raven_morgan's review
5.0
Cracklescape by Margo Lanagan is the seventh book in the Twelve Planets series of collections published by Twelfth Planet Press.
Knowing that a Margo Lanagan collection was going to be part of the Twelve Planets was, I have to admit, one of the reasons I was initially interested in the series. Lanagan is one of Australia’s best writers of short fiction (as her stack of very well-deserved awards testifies), and I knew that she and Twelfth Planet Press were going to create a collection that was something amazing (and I hasten to add that all of the authors involved in the Twelve Planets have also done the same).
For me, Lanagan’s short fiction frequently reads something like a fever dream. The conventions of what is “supposed” to make a short story work aren’t always there – there aren’t always explanations for the strange things happening, and sometimes there are no real conclusions, but Lanagan is so skilled with language and imagery that none of this matters in the least. The stories in Cracklescape fit very much in the fever dream model (albeit fever dreams which may continue to haunt your waking hours).
The collection opens with The Duchess Dresser, in which a a man picks up the titular dresser from the side of the road and brings it into his room in the flat he shares. The dresser has a mysterious stuck drawer – a drawer which begins to rattle as odd things begin to happen, all centred around the dresser. There is something both unsettling and poignant about this story. It will make the reader think about the impressions we leave on the world, and what may be seen beneath the surface of things, should you only know how to look.
Isles of the Sun is an extraordinary story (which I wonder-and I’m not sure if I’ve seen Lanagan talk in an interview about this or not-was inspired by the clip for Sigur Rós’s Glósóli) which walks the border between this world and another, dreamlike place. Part of Lanagan’s skill with writing speculative fiction is the grounding of the fantastic in the real, and this story is an excellent example of this.
Bajazzle is one of my favourites from this collection, giving the reader a glimpse into a strange group of women (they may be a cult of some kind, but it their presence is shown with essentially no explanation), the Sheelas, inspired by the the sheela-na-gig, a carved female figure seen in churches in Britain and Ireland. The use of the viewpoint character Don, a misogynist who has little respect for his wife, in a story about women reclaiming their feminine power in such a startling fashion, is a brilliant stroke.
The last story in the collection is Significant Dust, which is the most emotionally wrenching of the stories. On the surface, its the story of Vanessa, a girl who’s run away from a tragedy, but her story is interwoven with a real supposed UFO encounter. All of the stories in the collection are good, but Significant Dust is extraordinary, and amongst Lanagan’s best.
Cracklescape is a brilliant collection by Margo Lanagan, and continues the extremely high quality of the Twelve Planets collections. If you’ve never read any Margo Lanagan, this is a fine place to start – just be warned that you’ll need tissues when reading a good portion of her work, and you’ll likely find yourself wanting to devour everything she’s written.
Knowing that a Margo Lanagan collection was going to be part of the Twelve Planets was, I have to admit, one of the reasons I was initially interested in the series. Lanagan is one of Australia’s best writers of short fiction (as her stack of very well-deserved awards testifies), and I knew that she and Twelfth Planet Press were going to create a collection that was something amazing (and I hasten to add that all of the authors involved in the Twelve Planets have also done the same).
For me, Lanagan’s short fiction frequently reads something like a fever dream. The conventions of what is “supposed” to make a short story work aren’t always there – there aren’t always explanations for the strange things happening, and sometimes there are no real conclusions, but Lanagan is so skilled with language and imagery that none of this matters in the least. The stories in Cracklescape fit very much in the fever dream model (albeit fever dreams which may continue to haunt your waking hours).
The collection opens with The Duchess Dresser, in which a a man picks up the titular dresser from the side of the road and brings it into his room in the flat he shares. The dresser has a mysterious stuck drawer – a drawer which begins to rattle as odd things begin to happen, all centred around the dresser. There is something both unsettling and poignant about this story. It will make the reader think about the impressions we leave on the world, and what may be seen beneath the surface of things, should you only know how to look.
