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Summary: Dyke Queen Lover of Lesbian Detective Fiction
Review: Quite a change of pace from the other two books in Griffith's oeuvre, but I agree with the other reviewers who liked this one. Aud is a strong and complex character who is human, has faults and weaknesses, and I was in tears at the end after she lost Julia. This book is one of the best dyke noirs that I've read since Sarah Schulman's After Dolores, although the Norway scenes do strike me as padding somewhat. What happens next? I hope Nicola writes a sequel to this book. I want to see how Aud reacts to losing Julia. If not a book, then a short story that deals with her reactions. Well-researched. Excellent descriptive quality. Spellbinding characterisation.
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Summary: Xena Uber?
Review: Superbly written, this uberish detective thriller ruined my sleep after I'd finished it, in sorrow at its outcome, but it's a powerful piece of writing even though I would've preferred an ending such as Sharon Bowers gives us in "Lucifer Rising" or K. Delacroix in "Engravings of Wraith." Aud needs a lesson in WWXD. I was way ahead of her and totting up all her tragic hero mistakes, still it leads to a very palpable sense of doom and inevitability that give it urgency and immediateness, depth, and true tragedy and leads to the, also inevitable, to be continued lead detective series character (do I hear Adam Dalgliesh knocking?), the brooding, grieving, vengeful valkyrie. Lesbians like happy endings too, sigh...just like everybody else.It's almost as if our anti-heroine wants it to happen as a self-fulfilling prophecy to sabotage her own happiness. Oh, those brooding scandinavians!
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Summary: Not sci fi -- better
Review: Thanks, Nicola! [Just in case you ever peek at the reviews here.] The Blue Place is a very interesting and engaging novel. If you liked Nicola Griffith's other novels (Slow River and Ammonite), give this novel a try. However, as the cover of the book explains, this is "a novel of suspense"; it is not science fiction. [A special note for those of you who read ONLY science fiction: You are missing out on some EXCELLENT literature by keeping to only one genre.] I will not tell you about the plot, since that might spoil it for you; but I will say a few words about her characters. At first, I thought that Nicola was writing a very simplistic novel at an adolescent level: her main character (at first read) seemed to be one of those fantasy super women that appeals to so many escape-fantasy readers (which is cool, if that is what you enjoy). Oh, how wrong I was! Ms. Griffith has developed a very complicated, intelligent, strong, passionate, brave, admirable, and REAL woman in her main character. Supporting characters are also real, and very diverse. Sometimes in novels, it seems as if the author has selected two dimensional characters that he or she has met only through their main connection to the world -- their television. This generalization does NOT apply to Nicola: I believe she has lived a very, very interesting life and KNOWS many interesting people (or else she has a GREAT imagination). Aside from a good plot and great characters, she has a wonderful and unique writing style.
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Summary: A non-thrilling disappointment follows "Slow River"
Review: The subtitle is "A Novel of Suspense," but that is simply false advertising. The key betrayal is easily spotted early on; the plot itself is hackneyed and dull. It mainly provides a context for the heroine "Aud" to wreak painful revenge on a series of anonymous males. All the males in "The Blue Place" are weak, craven, venal or incompetent. Most of the females are strong, wise or honorable, and none more so than Aud. She is a multisegmented character whose many aspects are revealed sequentially: ex-cop, dyke, carpenter, warrior, gardener, Norwegian daughter of privilege. Yet for all the detail, Aud is a smug superhero who fights, parties and putters in an unending state of peak sensuality. It is impossible to empathize with her as she maneuvers professionally through various scenarios; her final "humanization" is sketchy and unconvincing. Griffith has squandered her talent on this detached and uninvolving power fantasy.
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Summary: Tasty Thriller, and Then Some
Review: This book starts out being a slick thriller kind of a book. Lots of action, great sense of place, good characters. It's almost like the author couldn't help herself, though. The book starts getting bigger about half-way through. It has a lot to say about violence, and consciousness, and love as a source of profound disruption as well as joy. As a whole, I don't think The Blue Place works very well as a mystery. I think of it as more of a Jane Austin novel, a study of place and person. If that's your cup of tea, you might really enjoy this book.
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Summary: A fine example of suspense literature...
Review: This book was recommended to me by another fine author, Manda Scott, and I'm grateful. I had been tempted to buy _Slow River_, but have passed it up as I am not much of a sci-fi fan. I do hope that Griffith will continue to explore other genres, because _The Blue Place_ is a beautifully-written page-turner, and I'm anxious for more...
