Mr. Simonelli

[owlectomy]

I treasure my Datlow/Windling (and later Datlow/Link/Grant) Year's Best Fantasy and Horror collections, because they tend to pick stories I like very much -- even though I'm not a horror fan (David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer do a Year's Best Fantasy collection, but I don't like their picks nearly as much -- I might look into Jonathan Strahan's Year's Best SF and Fantasy...)

But it's rare that I actually read an anthology all the way through, so I picked up an older one and stumbled on Susanna Clarke's story "Mr. Simonelli, or The Fairy Widower" and found myself smitten. I liked Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, but Simonelli charmed me in a way Strange didn't. It is remarkable to see a writer like Clarke in full control of a narrator who is not so much unreliable as self-deluding... and who, despite that, can see through the Fairy Widower; a narrator who I never buy as a good person but who is nevertheless capable of great bravery.

A brief quote, which I am truncating for spoileriness:

"It is you who are not attending to me. You must advise us upon a play. Isabella wishes to be someone very beautiful who is vindicated in the last act, Marianne will not act unless she can say something in Italian, Jane cannot be made to understand anything about it so it will be best if she does not have to speak at all, Henrietta will do whatever I tell her, and, Oh! I long to be a bear! The dearest, wisest old talking bear! Who must dance -- like this! And you may be either a sailor or a coachman -- it does not matter which, as we have the hat for one and the boots for the other. Now tell me, Mr. Simonelli, what plays would suit us?"

I wish that every writer who tried to write historical fiction, whether mainstream or fantasy or steampunk or whatever else, had such a command of language.

The story was reprinted in Clarke's collection "The Ladies of Grace Adieu," which I will try to track down. I would have liked Jonathan Strange better if it was half as long, so I won't be surprised if her short stories suit me better.

Comments

[starlady]

I love Susanna Clarke. (I loved Strange & Norrell.) If you're looking for Ladies, most Barnes & Nobles still have stacks of it on bargain.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

The Ladies of Grace Adieu is quite wonderful. You're right about the length-- it has all the strange wrongness of Clarke's fairies distilled, uninterrupted by lengthy battles and politicking.

And god yes, if only more historical writers had her (and Patrick O'Brian's) ear for the language of the time.

[bnharrison.livejournal.com]

I loved Grace Adieu. The POV characters in JS&MN were never half as sympathetic as the characters in her short stories. There's a Year's Best anthology that has "The Duke of Wellington Loses His Horse" in it, and that in Grace Adieu as well.

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

The Ladies of Grace Adieu tends to be seen in the discount section of B&N and in Half-Price Books and whatnot, so I don't know if it's been remaindered or what, but it can be had new and cheap. I still haven't read it yet, out of some kind of petty disappointment that there is Still. No. New. Novel.

[takumashii.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I try not to buy books because I'm very lacking in storage space, but it looks like the library has it.

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

I totally understand that!