Isles of the Sun is an extraordinary story (which I wonder-and I’m not sure if I’ve seen Lanagan talk in an interview about this or not-was inspired by the clip for Sigur Rós’s Glósóli) which walks the border between this world and another, dreamlike place. Part of Lanagan’s skill with writing speculative fiction is the grounding of the fantastic in the real, and this story is an excellent example of this.
Bajazzle is one of my favourites from this collection, giving the reader a glimpse into a strange group of women (they may be a cult of some kind, but it their presence is shown with essentially no explanation), the Sheelas, inspired by the the sheela-na-gig, a carved female figure seen in churches in Britain and Ireland. The use of the viewpoint character Don, a misogynist who has little respect for his wife, in a story about women reclaiming their feminine power in such a startling fashion, is a brilliant stroke.
The last story in the collection is Significant Dust, which is the most emotionally wrenching of the stories. On the surface, its the story of Vanessa, a girl who’s run away from a tragedy, but her story is interwoven with a real supposed UFO encounter. All of the stories in the collection are good, but Significant Dust is extraordinary, and amongst Lanagan’s best.
Cracklescape is a brilliant collection by Margo Lanagan, and continues the extremely high quality of the Twelve Planets collections. If you’ve never read any Margo Lanagan, this is a fine place to start – just be warned that you’ll need tissues when reading a good portion of her work, and you’ll likely find yourself wanting to devour everything she’s written.
thiefofcamorr's review
4.0
Katharine is a judge for the Aurealis Awards. This review is the personal opinion of Katharine herself, and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of any judging panel, the judging coordinator or the Aurealis Awards management team.
To be safe, I won't be recording my review here until after the AA are over.
To be safe, I won't be recording my review here until after the AA are over.
ariereads's review
4.0
This tiny collection is absolutely glorious. Set in dusty, gritty, sun-drenched Australia, the characters are haunted by pasts both their own and not their own, encountering phantoms that - even to this weary-of-ghost-stories reader - feel at once ancient and entirely new.
A particular standout for its incredibly vivid, dark tone, Bajazzled, involves a man haunted and hunted by sheela-na-gig figures, the line between real and unreal blurred to indistinguishable. On the other hand, the previous story is glowing warm and purely lovely, childhood nostalgia as it could be if dreams and magic truly did come to life.
The contrasts are startling, the book itself is covetable, so tiny, so easy to slip in a bag and read surreptitiously wherever you like. As the best fantasy does, Cracklescape leads the way into other worlds but never lets you get too comfortable there. Highly recommended.
A particular standout for its incredibly vivid, dark tone, Bajazzled, involves a man haunted and hunted by sheela-na-gig figures, the line between real and unreal blurred to indistinguishable. On the other hand, the previous story is glowing warm and purely lovely, childhood nostalgia as it could be if dreams and magic truly did come to life.
The contrasts are startling, the book itself is covetable, so tiny, so easy to slip in a bag and read surreptitiously wherever you like. As the best fantasy does, Cracklescape leads the way into other worlds but never lets you get too comfortable there. Highly recommended.
shandy's review
1.0
I still love Lanagan's writing style, but these stories fell a little flat for me. The highlight for me was 'Significant Dust' which was rather beautiful, though 'Bajazzle' provided a lot of giggles.
tregina's review
4.0
All four of these stories are strange and beautiful in a way that I love, a little bit dreamy and a little bit sharp at the same time. My favourite would have to be Bajazzle, though, which is wonderfully evocative and pointed.
margreads's review
4.0
I am a big fan of the Twelve Planets series that is currently being published by Australian small press Twelve Planets Press. I look forward to each instalment but I must confess that this particularly instalment was one that I was anticipating more than most! And, of course, given that it is Margo Lanagan telling us short stories, I wasn't disappointed!
The collection opens with The Duchess Dresser. A young man picks up a duchess dresser from the side of the road and decides it will be the perfect piece of furniture for his room in the share house he lives in. The only thing wrong with it is that the drawer doesn't open.... oh and that same drawer rattles and shakes all night, and then there is the spectre of a young woman that seems to call it home. What I thought was interesting about this story is that while the story goes in a certain direction the reader is kind of lulled into thinking they know what is going on until suddenly it ends up somewhere differently but it still makes sense! Then again, that is pretty much trademark Lanagan and I should know that by now!
