Review: The Court of Broken Knives, Anna Smith Spark, with personal addendum

I picked this book up because I had read somewhere that it was described as being a cross between Bakker's Second Apocalypse novels and Mark Lawrence's Broken Empire books.
As someone who holds what he's read of the Second Apocalypse in very high esteem, seeing the Court of Broken Knives being favourably compared to Bakker's work I clicked pre-order without a second thought.
Only afterwards I realized that it was likely that what was alluded to in the hyped-up review quotes was probably not going to be the depth of themes and characters and the level of philosophizing but rather the darkness, madness and violence in the world of the Three Seas.
It also, likely wouldn't be as readable as Lawrence's Thorns trilogy with that one's easily achieved depth in world-building.

Certain of disappointment now I decided to do some digging into the author's background.
I found that her twitter handle was 'Queen of Grimdark' And that with only this one novel to her name.

Queen Grimdark.

In opposition to (or to stand alongside of) Lord Grimdark, you know; Joe Abercrombie. Writer of some pretty good novels (though I'm not a fan. Mainly his romance just annoys me. The way that they all end so miserably ordinary just rubs me the wrong way. Strikes a little too close to home, if you get me.)

'Right,' I said (only half in jest) 'lets see if this upstart crow has any business calling herself Queen Grimdark'.

I'm done reading now. And what's the verdict?

Well.

Yes and no.

As per usual with these things.

One of the things that is pretty relevant to the epiteth of 'Queen of Grimdark' is the question; what do we define as grimdark?
It's something there's no real consensus about as of yet, because that name tends to cast its net so wide and because it casts such a wide net, just about everyone has their own ideas on it.

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Actually, I'd rather use grimdark as an adjective than as a sub-genre, really. I don't like the stamp that it puts on novels. The name usually does a disservice to the books that it proclaims to be a part of its genre, stifling them in a bubble of the reader's expectations and it often ends up doing more harm than good.

This is coming from someone who's read likely over a hundred individual Warhammer novels.

Warhammer...?

 You know; 

'In the grim darkness of the future there is only war...'. 

It's only where the name bloody comes from.

It's stuff I have been reading since I was 12. I've seen alot of it, and these days I'd rather categorize Warhammer 40k as Pulpgore Space-opera :) and Warhammer Fantasy as Pulp Fantasy.
 Most Warhammer Fantasy isn't even all that grim and dark. But it's the extremes people remember, and they conveniently forget that there are exceptions everwhere. In fact, there are books in the setting that could fall under genuine Literature.
The vampire Genevieve novels are fantastically good, for instance.

But despite my petty griping on the name, at this point I know it's here to stay.

Knowing that, I should adapt to it and give my criteria in order for a book to belong to the grimdark genre.

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Part of the name QueenGrimdark is obviously a marketing device.
It works great for a debut novelist, it's bold as brass balls and proclaims quite a bit. It engenders hype and interest and works very well, because after all, I'm here aren't I, having done the read.
But you can only pull that trick once. And if your debut novel isn't up to snuff you're done for.
So, having read the book. Does she live up to it? Is she worthy to be a standard bearer to the Grim-Dark Fantasy genre as I see it?

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Grim- (heavy focus on the negative and painful aspects to reality + amoral or heavily conflicted or out-and-out evil main characters) Dark (horror trappings, not necessarily monsters, but absolutely; a focus on gruesome acts and events. Various levels of conflict accompanied by gore and detailed violence, hyper or no.) Fantasy/Sci-fi 

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Short answer.

Of course she fucking does.

Long answer:
I've skipped over several aspects and most characters in the book because I've focused mostly on its more personal aspects, relevant to me. expect some of that to come into full focus after the jump.

Characters
The grimdark aspects to a story should always reside primarily in the characters and here they're mostly well-developed. In the main they were unlikable but understandable with complicated motivations rooted in their social strata, upbringing, various desires and wants. But among these there was one truly stand-out character: Main man Marith.

Marith is someone who is basically at war with his own nature and disposition and who is susceptible to depression and self-destructive behaviour. He's a character stuck in a fatalistic and self-destructive rut deriving from some secret (to us) knowledge of impending doom. Where another story might have been of the rise of a farm-boy with a destiny to become king, The Empires of Dusty cycle might be about the rise of a lord of evil. in so far as Evil is a wish to destroy and kill everything in sight arising from a lust for violence and hateful self-denial and self-destruction.

But on the other side of that he's also someone who desperately eeks out happiness when he sees the opportunity for it. But there's an odd side-effect to this.
There's about a 100 page stretch in the book where he becomes bizarrely odiously unlikable, and it's when he's at his most happy, orr at very least; where he's trying very hard to be.


Writing style

I'm very undecided on the writing.
I did a previous post on this after I had read chapter 1 of the book, claiming it was pretty fantastic. And it still really is. Or rather that chapter and various others are. In these moments Spark uses a specific writing style as a tool to underbuild her depiction of how seductive violence can be, of how easy and powerful surrendering yourself to its lure can be.
These parts of violence and bloodshed are genuinely good and very memorable, whether they're clearly depicted or not, They're beautiful and almost musically descriptive.
It reads like poetry, but without restrictions, without rules. And whether that's good or bad, what it definitely feels like though; is true. It feels honest, it feels right.
It's as if I'm actually reading thoughts. Not complete sentences, but smatterings of patterns, emotions and feelings compressed and then expressed in bursts of poetry, the way the mind works, but stopping short of actual stream-of-consciousness writing. Sometimes it's spot-on, sometimes incomprehensibly out of line, like an unattainable island or a mountaintop, like a mind adrift, alien and different from others. Because of the violent context these things usually take place in, the emotions and depictions can be extreme.
But again, these parts are very well done.

