg thing but given the numerous twisty things happening in this book its not impossible that the egg somehow laid the chicken, who then became a metaphor for cracked shells. And then became a constellation. All the while not even promising to make sense because, geez, its an egg metaphor. What more do you want?
This book apparently was praised to the high heavens by some critics when it came out, probably those who were more entranced by the sheer style of it and the audaciousness of its myth mixing then wondering about some more unproductive, like what the heck is the plot. And I will admit, Duncan's got style. The prose unfurls full throttle, like someone utterly convinced they are mainlining the good stuff and laying it out for you as purely as possible. Even in the moments where I couldn't figure out what the heck was going on or how it related to the previous paragraphs I had just read (sometimes on the same page!) there was a certain surface pleasure in just hearing the words tumble over each other in my head. Duncan even tries the trick of switching the font up as a means of letting us know which story is which, which again at least lends a certain aesthetic sense to the pages themselves but also muddles things by not making it clear which is the main plot and which are the tributaries. Or maybe its all important.
What can't be denied is the guy sure did his homework. Its not the first time I've seen the "every myth ever is true at the same time" approach . . . Jon Wright's "Everness" series was another attempt to cram every bit of folklore into one book . . . but this has to be one of the more hyperactive forms of it, with Duncan mixing and matching like some kind of prose DJ who has broken into that warehouse at the end of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and discovered every crate has artifacts that he must combine to make the perfect beat. You've got Sumarians and angels and Prometheus and Bibilical stuff and Shakespeare and after a while you start to wonder what he didn't use.
Thing is, its impressive but is it readable? Kind of. And by "kind of" I mean "not really". He tells the story as as series of quick cuts featuring different incarnations of the same characters and when I say quick cuts I mean short paragraphs inside short sections that often go out of their way to not be nonlinear. You know, like asking a four year old how their trip to the zoo was. The barrage of events without any clear central conflict to get behind is normally the kind of experimentation I can embrace but with the same characters appearing over and over with different names and not much in the way of memorable characteristics (other than "the girl", "cursing Irish guy", "doomed gay guy" and "not doomed gay guy" . . . one of the incarnations of "doomed gay guy" appears to be Matthew Shepard, which sort of left a weird taste in my mouth using someone who died tragically and who still has as family as a standin for an archtype) its very difficult to get a handle on everything. You'd hope that after maybe a hundred pages the book would settle down and you'd get down to the plot but by then its become clear that this is the plot and the book is going to ride this style right into the ground.
Which is a shame but the moments where something resembling a plot does break through the book shows some promise. As far as I can tell, its depicting a war between different branches of what's called Unkin, who are basically mythological archtypes, as both sides try to program reality by using the Cant. The Book of All Hours is part of that and Earth is just one layer of reality in the struggle. If the book stuck to that premise it would be fine but it keeps throwing characters at us and then taking them away just when we're starting to get a handle on what these people are trying to accomplish (Phreedom at one point looks to be our gateway character and then sort of vanishes). Once in a while you get a sense that he's going somewhere with this, during appearances by serious angel Metatron or during some of the scenes with Cursing Irish Guy but then everything resubmerges into an ocean of static and you're basically staring at a Magic Eye hoping that a coherent picture emerges.
By the end I had no idea what the stakes were, what had been accomplished or who had won or lost, I just understood that a bunch of events had occurred that got me to the finish line (its not even the real finish line, the story continues in "Ink"). It was interesting to read but the closest equivalent I think of is explain is being in the front row for a marathon shoegaze band performance . . . initially the alternating blasts of feedback and white noise are probably fascinating but by hour four all it sounds like is mindnumbing noise.
This book apparently was praised to the high heavens by some critics when it came out, probably those who were more entranced by the sheer style of it and the audaciousness of its myth mixing then wondering about some more unproductive, like what the heck is the plot. And I will admit, Duncan's got style. The prose unfurls full throttle, like someone utterly convinced they are mainlining the good stuff and laying it out for you as purely as possible. Even in the moments where I couldn't figure out what the heck was going on or how it related to the previous paragraphs I had just read (sometimes on the same page!) there was a certain surface pleasure in just hearing the words tumble over each other in my head. Duncan even tries the trick of switching the font up as a means of letting us know which story is which, which again at least lends a certain aesthetic sense to the pages themselves but also muddles things by not making it clear which is the main plot and which are the tributaries. Or maybe its all important.
What can't be denied is the guy sure did his homework. Its not the first time I've seen the "every myth ever is true at the same time" approach . . . Jon Wright's "Everness" series was another attempt to cram every bit of folklore into one book . . . but this has to be one of the more hyperactive forms of it, with Duncan mixing and matching like some kind of prose DJ who has broken into that warehouse at the end of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and discovered every crate has artifacts that he must combine to make the perfect beat. You've got Sumarians and angels and Prometheus and Bibilical stuff and Shakespeare and after a while you start to wonder what he didn't use.
