Arachnophile – Betty Rocksteady
Oh,
Betty, Betty – what did you do, Betty?
Often,
when you open a NBSA book, you're taking a risk. Does the author know
what they're doing? Can they finish the story properly? Are all the
good things they do at the beginning going to peter out into an
unsatisfying ending? In short, is the writer in control? Betty
Rocksteady is in control.
From
her subtle use of language, to her poise of character development,
Betty is always in control. The story is great – I immediately
loved the idea of riffing on “Guess Who's Coming To Dinner” and
all the choices Betty makes are great. Even the switch in gears for
her ending.
Her
soft and loving descriptions of the spider's embrace are particularly
impressive. Her prose is warm and velvety and just....oooh so
scrummy. It was a real delight to read.
There's
a load of depth and subtly to her world, it feels lived in and real,
yet at the same time utterly strange and bizarre. People's houses are
infested with insects and the furniture is sentient in some
indefinable way, and of course, spiders are considered a class of
citizen – even if they are a lower class. They're alien, but
through her imagination, Betty manages to bring out the emotions of
our arachnid friends. We see their art. Hear their music. We feel
their pain when they're in pain, yet we don't entirely trust them –
they are after all spiders.
Like
all my favourite bits of bizarro. Betty is talking about other things
when she talks about spiders. For spiders read outsiders. The
“others”, and their strange cultures, rituals, and ways of
speech. This book feels oddly poignant as our various governments
face the current refugee crises around the world. Wherever we are,
we're going to have to get used to other cultures interacting with
our own – getting up close and personal. There are lessons to be
learned from this novella.
It
was a joy to spend a few hours kicking it with Betty and her spiders.
I highly recommend it.
What
did you do? You made me care about a spider, Betty, that's what you
did.
Arachnophile-Betty-Rocksteady-ebook
Arachnophile-Betty-Rocksteady-ebook
Chris Meekings
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