The problem is that the style used in those chapters is severly toned down throughout the rest of the book. It still stops several shades south (or north) of mainstream writing but I'm undecided if that's a good or bad thing. It flows easier at times, but at other times I stop and stare, wondering what is being said, and sometimes I had the feeling that this was down to the editing.
Which is, it must be said, sometimes off, with forgotten errors and the occasional mistake.
But then again mistakes are easy to miss, especially if you're editing a novel that can read like something along the lines of free-range poetry. It's not a bad thing, but it comes with its own problems.


Story

Here is where my main problems with the novel lie. The problem with the story is that it's only the first part of what is clearly a larger story. The book barely stands on its own and until the entire Empires of Dust sequence is written I'm still undecided.
It has potential but these things need to come full circle first.

Also, the story so far has been presented a bit sloppy. And this is partially because of the story itself and the way that Smith-Spark has chosen to tell it.

But this doesn't take away that there was a notable drop in tension and interest around 4/5th into the book and I had the feeling that it had lost the plot. The characters lose their agency and drift forward on the whims of others and as a result the narrative became a rather aimless traipsing around interspersed with occasional bouts of self-flagellating massochism. And though there are reasons for this and even though the plot rights itself when it needs to, it's a bit of an odd choice to go for at this stage of the book. The calm before the storm maybe, because that climax was very much worth it,
provided you love carnage, of course.
And you do, because you're here for the Grimdark, aren't you?

So, in short:

Until the complete story is done she still has to prove herself. There were some truly bad-ass moments and her knowledge of inner darkness and self-recrimination is impeccable and comes to full focus in its various characters, but of course; most centrally, in Marith. The writing style is amazing and easily something that makes the book stand out among its contemporaries.

I do must say I'm rather baffled by the unanimously universal praise the book has received. There are problems with the book and its subject matter is rather dark in a way that doesn't normally fall under the Grimdark Fantasy label. Conflicted characters are a staple, sure. But this is approaching inner conflict almost on the level of mental illness, this isn't so much about morality as it's about fighting one's own inner demons. It's hard stuff to look at and I would've thought that this would be a stumbling block for the usual reader. It's not a novel I would describe as mainstream but there you have it anyway. Good on you, Anna.

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Now to elaborate on something.
There was an aspect that I was very appreciative of in The Court but that I was also very troubled by.

I'll talk about this down below after the jump because I'm going to make it both personal and very corny. Sensitive souls and rabble-rousers, leave your negativity at the door. There's plenty of that here already.

JUMP

It's about central character Marith and his inner darkness.
As someone who struggles with cycles of depression and self-destructive behaviour myself, all I read here was recognizable and understandable, but it was also at times very hard to read. Mainly because it got so close, so personal.  As someone who gets self-destructive when he is depressed and who, in the darkest days, freely gives in to that impulse, primarily via over-the-top heavy exercise, drinking or just plain excessive self-punishing, thoughts or otherwise, I rather frequently, not to say continuously, could find myself in the main character of Marith during his dark moods.

It's obvious that Anna Smith Spark has an intimately acquired knowledge of the themes of self-loathing and depression and all the self-destructive impulses that go along with that.
What we have here then is an author who carries her heart on her sleeve and that is something to be respected. If you do nothing else, give it respect.

Looking back, I confess that I found myself mildy annoyed during the book's most angsty periods. It was a knee-jerk response that I'm assuming most people will have. Because people, obviously, don't like to read the negative side of things; the emotions, the concepts, the stories, all those downbeat or downright depressing themes and dialogues and thoughts that evoke negativity in any and all of its forms.
We don't want to be confronted with anything outside of our comfort zones. You make choices; what do you let in? what are the things that you let hurt you? Because you can't take all of it in and somewhere's got to be the cut-off point.
There's a type of character in Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen that takes it all in, that opens his self to any and all emotions and they always burn up as a result; the Shield Anvils. I'd be one of those I guess. Because reading this type of thing... it hurts. But not just because of the connection. It's because other people have this too, and when you realize this, When you see you aren't alone: It should be heartening, but it isn't. It's worse. Because no one can reach out. Or at least, not enough people can.

Anyway.

Mostly this was my response whilst reading: 'Ah, shit, wish Marith would just suck it up already and get his shit together,' or, 'when he snaps out of it, all these guys are gonna get so hurt but I wish it would happen already, fuck the prevaricating!'

None of us are exempt of this response, however so slight it might be. It's why we take it, why we manage to read these parts. Because we trust that our protagonist will give his enemies their comeuppance.
Aside from that, the response came forth, of course, on a deeper level, from something else.

A negative response flowing forth from the realization that I'm looking at and reading about myself during my dark periods, and I really don't want to see that. I don't want to see myself from a point outside of myself. Because it's deeply sad.
And this is mostly because I'm going through a period of deliberate positivity in order to get more of a handle on my life and emotions in the every day of navigating through it, and as such, being reminded of this different outcome with a character that for the most parts gives in to something that I also have given in to numerous times and still very much have the potential for, the acceptance and embrace of pointlessness and every negative impulse-enabling thought that flows from it, that I have to struggle to avoid, or against. is more than a little confronting.
In fact, I recognize too much of myself and it's quite a painful reminder that people in general do not want to listen to your negativity, even if what you are doing is actually asking for help.
A reminder that self destructive behaviour is something that is incredibly tempting and something that has its own draw and appeal and that likely: it is what'll undoubtedly get me in the end. If nothing else manages to get me first, of course.

Because it is in my nature. And I'll always end up defaulting to it.

But hey, I guess what I'd like to say is.

Anna Smith Park, I wish you the best.

Thank you for sharing so much of yourself.

Like Charles Halloway states in Something Wicked This Way Comes:

" Love is, above all, shared experience."

I love you.

Thank you.


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I did say corny, didn't I?