Thing is, its impressive but is it readable? Kind of. And by "kind of" I mean "not really". He tells the story as as series of quick cuts featuring different incarnations of the same characters and when I say quick cuts I mean short paragraphs inside short sections that often go out of their way to not be nonlinear. You know, like asking a four year old how their trip to the zoo was. The barrage of events without any clear central conflict to get behind is normally the kind of experimentation I can embrace but with the same characters appearing over and over with different names and not much in the way of memorable characteristics (other than "the girl", "cursing Irish guy", "doomed gay guy" and "not doomed gay guy" . . . one of the incarnations of "doomed gay guy" appears to be Matthew Shepard, which sort of left a weird taste in my mouth using someone who died tragically and who still has as family as a standin for an archtype) its very difficult to get a handle on everything. You'd hope that after maybe a hundred pages the book would settle down and you'd get down to the plot but by then its become clear that this is the plot and the book is going to ride this style right into the ground.
Which is a shame but the moments where something resembling a plot does break through the book shows some promise. As far as I can tell, its depicting a war between different branches of what's called Unkin, who are basically mythological archtypes, as both sides try to program reality by using the Cant. The Book of All Hours is part of that and Earth is just one layer of reality in the struggle. If the book stuck to that premise it would be fine but it keeps throwing characters at us and then taking them away just when we're starting to get a handle on what these people are trying to accomplish (Phreedom at one point looks to be our gateway character and then sort of vanishes). Once in a while you get a sense that he's going somewhere with this, during appearances by serious angel Metatron or during some of the scenes with Cursing Irish Guy but then everything resubmerges into an ocean of static and you're basically staring at a Magic Eye hoping that a coherent picture emerges.
By the end I had no idea what the stakes were, what had been accomplished or who had won or lost, I just understood that a bunch of events had occurred that got me to the finish line (its not even the real finish line, the story continues in "Ink"). It was interesting to read but the closest equivalent I think of is explain is being in the front row for a marathon shoegaze band performance . . . initially the alternating blasts of feedback and white noise are probably fascinating but by hour four all it sounds like is mindnumbing noise.
July 19, 2017
Vellum is like one of those things in life: you get it and so love it or you don't get it and think it's either crap or pretentious drivel. You'll see reviews here at either end of the scale. What does that mean? Well, to me it meant that I was going to be taking a gamble on reading this book. Living a little bit dangerously. Sometimes I like to read outside my comfort zone.
Let's deal with some of the things that Vellum is not before trying to say what it is (which frankly might take too long.)
1. It's not simple. The plot and even the writing itself is not meant to give you an easy time. You will struggle with this book but it's BECAUSE of the writer's ability rather than despite it. The book is clearly meant to challenge the reader. It's part of the experience. If you want easy reading then it's not for you.
2. It's not pretentious. It is, however, not for everyone, but then again, neither is 50 Shades of Grey. This book has got jagged edges that cut you if you don't handle it with care.
3. It's not meant to be read just the once. At least, that's what I think. There is so much here that it's difficult to take it all in.
4. It doesn't follow 'accepted' prose stylings. Like speech marks etc. It's a bit of a rebel, you see.
What it is, ultimately, is a book that will take you on a journey. It will transport you, if, as Stephen King says in Danse Macabre, your imagination can lift the weight.
You will either love this book or you will hate it. The question is: Do you dare?
Let's deal with some of the things that Vellum is not before trying to say what it is (which frankly might take too long.)
1. It's not simple. The plot and even the writing itself is not meant to give you an easy time. You will struggle with this book but it's BECAUSE of the writer's ability rather than despite it. The book is clearly meant to challenge the reader. It's part of the experience. If you want easy reading then it's not for you.
2. It's not pretentious. It is, however, not for everyone, but then again, neither is 50 Shades of Grey. This book has got jagged edges that cut you if you don't handle it with care.
3. It's not meant to be read just the once. At least, that's what I think. There is so much here that it's difficult to take it all in.
4. It doesn't follow 'accepted' prose stylings. Like speech marks etc. It's a bit of a rebel, you see.
What it is, ultimately, is a book that will take you on a journey. It will transport you, if, as Stephen King says in Danse Macabre, your imagination can lift the weight.
You will either love this book or you will hate it. The question is: Do you dare?
January 8, 2009
. . . I'm not actually sure what just happened, but I did like it. Okay. I do know it was about the apocalypse, and a war among angels, and nanotechnology. And about reality unpeeling from it's tightly-stacked layers. And the Prometheus myth – a lot of myths, actually, interspersed in the story as they mutually rewrite each other. But it was nonlinear and dense with inductive symbol narrative, and the universe skipped and reset enough times that . . . huh.
Okay. That was very cool.
Okay. That was very cool.
February 25, 2009
There were so many concepts and ideas going on in this novel that I don't think I'll be able to sum them up here. In fact, I'm not even going to try. I can't believe this is a first novel; the writing is brilliant and mature and the charaterization is a real delight.
Hal Duncan's novel reads like his entity-like world, the Vellum. The Vellum is everywhere, everywhen and everywhich; it encompasses all of the possible worlds regardless of time and space. The novel is built like the Vellum, and Duncan leads the reader across the Vellum, from world/time/space to the next, building a contiguity through his writing, through objects in the narration, through repetitions in his writing, echoes in the narration; a contiguity more than a continuity between these worlds. At times fantasy, at times science fiction, the novel reads like a ritual, fragmented, part poem, part play, weaving myth, legend and history.
