The New Moon's Arms

I can't really say Nalo Hopkinson is a favorite author of mine because her female characters are sometimes quite unlikeable, but she has some great ideas in the feminist science fiction/fantasy genre. I just finished The New Moon's Arms, and it is one of her best in my opinion. The main character just makes you want to wring her neck, but of course, she has good sides that push the anger back a little. However, the best thing about it was the weird and wonderful take on menopause. I think I have to recommend the book to every woman of a certain age.

Hm.
So, I really liked this book. I love how abrasive Calamity is. She's mighty flawed, and it's really great to follow the narrative from her perspective. That is, until she gets all homophobic. And she doesn't appear to be on her way to learning a lesson by the end either. While I love that there's more than one queer person in this book (and a bisexual man! rare in media!), and their portrayal is nothing but positive, we only see them through Calamity's eyes, and she's NOT into it. I keep wavering about this...I might have given this 4 stars if not for the the homophobia, and I keep thinking that it's just the character who is homophobic because the queer people were happy and proud and lovely and fed right up with Calamity, and that show more tension did add something to the story and the character development...but it also took away from that by being too much of a focal point.

Other than that, Calamity is a fabulous character. I know a lot of reviewers didn't like her style, but I thought she was great. Vain, self-centered, yet caring and regretful. She's been hurt and has hurt and she feels shitty about all of it, but she doesn't necessarily deal with it well.

I love all the subtle magic as well. I love the Caribbean selkie fairy tale, and Calamity's menopause magic that I suppose she gets from her water-mom!. I look forward to reading more from Nalo Hopkinson! show less

Absolutely marvelous. Just loved it. I don't think its going to be everybody's cup of tea, in fact I'm quite sure it isn't. For one thing its magical realism, so if you are opposed to unexplained occurances intruding into an otherwise real world narrative, you aren't gonna like it. For another, be warned, the protagonist is not entirely likeable, and in fact makes some pretty bigoted statements about homosexuality. Other characters aggressively challenge her on it, and the situation is emotionally complicated, but still. If that's really going to bother you, this may not be your novel.

However, I just adored it. I love the setting, the writing, the wonderfully distinctive characterizations. I also love, love, love that Hopkinson has the show more guts to write a female over 50 who is willful and passionate and foolish and ferocious and sexual and funny and sometimes quite blatantly, just plain wrong. I'm so tired of colorless ineffectual middle aged women in fiction. Calamity Lambkin may be many things, but colorless is definitely not one of them! show less

After rereading Hopkinson's "Brown Girl in the Ring" I promised myself I would read more of her work. This is the next of her books I have read, and it is wonderful, an engaging story told in the first-person by an engaging woman with real world problems and also some problems caused by an ability to find lost things and an encounter with mer-people, whom Hopkinson gives a back story as slaves who become transformed when the slave ship carrying them to the market is wrecked and one of their number invokes the help of a supernatural power. I'm hooked on Hopkinson.

Calamity is a 53-year-old woman who has just taken buried her father. She has stormy relationships with other people and her menopause has brought her gifts beyond hot flashes and night sweats, items from her childhood and earlier life keep re-appearing in her life. She discovers a strange boy on the beach, washed up by a storm. She decides to foster the boy and overlook his webbed fingers and propensity to eat his shrimp raw. She also comes to terms with her adult daughter and her father while raising the sea boy and then deciding to send him back to his own people. Calamity is deeply conflicted and really enjoyable to read about.

I really wanted to like this novel, written by fellow Canadian Nalo Hopkinson, and recommended highly by several people.

Unfortunately the novel fell short in so many areas. The New Moon's Arms could have been a great novel. It deals with a classic story of redemption. However, Hopkinson's realization of that story just didn't float.

Calamity, the middle-aged protagonist, at first isn't clearly defnied when we meet her at the graveside of her father. Given her behaviour, I honestly thought she was a child. It came as a shock, then, to learn she was 'old'. Supposing I had missed some crucial informtion, I re-read the opening and found that indeed no I hadn't missed anything.

Reading on a little further, I discovered Hopkinson's show more definition of 'old' meant mid-50s. Certainly a great deal depends on perspective, but mid-50s to anyone but an adolescent isn't old. Ninety is old.

So, I'm afraid I didn't get off to the most stellar of starts with the novel. And after that it generally continued in a frustrating, flippant manner. The character of Calamity is a nasty-tempered, selfish woman without many redeeming qualities, even in the rather abrupt end and attempt to set aright all the wrongs she's committed.

The raison d'etre of this story is a mer-child, and unfortunately the resolution of the child's destiny, and indeed the story's, is absolutely predictable. There are red herrings thrown in amounting to nothing: an environmental disaster waiting to happen; a political situation that's never resolved; friendships and relationships left hanging.

And while I have no difficulty with an author creating fictitious regions, Hopkinson's delivery of Cayaba left me confused and wishing for an actual Caribbean setting. It would have given so much more defintion to the story.

Which brings me to the language of The New Moon's Arms. Hopkinson relies heavily upon local patois, which at first adds flavour, but after awhile renders the story difficult to read, at least for someone unfamiliar with Caribbean culture, and given the book was published by Warner, and destined for a North American market, I am surprised the editor didn't raise an eyebrow, or even suggest, less reliance upon patois.

There are many repetetive phrases in the novel which became exasperating after awhile, in particular the phrase 'kissed my teeth'.

And then of course there's the denouement, which is predictable, unbelievable on so many levels, and frankly felt so manufactured as to be forced.

As I said, I really wanted to like this novel. There are many elements here to attract a reader. But, for me, the novel fails. It's okay. It's not memorable, and certainly it will be unlikely I'll return to its pages in years to come. show less

The New Moon’s Arms is a warm, enjoyable book. Hopkinson is rooted in the Caribbean and skillfully portrays the region’s people and folklore. The story takes place on imaginary Caribbean islands and is told in regional dialect that is never hard to understand but draws in readers like me with its unfamiliarity.

Hopkinson’s characters are deftly drawn. Her narrator is Calamity, a woman in her mid-fifties, strong, feisty and appealing but not without her flaws. Her relationship with her adult daughter is rocky, with the daughter very critical of her mother. In addition, Calamity still holds grudges from her childhood and is fiercely homophobic, issues which are addressed and begin to be resolved in the course of the book. At the core show more of the book is the young boy that Calamity finds washed up onto her beach after a storm and seeks to keep.

In the background are Caribbean issues such as environmental degradation, crony capitalism, and political deals, but these are simply there as part of the scenery, never taking center stage. Magic and humor are woven through the book as Hopkinson expands our sense of wonder.

I recommend this book to any reader wanting a pleasurable experience with a touch of the Caribbean. show less