I just finished re-reading “Sorceror of the Wildeeps” which remains excellent. I’m not sure I’m up to an organized review, but I definitely have thoughts.

One of the first intrusions early in the book is the language and dialect of the “brothers” who guard the caravan. Some use AAVE, some french-inflected, and the eponymous sorceror uses highly organized/scientific language to discuss apparent magic (Clarke’s sufficiently advanced technology, etc.). One thing about this is simply the way that it transgresses expectations of the fantasy genre.

Another is that it acknowledges the size of the world. I recently listened to the album of “Come from Away” and in that musical, which at least tries to position itself as a based in a small & isolated community in Newfoundland “Welcome to the Rock if you Come from Away / You probably Understand about a half of what we say”, but turns out to have a older jewish man who’s hidden his identity for his whole life. It seems to me that there’s something really useful to mix together things like dominant culture, reparative readings to understand what’s actually going on with dominant culture, understanding history and the ways that it’s hidden but also lives in real bodies (and coming back to “Wildeeps” also in family structures). “Wildeeps” seems to me to be one of the best representations of how melting pots of history both mix cultural influences and form their own culture and society, in ways that I’d like to unpack more.

I recently read Sofia Samatar’s “The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain”, much of which I loved, but which along with “Wildeeps” ends with a character transcending the limitations of their existence in a way that I found pretty dissatisfying in “Practice” specifically because in that book it seemed to suggest it would change or threaten systems, while in “Wildeeps” that individual transcendance specifically isn’t positioned as a threat to systems. That seems more honest.

I’d like to engage with “Wildeeps” more as a Quaker (not that I think Wilson is, but I am). Damane has moments of aversion to violence and respect and love for individuals which really resonated with me.

Similarly, thinking about how the story starts pretty linear, but ends up as we travel through the magical land of the Wildeeps moving backwards and forwards throught the history of the world and also the history of Damane’s life seems really interesting. I’m not sure if there’s much more I could say beyond “look at how the narrative structure of the book parallels the structure of the story being told and encourages the reader to fill in gaps and reconsider assumptions and traditions in ways that “Wildeeps” sits uneasily within and comments on traditions … very meta, and quite excellent”

There’s a moment in the relationship between Demane and the Captain where it’s clear that the Captain is both in love with Demane and grateful that he turned out to be kind because the captain’s love isn’t directly about that, and it made me realize how entirely unprepared I am to actually comment on and think about relationships in fiction (and also real life, because this is one of those moments that feels like it’s absolutely one which happens today), and makes me wonder if I can’t even really think about that besides acknowledging and realizing I don’t know what to do with it or how to situate it in the rest of the book, maybe I’m not really able to say anything substantive or coherent about “Wildeeps”.

Anyway, some scattered thoughts before my kids wake up and the day escapes me.