One of the (many!) things which I found interesting was the author's treatment of language. I've been thinking about the role of language and how speculative fiction authors use it for a very long time. The idea of an original language that would be the true language is a recurring one and not just in fantasy and science fiction. The most interesting treatment of this that I had encountered so far was in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. There are many similarities between the two novels with regards to this particular point: they both draw upon Sumerian mythology and link it with binary codes or electronic language. Anyway, in Vellum, the Cant is the original, oral language which can be phonetically written with absolute precision including intonation, musical effects. Its phonetic representation perfectly corresponds to the sound of language.
Another interesting element was Duncan's work on primal archetypes and which ties wonderfully with my work on black women. Vellum's characters are struggling against fate and destiny, against what is expected of them, against the primal archetype that resides deep within them, the ancient categories that were made by/for them. Anyway, my work on black women in speculative fiction involved a study of female literary archetypes which are traditionally the Maiden, the Mother and the Wise Woman. The trapping of one of Vellum's female characters in these archetypes leads her to seek freedom in death because once dead, there is no more destiny. She actually writes herself out of history to be rewritten in myth.
I also liked Duncan's idea of plural identities for a single individual. Ancient archetypes evolve and change overtime the same way each time ia myth or story is told, it changes. Thus, Duncan links different myths: Metatron, the voice of God is also Enoch and Enki in Sumerian mythology: "There could be thousands of these vessels, these gravings, all working simultaneously, semi-autonomous but still linked, still part of him" I like this idea of a fragmented identity which is constant making and change.
Lots of food for thought.
Hal Duncan's novel reads like his entity-like world, the Vellum. The Vellum is everywhere, everywhen and everywhich; it encompasses all of the possible worlds regardless of time and space. The novel is built like the Vellum, and Duncan leads the reader across the Vellum, from world/time/space to the next, building a contiguity through his writing, through objects in the narration, through repetitions in his writing, echoes in the narration; a contiguity more than a continuity between these worlds. At times fantasy, at times science fiction, the novel reads like a ritual, fragmented, part poem, part play, weaving myth, legend and history.
One of the (many!) things which I found interesting was the author's treatment of language. I've been thinking about the role of language and how speculative fiction authors use it for a very long time. The idea of an original language that would be the true language is a recurring one and not just in fantasy and science fiction. The most interesting treatment of this that I had encountered so far was in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. There are many similarities between the two novels with regards to this particular point: they both draw upon Sumerian mythology and link it with binary codes or electronic language. Anyway, in Vellum, the Cant is the original, oral language which can be phonetically written with absolute precision including intonation, musical effects. Its phonetic representation perfectly corresponds to the sound of language.
Another interesting element was Duncan's work on primal archetypes and which ties wonderfully with my work on black women. Vellum's characters are struggling against fate and destiny, against what is expected of them, against the primal archetype that resides deep within them, the ancient categories that were made by/for them. Anyway, my work on black women in speculative fiction involved a study of female literary archetypes which are traditionally the Maiden, the Mother and the Wise Woman. The trapping of one of Vellum's female characters in these archetypes leads her to seek freedom in death because once dead, there is no more destiny. She actually writes herself out of history to be rewritten in myth.
I also liked Duncan's idea of plural identities for a single individual. Ancient archetypes evolve and change overtime the same way each time ia myth or story is told, it changes. Thus, Duncan links different myths: Metatron, the voice of God is also Enoch and Enki in Sumerian mythology: "There could be thousands of these vessels, these gravings, all working simultaneously, semi-autonomous but still linked, still part of him" I like this idea of a fragmented identity which is constant making and change.
Lots of food for thought.
October 23, 2009
A psychedelic, queer, James Joycean ride. Extremely rewarding for the very patient. Probably very frustrating for everyone else. I loved it. Hal Duncan has the genius touch of a mad wordsmith. Layer upon layer he takes the reader deeper and deeper through the looking glass of his gorgeous, intricate vision of the mythic threads underlying the histories of men and angels. The book trades heavily in the mythos of ancient Sumer and the crypto-Christian "Fallen Angels"ideas. Beautiful boys, angels, demons, sentient nanotech and very dangerous women make this a fun, if challenging set of books.
The payoffs of just "reading through" everything you don't understand mostly come in the second book 'Ink'. So, you'll get a lot out of it if you read quickly WITH comprehension and can remember the many threads of what has gone before. The payoffs are gorgeous, mind-blowing ideas and images throughout the second book, but you really have to suspend "knowing" what's going on for a very long time. Absolutely worth the effort, for me. You might not agree. Very much like Joyce's work in this way.I read them over a 2 week vacation. Which might be the best way to do it.
The payoffs of just "reading through" everything you don't understand mostly come in the second book 'Ink'. So, you'll get a lot out of it if you read quickly WITH comprehension and can remember the many threads of what has gone before. The payoffs are gorgeous, mind-blowing ideas and images throughout the second book, but you really have to suspend "knowing" what's going on for a very long time. Absolutely worth the effort, for me. You might not agree. Very much like Joyce's work in this way.I read them over a 2 week vacation. Which might be the best way to do it.
