As Meat Loves Salt

[louiselux]

Two Cromwellian soldiers in love-- As Meat Loves Salt by Maria McCann. I would say, read this book.

Ow, fuck that hurt. It's a gorgeous story. You know it can't end well right from the start and dammit why can't these things ever end well? I found it Even More Depressing than The Charioteer by Mary Renault, but it's very different to that book-- incredibly sensual and with extreme sexual tension. Towards the end you think it might be going to be all right, but no. It's not. I had to squinch my eyes shut on the last few pages, it was really that painful to read.

I liked what she did with Jacob Cullen, the main character and whose POV we get. There's something not right about him-- we know, but at first he doesn't seem to realise. There's very little self analysis, as though he's blind to himself, and lots of detail on his interactions with other people: we learn this way that his family, friends, fellow soldiers, his lover Christopher Ferris are afraid of him, to varying degrees. What happens with Ferris is amazing, intense and it has such a long build up, all through the months of fighting and later in London.

Ow.

Comments

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

Ooh, yes. It's brilliant, and nasty. Very, very nasty. I was very impressed with the way Jacob's psychopathy was revealed over time.

[kindkit.livejournal.com]

I love that novel. But I've been completely unable to reread it (and normally I'm a compulsive rereader of things I love) because it's just so painful. The best I've been able to do is seek out the happy loving bits for selective enjoyment.

It really is a pity that there aren't more good novels with male/male relationships that end hapily. I continue to be puzzled by the apparent rule that happiness is the stuff of cheap romance, and that if you want good prose and other Literary Stuff you must accept them with a massive dose of existential pain.

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about that- wondering if he was a psychopath and I think he must be. He doesn't seem to understand good and bad in any terms except for what he can get away with and learns to lie to people to convince them that he's happy or sad for them, that he's normal in fact, when in reality everything is judged by how useful it is to him with no remorse for others.

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

Mmmm, it's frustrating that these sorts of books end with the Big Tragedy. It's not necessary. I got angry with the author at the end of this book because things don't always come to a screeching messy end. I thought it was more than a bit gratuitous. But then I suppose the ending gave it lots of drama and it was hard to think of where else she could go with the plot if her protagonist is a psychopath.

I was left hoping that at least the Diggers and Ferris could still be alive, if badly beaten.

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

Sociopath, perhaps. I thought the reappearance of ... the ex-wife whose name escapes me ... was a little contrived, but yes, excellent read.

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

It reminds me of the Lesbian Novels in Days of Yore, when the 'deviants' weren't allowed to have a happy ending. Modern fiction seems to think that everyone's a deviant (which, of course, is true, but still).

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

I agree - Caro's reappearance made me have to suspend my disbelief somewhat, although I liked how we never really knew what her motives where for being there. Some obscure form of revenge or just chance?