Review: Briarley, by Aster Glenn Gray

[missroserose]

Awhile back, a friend had a post up about a story she had been writing (and rewriting) for some time. It was a retelling of Beauty and the Beast where the beast is a dragon, the traveller a village parson who refuses to trade his daughter's freedom for his own; where he stays with the beast himself and they have discussions on the nature of affection and the differences between romantic love and humanitarian love; where they fall in love but the priest went to Oxford so he's cool with that, and also it's set in England during World War II and of course there's a Luftwaffe attack.

As y'all have probably guessed, my response was basically "I must read this immediately".

I am here to tell you that it is every bit as delightful as I'd hoped. The fairytale tone is charming without being twee, Briarley Hall has just the right amount of magic (lent help by Gray's heartrendingly lovely depictions of the landscape), and the English countryside feels real and lived-in and more than a little war-weary.

Most importantly, though, the leads are complex and beautifully rendered. The dragon's slow awakening to respect and eventual love feels genuine—as does the parson's occasional frustration with the dragon's self-pity. Their dynamic works well, emphasizing their humanity even amidst the fantastic surroundings.

It's one of my favorite truisms that you can write a good story about anything—a transsexual glam-rock singer from communist East Berlin, a trigendered alien race, a postapocalyptic culture of car-obsessed warlords—if you find the love in it, the place where the characters and their struggles speak to the shared humanity in us. For a tale about a person supposedly incapable of love, this story is suffused with it, as ever-prevalent and ever-blooming as the enchanted roses. Fear, too, and grief, and anger, and the whole gamut of emotions; they anchor the novella and make it real and immediate in a way that many authors spend whole books never quite reaching. I loved Briarley and I can't wait to see what Gray does next.

Comments

[missroserose]

Totally agreed about the dragon, and how we see him through the parson's eyes. I think that was one of the things I liked most about the story—it refused to take the easy answer about any of its characters. Especially as I've been organizing my own thoughts on this Giant Writing Project of Doom, it's been coming home to me how difficult that is—tropes and cliches become tropes and cliches because they work, they're easy emotional shorthand. Depth, and real complex humanity, is much harder.

I loved the conversation too, although that's hardly surprising for me. Probably my biggest frustration in writing is that my characters end up standing around talking to each other all the time and never really *doing* anything. To me, the conversation's where the interest lies. :)

[asakiyume]

Probably my biggest frustration in writing is that my characters end up standing around talking to each other all the time and never really *doing* anything.

I say run with it! That's where life happens, for a lot of us.

[sovay]

I say run with it! That's where life happens, for a lot of us.

Seconded. Many of my stories are mostly people talking.