The Blue Place (1998)

11/2012 The last time I read this book I didn't register that there's a whole paragraph devoted to Hild of Whitby. This time, because I read Griffith's blog and I know she's working on a huge book about Hild, it leapt out at me and I grinned.

It's hard to write about this one without spoilers, because so much of it concerns how situations affect Aud, how her authentic self plays hide and seek, and how the events form the chains they do. The prose is spectacular throughout.

6/2009 I love this book, with its hard-edged and icy prose, with its omni-competent but emotionally stunted protagonist, with its heart-wrenching plot twists. It's brutal, but it's also somehow comforting for me. I adore Aud in all her complicated, buttoned-up brilliance. I love how Griffith leaves all the right doors open, all the right things unresolved, and how beautifully she writes. This book is like a really bad cut with an extraordinarily sharp knife- you have no idea how far it's gone in until much, much later. ( )

I was totally on board with this until I figured out how it was going to end. While I really enjoyed Aud as a character, it just left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I know by now to avoid all gay fiction written in the 90s. ( )

The prose was absolutely rivitingly lovely, the plot was a little bit wobbly, the characters were vivid but just a touch ubermenschie. I really really enjoyed it, but be warned, there's violence and darkness and there ain't no hollywood happy endings here. I am going to read the sequels.

Also this book made me want to go to Norway.

( )

Aud Torvingen runs her life based on analysis and her senses, with very limited room for emotions. When her ex-cop background involves her in investigating an arson at the request of an intriguing client -- an arson that killed a man and destroyed evidence of an artwork scam -- she becomes embroiled in a physically dangerous situation that, true to quick lesbian love attachment, also begins to risk her heart.

Aud Torvingen is a fascinating character. She's uncompromising; she's very good at what she does. She kills or seriously injures at least six people in the book, not out of passion but because it just makes sense. No regrets, no remorse. Self-preservation trumps all. One of this book's highlights for me was the tension between me identifying completely with Aud's personality yet being horrified by her actions, and the questions that that combination raises for who I am.

At the same time, the unfolding story of cross-continental deceit pushed me through the book, whereas Aud's love story and emotional thawing only raised the stakes. Throughout the book, I was never sure what would next be revealed. My interest in how the plot would be resolved -- and whether the author had the strength to kill her characters -- only increased as I read further.

The Blue Place is much more tightly written than Ammonite or Slow River, but it is also less deep. While it still has the lone-wolf-protagonist-finds-love-and-begins-to-unbend theme, it plays with fewer big ideas and has fewer insights than either of the previous books, perhaps because this novel is quasi-gritty real world detective drama rather than spec fic. While I (very) much enjoyed the technical improvements of this book, and came out of it thinking I had a new favorite among Griffith's work, in retrospect I find myself feeling some nostalgia for the more thought-provoking nature of her previous work. ( )

This is very well crafted book with great characterisation, especially of course Aud. It gripped meright from the start and there aren;t that many books that do. Give it a try.