August 16, 2017
Hal Duncanin esikoisteos ei jätä taatusti kylmäksi. Mutta sitä lukiessa ensi-ihastus muuttuu epävarmuudeksi, sitten sekavuudeksi ja lopulta ymmärtämättömyydeksi. Viimein alkaa epäillä omia älynlahjoja ja joutuu toteamaan, että tämän kirjan punainen lanka on hukassa... enkä ole ihan varma, että oliko se edes punainen ja taisi niitä lankoja olla aika montakin... oliko siinä edes lankaa?!?
Kirja liikkuu ajassa ja paikassa edestakaisin poukkoillen, mikään ei ole pysyvää. Lähes kaikki maailmat tuntuvat olevan rinnakkaisia, samoin hahmot. Tarinaan sotkemaan useita muinaisia myyttejä. Jonkinlainen juoni on olemassa, mutta se jää epäselväksi. Jatko-osakin tälle on kirjoitettu, mutta jääköön lukematta.
Jotenkin jäi sellainen fiilis, että tässä olisi ollut potentiaalia todella tajunnan räjäyttäväksi teokseksi, mutta minä en vain ymmärtänyt. Kirjassa oli myös upeasti kirjoitettuja kohtia. Esimerkiksi lopun jokerihahmo, joka kantoi ihossaan ihmisten sieluja, oli upeasti laadittu pätkä. Mutta mahdoton minun on pitää kirjasta, jonka luettuani en osaa edes sen juonta selostaa.
Kirja liikkuu ajassa ja paikassa edestakaisin poukkoillen, mikään ei ole pysyvää. Lähes kaikki maailmat tuntuvat olevan rinnakkaisia, samoin hahmot. Tarinaan sotkemaan useita muinaisia myyttejä. Jonkinlainen juoni on olemassa, mutta se jää epäselväksi. Jatko-osakin tälle on kirjoitettu, mutta jääköön lukematta.
Jotenkin jäi sellainen fiilis, että tässä olisi ollut potentiaalia todella tajunnan räjäyttäväksi teokseksi, mutta minä en vain ymmärtänyt. Kirjassa oli myös upeasti kirjoitettuja kohtia. Esimerkiksi lopun jokerihahmo, joka kantoi ihossaan ihmisten sieluja, oli upeasti laadittu pätkä. Mutta mahdoton minun on pitää kirjasta, jonka luettuani en osaa edes sen juonta selostaa.
July 12, 2011
How do you make the novel _Vellum_? Mix one part Michael Moorcock, add in a dash of old Saturday morning serials, combine with Roger Zelazny and a final heaping helping of an undergrad po-mo survey course. Mix to a turgid mess and voila!
December 30, 2018
I'm going to try to write a review that does justice to these. The books or stories or whatever this collection of pages is meant to be.
It starts off strong with a character currently experiencing emotional turmoil locating the Book of all Hours, a book that takes him out of his reality and sets him down in all realities. He wanders. He finds the abandoned landscapes of myriad civilizations and that's cool. But then we cut to elsewhere and a woman named, of all things, Phreedom Messenger. And we start on the story of unkin and archetypes.
Myths contain archetypes. You can identify them in the stories throughout history. Also, sometimes names from ancient myths share initial sounds with modern names. I know when put like that it doesn't sound very meaningful. And it's not. Dumuzi who is also known as Tammuz kind of sounds like Thomas. Adonis is also linked in there and that sounds like Adonai by which name the Hebrew God is known. This last is not profound. It is etymology. Thomas is linked to Doubting Thomas because why not. And Jack gets hitched to every Jack epithet (Jack the Giant Killer, Jack the Ripper, Jack Flash, Jack and the Beanstalk, Spring-heeled Jack...) like it means something. It means Jack is a very common nickname for the most popular male name in English. That is what it means.
I don't understand why my keyboard just flashes light sporadically. That's not very useful. I need more light in this room. There's never enough light in this room. I often find living spaces are not well planned out in terms of light sources. Also, I need to buy light bulbs.
Also, there are 5 1/2 main male characters and 1 female character. I guess there's only 1 female story that needs to be told. Phreedom/Anna is both sister and... not wife but more victim of male sexual power. Because that's the role for women in these stories, I guess, either being seduced and left in shame or just plain raped. The irritating thing is that she's supposed to be Innana/Ishtar, who (while there is a story where she gets raped) is more known for stories where she tries, and often succeeds, in taking power for herself. Phreedom, even in her own chapters, is never doing anything because she just wants something, her actions are never the impetus of her own narrative. She's Innana and Io and. Wait, I forgot the 1/2 female character, Iris/Eresh/Ereshkigal. She's the evil witch, the mistress of hell. She really doesn't matter though so forget about her.
You know what could have been cool is if he had tried to tie Ereshkigal to Hades but I suppose he couldn't do that. They only have a similar function. It's not like they're the same gender or have similar sounding names. Or if he'd linked Tammuz and Persephone. Well, whatever. Why do something different?