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Summary: Evocative and gripping
Review: This is a wonderful book and a real departure from run-of-the-mill suspense novels. Griffith's writing is gorgeous and the book works well on many levels. It's not that hard to figure out whodunit--but that's not the point. The story of Aud and how she thaws to the world is the point, and is deftly told amid sensory details of Atlanta heat and Norway glaciers, and emotional details of a strong woman who doesn't know that she's stuck in a safe but lonely place within herself. I think it's a fabulous book, and Griffith just keeps getting better. Can't wait for another one!
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Summary: gut-wrenching, exciting, and unexpected
Review: This is just the most amazing book: sexy, gut-wrenching, exciting, funny, unexpected, and full of stories-within-stories (like the troll fairytale) and things that'll make you think. While I was reading I believed in Aud. I was with her on that glacier fighting for her life. Unbelievably exciting. And at the same time I could smell the ice, hear the birds. I don't know how the author did all that at once.. What surprised me about this novel was the sly sense of humor. It's different, sort of foreign, but it flicks out and gets you when you're not expecting it and lets you know Aud is smart as well as fast and frightening. This is a great book. If only Aud was real.
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Summary: Best book I have read in years!
Review: To say well written does not do Blue place justice. Nicola Griffith has given us a landmark book of prose. Her descriptions paint pictures, her characters live. Normally I skim books. I savoured this one. I am buying the hard cover so that Blue Place can be in my permanent library, a reference to how to write. I reccommend all of her books to everyone, but I save my unlimited praise for Blue Place. Enjoy it!
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Summary: Master Piece of Subtlelty
Review: Why is Nicola Griffith a writer, instead of a Zen master? The only book that is more subtle, perhaps, is her own "Slow River." But this book appeals to me on a more emotional level than an intellectual level (like Slow River), and I like it more because of it. But it's almost just as subtle, as powerful, as astonishing as Slow River. On the cover of the book, there's a blurb from the Seattle Times book review: "A suspense, a love story, a character study..." It's actually not that much of a suspense. But it's the one of the best love stories I've ever read, containing one of the most fascinating characters I've ever read. Ice is a big subject in the book. When I visualize a process -- where water seeps into the cracks of rocks and also around them, then freezes into ice and expands, causes the rocks to crack, splinter, broken up; slowly, hundreds, maybe thousands of years later, humans gasp with astonishment, humbled or even mesmerized by a display of such power, at the sight of an entire mountain broken up even wiped off by an iceberg, giant rocks turned into small pebbles -- it reminds me of this book. Everything starts with such a slow, deliberate, almost imperceptible pace that one hardly feels the titanic struggle that is being carried out under the surface. Small signs of this poke through here and there. But we, the readers, are so impressed by the sheer size and authority the rock mountain, that almost on a subconscious level refuse to believe anything fundamental is changing, that this immovable object can ever be changed, let alone broken. Until at the end when that veil of false confidence is lifted from our eye, and we are amazed, astonished, and devastated. That is how this one of kind love story is told. That is how this one of a kind character - Norwegian, martial artist, ex-police, lesbian private detective Aud Torvigen - is revealed to us. We see the world through her eyes, smell it through her nose, feel it through touch, and analyze it through her thoughts. She is a Superman living in a world without Kryptonite. She is faster, more intelligent, more powerful than anyone. Things that she personally cannot do - she can always find the right person to do it. Things that she personally does not know - she always knows the right person to ask. She can be as charming as she is deadly. She knows all about danger, about death, about wealth, about human weaknesses. Nothing shocks her. Nothing scares her. Nothing can stand in her way. Then the first crack appeared. Or more precisely, in a quite Atlanta night, she unexpectedly collided into another woman while jogging, and unknown to her, dropped her wallet. She doesn't know it. We the readers don't know it - because we only see the world through her eyes. But the water is slowly gathering and flowing. Ice is forming. The rock is straining. Tension is mounting, steadily marching toward the point of no return. She doesn't realize it. We don't realize it. Until the very end when the slow accumulation of ice and slow erupted into an avalanche. Until the mountain suddenly broke. Until the world suddenly changed irreversibly. All through this mesmerizing story of love, change, and death, we are guided by the ethereal hand of Nicola Griffith. Subtle, meticulous, and gentle, all the while leading us - who are as blind as Aud - into another reality. There are many other things extremely worthy of praise in this book. One is the exquisite way Aud's inner world, her personality, is revealed to us, indirectly, through her actions. Another is the utterly unique exploration of violence - it's focused neither on the cerebral planning nor the gruesome aftermath; it's on the very act of violence of itself, how every fiber, every hair, every bone, every cell quivers with excitement and desire in that one moment in time - the seductive call of the Blue Place. Need I say more?
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