There were some cool parts. I liked Guy's treks through the Vellum and I liked the bit where Carter takes part in an expedition to discover what lies beneath the mountains near the Kur.
I don't think I was going to finish this book even though I got 150 pages into it but then I took my mother to her 12 week hospital appointment and they had to do ALL the tests and we were there five hours and I had this book with me and it was that or local morning news. The morning news only occasionally won out. Ok, not all the tests, she had to go back the next day for another one but my father took her to that one. They charge like 2 bucks for an energy bar which is insane.
The writing was pretty dang good though even if I felt he went overboard and turned things into gibberish but using the phrase "smooth as a milkshake" to describe a person's demeanor will never not be funny to me, especially when stuff is blowing up off screen. My mother is now watching tv next to me so it's hard to concentrate. This is probably Tl;dr and confusing as hell but if you can't make it through this review you probably won't make it through the book.
There's a reality where he envisions everyone as fantasy characters but the only difference is looks. Everything else is the same. The Holocaust happened. African-Americans are Afritan-Amouricans. Anglo-Saxons are Angelo-Satyrs. Roman Empire is Rhyman Empire. And gnomes are Jews and Jesus existed but he was a gnome. He has a lust story between two male university students who are literal fairies.
It's a mess of shitty connections and half-assed stories that go nowhere. None of the characters are particularly interesting because none of them are ultimately his. And they can be remarkably difficult to tell apart. Thomas and Jack almost seem to be the same person and Seamus is mainly distinguishable because he thinks in dialect and won't stop thinking the work 'fookin'. But he never actually does justice to the original characters from the myths. Phreedom is not nearly as fascinating as Innana; she doesn't have the same feisty arrogance or the assuredness. Why in the world does spellcheck not recognize that as a word? In fact all the characters are, for the most part, the same mix of weary, somewhat scared, and vaguely angry. Except for Thomas as Puck who is that asshole who never stops doing obnoxious things because he thinks he's adorable.
The main thread of the story is about this war of the Covenant that's going on but that's even less fleshed out. There are two sides but there's no explanation of what the ideals of either side are or what they want other than to win "hearts and minds". Yes that is a phrase used by people in actual conflicts but there are still reasons to back it up. What do these two sides want? What do they believe in so much that they are willing to kill babies so they can't eventually be recruited to the other side? What do they want to do with the people whose hearts and minds they win? What do they want the world to look like when it is all over? This is never explained. The gods of old waged war to be in power and that was enough because they had control over their set domain and people worshiped them to receive their largess but these unkin are in the background. Do they control nation-states?
And he connects a runaway slave to Matthew Sheppard to a WWI deserter. Honestly, I was a bit grossed out when he brought the death of a real person in to his weird fairy romance. He starts off describing a hate crime and I was like, "oh, now he's stealing from the death of Matthew Sheppard" but then he straight up referenced him and it became even more confusing because the death he was describing had been about his deserter/slave/gay man Thomas who is also called Puck. They are all running from bigots/rednecks/soldiers. I don't quite know how I'm supposed to tie that last in to the first two. There's not much of a connection.
There was a quote from Hal Duncan on the back of Mainspring and I did not like that book either but at least in this book there wasn't graphic sex between a 16 year old and a child-size monkey lady who is the in-world fantasy equivalent of an African woman so.
It starts off strong with a character currently experiencing emotional turmoil locating the Book of all Hours, a book that takes him out of his reality and sets him down in all realities. He wanders. He finds the abandoned landscapes of myriad civilizations and that's cool. But then we cut to elsewhere and a woman named, of all things, Phreedom Messenger. And we start on the story of unkin and archetypes.
Myths contain archetypes. You can identify them in the stories throughout history. Also, sometimes names from ancient myths share initial sounds with modern names. I know when put like that it doesn't sound very meaningful. And it's not. Dumuzi who is also known as Tammuz kind of sounds like Thomas. Adonis is also linked in there and that sounds like Adonai by which name the Hebrew God is known. This last is not profound. It is etymology. Thomas is linked to Doubting Thomas because why not. And Jack gets hitched to every Jack epithet (Jack the Giant Killer, Jack the Ripper, Jack Flash, Jack and the Beanstalk, Spring-heeled Jack...) like it means something. It means Jack is a very common nickname for the most popular male name in English. That is what it means.
I don't understand why my keyboard just flashes light sporadically. That's not very useful. I need more light in this room. There's never enough light in this room. I often find living spaces are not well planned out in terms of light sources. Also, I need to buy light bulbs.
Also, there are 5 1/2 main male characters and 1 female character. I guess there's only 1 female story that needs to be told. Phreedom/Anna is both sister and... not wife but more victim of male sexual power. Because that's the role for women in these stories, I guess, either being seduced and left in shame or just plain raped. The irritating thing is that she's supposed to be Innana/Ishtar, who (while there is a story where she gets raped) is more known for stories where she tries, and often succeeds, in taking power for herself. Phreedom, even in her own chapters, is never doing anything because she just wants something, her actions are never the impetus of her own narrative. She's Innana and Io and. Wait, I forgot the 1/2 female character, Iris/Eresh/Ereshkigal. She's the evil witch, the mistress of hell. She really doesn't matter though so forget about her.
You know what could have been cool is if he had tried to tie Ereshkigal to Hades but I suppose he couldn't do that. They only have a similar function. It's not like they're the same gender or have similar sounding names. Or if he'd linked Tammuz and Persephone. Well, whatever. Why do something different?
There were some cool parts. I liked Guy's treks through the Vellum and I liked the bit where Carter takes part in an expedition to discover what lies beneath the mountains near the Kur.
I don't think I was going to finish this book even though I got 150 pages into it but then I took my mother to her 12 week hospital appointment and they had to do ALL the tests and we were there five hours and I had this book with me and it was that or local morning news. The morning news only occasionally won out. Ok, not all the tests, she had to go back the next day for another one but my father took her to that one. They charge like 2 bucks for an energy bar which is insane.
The writing was pretty dang good though even if I felt he went overboard and turned things into gibberish but using the phrase "smooth as a milkshake" to describe a person's demeanor will never not be funny to me, especially when stuff is blowing up off screen. My mother is now watching tv next to me so it's hard to concentrate. This is probably Tl;dr and confusing as hell but if you can't make it through this review you probably won't make it through the book.
There's a reality where he envisions everyone as fantasy characters but the only difference is looks. Everything else is the same. The Holocaust happened. African-Americans are Afritan-Amouricans. Anglo-Saxons are Angelo-Satyrs. Roman Empire is Rhyman Empire. And gnomes are Jews and Jesus existed but he was a gnome. He has a lust story between two male university students who are literal fairies.
It's a mess of shitty connections and half-assed stories that go nowhere. None of the characters are particularly interesting because none of them are ultimately his. And they can be remarkably difficult to tell apart. Thomas and Jack almost seem to be the same person and Seamus is mainly distinguishable because he thinks in dialect and won't stop thinking the work 'fookin'. But he never actually does justice to the original characters from the myths. Phreedom is not nearly as fascinating as Innana; she doesn't have the same feisty arrogance or the assuredness. Why in the world does spellcheck not recognize that as a word? In fact all the characters are, for the most part, the same mix of weary, somewhat scared, and vaguely angry. Except for Thomas as Puck who is that asshole who never stops doing obnoxious things because he thinks he's adorable.
The main thread of the story is about this war of the Covenant that's going on but that's even less fleshed out. There are two sides but there's no explanation of what the ideals of either side are or what they want other than to win "hearts and minds". Yes that is a phrase used by people in actual conflicts but there are still reasons to back it up. What do these two sides want? What do they believe in so much that they are willing to kill babies so they can't eventually be recruited to the other side? What do they want to do with the people whose hearts and minds they win? What do they want the world to look like when it is all over? This is never explained. The gods of old waged war to be in power and that was enough because they had control over their set domain and people worshiped them to receive their largess but these unkin are in the background. Do they control nation-states?
And he connects a runaway slave to Matthew Sheppard to a WWI deserter. Honestly, I was a bit grossed out when he brought the death of a real person in to his weird fairy romance. He starts off describing a hate crime and I was like, "oh, now he's stealing from the death of Matthew Sheppard" but then he straight up referenced him and it became even more confusing because the death he was describing had been about his deserter/slave/gay man Thomas who is also called Puck. They are all running from bigots/rednecks/soldiers. I don't quite know how I'm supposed to tie that last in to the first two. There's not much of a connection.
There was a quote from Hal Duncan on the back of Mainspring and I did not like that book either but at least in this book there wasn't graphic sex between a 16 year old and a child-size monkey lady who is the in-world fantasy equivalent of an African woman so.
October 4, 2014
From the very first tentative brushes we have with a story, we are treated to the principle of duality in the form of good v/s evil. This permeated every single story in my childhood where after a series of struggles, the force of good seemed to prevail. This plot line even extended beyond the realm of humans into the denizens of the great beyond. The two forms forever locked in never ending combat were angels and demons and as organized religion would have us believe, the angels and their lord and master shall always prevail. But then our childhood heroes have the habit of sometimes crumbling to dust as we grow up and this was what happened to me in the long run too. There are always shades of grey and stories were no exceptions to them. Hal Duncan extracts such a shade of grey against the backdrop of this never ending divine war and builds his story around it.
For the entire duration that I was reading this book, I felt stoned. The images that the author conjures with his words can only be described as psychedelic. They are vivid, deep and extremely rich to behold. The angels here create what is called a covenant and the demons are called sovereigns and as they draw the battle lines for the end game, they scramble to sign up two wild cards into their game. The author does select a variety of backdrops in the three volumes covered in the book : the first volume deals with Sumerian myths, the second with a post-apocalyptic America and the third against a period of warfare that stretches along the lines of the Spanish civil war and the WWI.
The narrative behaves like a simian on steroids. Every two pages it jumps to a different timeline. As you get your moorings in Sumeria, it jumps to London during the 1800's and then to Texas in the 1900's and then to...well it just keeps on moving. The author makes no distinctions between the past, the present or the future. While this is an interesting way to tell a story, it is downright infuriating after a while for you cannot make head or tail of what is going on. I did find a correlation with Gaiman's American Gods at places but here the concepts are slightly disjoint and out of focus. It is as if Hal Duncan had a mountain of ideas and did not know what to do with all of them.
I give it three stars but the third star is akin to what you hang on a Christmas tree - only for decorative purposes. The third star is only for the visual imagery and the grandiose load of ideas that the author had. It is a hollow star really, this is a two star book.
For the entire duration that I was reading this book, I felt stoned. The images that the author conjures with his words can only be described as psychedelic. They are vivid, deep and extremely rich to behold. The angels here create what is called a covenant and the demons are called sovereigns and as they draw the battle lines for the end game, they scramble to sign up two wild cards into their game. The author does select a variety of backdrops in the three volumes covered in the book : the first volume deals with Sumerian myths, the second with a post-apocalyptic America and the third against a period of warfare that stretches along the lines of the Spanish civil war and the WWI.
The narrative behaves like a simian on steroids. Every two pages it jumps to a different timeline. As you get your moorings in Sumeria, it jumps to London during the 1800's and then to Texas in the 1900's and then to...well it just keeps on moving. The author makes no distinctions between the past, the present or the future. While this is an interesting way to tell a story, it is downright infuriating after a while for you cannot make head or tail of what is going on. I did find a correlation with Gaiman's American Gods at places but here the concepts are slightly disjoint and out of focus. It is as if Hal Duncan had a mountain of ideas and did not know what to do with all of them.
I give it three stars but the third star is akin to what you hang on a Christmas tree - only for decorative purposes. The third star is only for the visual imagery and the grandiose load of ideas that the author had. It is a hollow star really, this is a two star book.
October 16, 2011
I've read some bad reviews of this book and most of them cite boring/undeveloped characters and gimmicky writing. That's what appealed to me most about Vellum! The writing is solid and sensitive. Yes, the story progresses in an overlaid, stop-start narrative but that's all in keeping with the content of the story and as a technique is used with aplomb. It's a bit unorthadox but not gratuitously wacky.
I'm usually put off sci-fi and fantasy books where the authors wax lyrical about their made up worlds and get bogged down in description. Vellum doesn't do that, prefering to let the various settings emerge by degrees. You have to just let the book wash over you and don't expect to understand everything as it happens.
I can see why that means some people think there's a lack of character development but to me it's a strength, getting any more bogged down in the characters would have derailed the pace of the time and place hopping. Besides that, the characters are supposed to be archetypes, more than conventionally fleshed out and individual characters. In another book, I'd consider it a flaw. In Vellum, I can tolerate it. In much the same way I can appreciate the rule-of-cool governing some of the cyber-punk characters and settings.
It's odd and brave and well-paced and mostly succeeeds. I finished it and immediately bought the sequel.
Still, I can understand it's not for everyone!
I'm usually put off sci-fi and fantasy books where the authors wax lyrical about their made up worlds and get bogged down in description. Vellum doesn't do that, prefering to let the various settings emerge by degrees. You have to just let the book wash over you and don't expect to understand everything as it happens.
I can see why that means some people think there's a lack of character development but to me it's a strength, getting any more bogged down in the characters would have derailed the pace of the time and place hopping. Besides that, the characters are supposed to be archetypes, more than conventionally fleshed out and individual characters. In another book, I'd consider it a flaw. In Vellum, I can tolerate it. In much the same way I can appreciate the rule-of-cool governing some of the cyber-punk characters and settings.
It's odd and brave and well-paced and mostly succeeeds. I finished it and immediately bought the sequel.
Still, I can understand it's not for everyone!
Read
October 17, 2017Either Duncan's genius is more than I can comprehend or this book was just not for me. Probably some parts of the two. I thought the start of the story was gripping and held a lot of promise. The narrator Reynard discovers an ancient tome that contains all the secrets of the universe, and the description is pretty darn intriguing, focused on a series of maps that chart out a sort of bizzaro Earth, familiar to an extent but with the geography, the names of places just slightly off. What happens after that quickly became incomprehensible to me. As best as I can gather, tampering with the Vellum unleashes some sort of age old war between factions of angels; though there's so much jumping around in time, so many asides that don't connect to a coherent throughline, I really couldn't follow much of anything that was happening. It's a shame because the story explores ancient world mythology, which I love, and at times was reminiscent of Neil Gaiman's American Gods with its histories and parables of the supernatural. There is the suggestion that some of the characters have lived past lives over the centuries (Phreedom, Anna, Inanna), which was another intriguing theme. And the writing is snappy and effective. Just too much going on I'm afraid and I lost any sense of suspense, danger or stakes for the characters.
May 10, 2018
Vellum is a hell of a novel about the creation, maintenance, and understanding of myth. The prose bounces between narrative styles and threads of characters and events. It can be confusing to follow sometimes but it is intimately engrossing and pulls you along through multiple worlds are at once one world and many.
The themes are heavy and as present as the emotions and details. The story also isn't traditionally rising towards a climax. Instead the plot progressives circularly and has meditative layering that focuses more on meaning and meaning production than plot or events.
This book really shines in the weight of image and the multiplicity of meaning that is created by the overlay of symbols and worlds. It also shines in the creative multiple worlds and stories being woven together with really rich detail. It falters a little in the confusion of these multiple pieces (which is also, weirdly a strength), but there are definitely lost pieces and threads that don't end up being clear (ie. who is this first person POV??). Finally the end of the book don't didn't stack up to the earlier few major sections--which I think could stand alone as their own novellas quite beautifully.
You should read this book if: you like retold myths, non-traditional narrative-prose styles, magical realism, and meditations on free-will and self-determination.
The themes are heavy and as present as the emotions and details. The story also isn't traditionally rising towards a climax. Instead the plot progressives circularly and has meditative layering that focuses more on meaning and meaning production than plot or events.
This book really shines in the weight of image and the multiplicity of meaning that is created by the overlay of symbols and worlds. It also shines in the creative multiple worlds and stories being woven together with really rich detail. It falters a little in the confusion of these multiple pieces (which is also, weirdly a strength), but there are definitely lost pieces and threads that don't end up being clear (ie. who is this first person POV??). Finally the end of the book don't didn't stack up to the earlier few major sections--which I think could stand alone as their own novellas quite beautifully.
You should read this book if: you like retold myths, non-traditional narrative-prose styles, magical realism, and meditations on free-will and self-determination.
w_tried
November 26, 2019Vellum on juuri sellainen kuin aavistelin ja pelkäsin, mutta pitihän siihen silti tutustua. Olin aiemmin lukenut muutaman Hal Duncanin novellin Tähtivaeltajasta ja ne olivat suhteellisen vaikeita ja en päässyt niissä samalle aaltopituudelle kirjailijan kanssa. Niin ei käynyt myöskään Vellumin kohdalla. Alku tuntui lupaavalta, mutta sitten alkoi mennä yli hilseen. Lukeminen sujui kyllä ongelmitta ja tavallaan ymmärrys oli mukana lukiessa, mutta yrittäessä hahmottaa kokonaisuutta ja tarinan tarkoitusta, pää menee jo pyörälle. Kun seuraavana päivänä jatkaa lukemista mihin edellisenä päivänä jäi ja kelaa mitäs aikaisemmin tapahtui, ei muista mitään merkittävää kirjassa tapahtuneenkaan. Vellum on kuitenkin hyvin kirjoitettu ja omaperäinen ihan taatusti, mutta tarina on niin pirstaleinen eri todellisuuksineen ja aikajanoineen, että simppelimpi ihminen kuten minä, on lopulta ihan pihalla kuin lumiukko. Hienoa, että omaperäisiä ja haasteellisia tarinoita kirjoitetaan, mutta omaan makuuni Vellum on liian sekava ja juoneton. Voi olla, että tarina selkeytyy edetessään, en tiedä, sillä kärsivällisyys ei riittänyt koko kirjan lukemiseen.
September 9, 2013
This book is incredibly ambitious and asks a lot from its reader. Seriously, if I were to reread it, I would take notes and I often needed to stop reading it to look up trivia about WWI, or computer programming, or Ancient Sumeria, or word etymology. I still can't quite believe that there isn't a table of contents at the beginning considering there are chapter and section headings and the non-linear, recursive style of the book constantly compels the reader to refer back to earlier passages.
It's sort of a mess, perhaps too ambitious in scope, maybe a bit too obscure in form, but it was a griping read and a fun puzzle to try to solve. I love what Duncan's trying to do here, with archetypes and mythology and narrative. I really enjoyed reading it, and will continue on to the sequel shortly, but I wouldn't even know where to begin recommending it to someone or *whom* I'd recommend it to. It's. . .sort of like if Jorge Luis Borges wrote cyberpunk. That's a very imperfect comparison, but that's all I can come up with. If that sounds appealing to you then check this book out.
It's sort of a mess, perhaps too ambitious in scope, maybe a bit too obscure in form, but it was a griping read and a fun puzzle to try to solve. I love what Duncan's trying to do here, with archetypes and mythology and narrative. I really enjoyed reading it, and will continue on to the sequel shortly, but I wouldn't even know where to begin recommending it to someone or *whom* I'd recommend it to. It's. . .sort of like if Jorge Luis Borges wrote cyberpunk. That's a very imperfect comparison, but that's all I can come up with. If that sounds appealing to you then check this book out.
July 20, 2013
If I had to pick one word for this book a friend lent to me, I would pick woven. There are multiple threads of narrative that echo and enhance each other throughout each of the two pieces that make up this book, and they fit together surprisingly and impressively well. I enjoyed how much the author drew from different historical eras and mythology (especially in the first half) and I also greatly appreciate that the book was written by a gay author and features gay characters without being *about* being gay. Its not for everyone, but if you like keeping multiple versions of reality in your head at once, you should check it out.
July 15, 2018
Vellum is a hard book to describe. Its a love story. Its the tale of a sister searching for her brother. Its a chronicle of the eternal war for heaven and hell. And for all of these, it is a book told in a place where time and myth are points on the compass, written on the bedrock of reality itself. You have to pay attention, but it is more than worth it.
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