To read more head to
http://www.theintrepidreader.com/2012/10/cracklescape-by-margo-lanagan.html
The collection opens with The Duchess Dresser. A young man picks up a duchess dresser from the side of the road and decides it will be the perfect piece of furniture for his room in the share house he lives in. The only thing wrong with it is that the drawer doesn't open.... oh and that same drawer rattles and shakes all night, and then there is the spectre of a young woman that seems to call it home. What I thought was interesting about this story is that while the story goes in a certain direction the reader is kind of lulled into thinking they know what is going on until suddenly it ends up somewhere differently but it still makes sense! Then again, that is pretty much trademark Lanagan and I should know that by now!
To read more head to
http://www.theintrepidreader.com/2012/10/cracklescape-by-margo-lanagan.html
tsana's review
4.0
Cracklescape by Margo Lanagan is one of the more recent releases in the Twelve Planets series from Twelfth Planet Press. I have previously reviewed several collections in the series.
This is only the second Margo Lanagan book I've read and the first containing short stories (the other was Tender Morsels). Although there were only four stories in Cracklescape, I really felt like I got a feeling for the sort of stories Lanagan writes. The general feeling actually reminded me a bit of Ekaterina Sedia's stories, but with an Australian flavour rather than a Russian one (and a bit less depressing).
A few words on the stories in Cracklescape:
The Duchess Dresser is about a dresser (presumably the one on the front cover) with a mysteriously stuck drawer and the man who acquires it and puts it in his bedroom. Suffice to say the drawer isn't stuck here because the key cannot be found.
The Isles of the Sun was a strange story and perhaps my favourite in the collection. It's a somewhat modern world fairytale with a bit of a twist: as well as being told from the main child's point of view, it's also partly told from his mother's point of view. I appreciated the look at the other side of the coin. It's easy to write about the kids that go on an incredible, magical adventure, but what about the parents? Nice to see it addressed in a short story.
Bajazzle was strange. Oddly enough, the references the title evoked for me ended up having more relevance to the story that I expected. Other than that, it's an open-to-interpretation piece and I don't think I can say more about it without saying too much. That and I suspect my reaction to it says as much about me as about the story itself. Heh.
Significant Dust was two stories really. The foreground events in the main character's life — themselves told in two time lines — and the story with the dust and the possible aliens. I think I will need to reread this one when I'm less busy and stressed. I have a feeling there's a bit more to the background story than I picked up on the first time through.
All in all, this is a strong collection which fans of Lanagan will enjoy. For those who haven't encountered her work before, I recommend it to fans of magical realism, fairy tales sneaking into the real world and magic in everyday places. I'm not the biggest fan of short stories, particularly not in large doses (a definite upside of the slim Twelve Planets series), but Cracklescape has made me mentally bump White Time, another Lanagan collection waiting on one of my shelves, up my TBR.
4 / 5 stars
You can read more of my reviews on my blog.
This is only the second Margo Lanagan book I've read and the first containing short stories (the other was Tender Morsels). Although there were only four stories in Cracklescape, I really felt like I got a feeling for the sort of stories Lanagan writes. The general feeling actually reminded me a bit of Ekaterina Sedia's stories, but with an Australian flavour rather than a Russian one (and a bit less depressing).
A few words on the stories in Cracklescape:
The Duchess Dresser is about a dresser (presumably the one on the front cover) with a mysteriously stuck drawer and the man who acquires it and puts it in his bedroom. Suffice to say the drawer isn't stuck here because the key cannot be found.
The Isles of the Sun was a strange story and perhaps my favourite in the collection. It's a somewhat modern world fairytale with a bit of a twist: as well as being told from the main child's point of view, it's also partly told from his mother's point of view. I appreciated the look at the other side of the coin. It's easy to write about the kids that go on an incredible, magical adventure, but what about the parents? Nice to see it addressed in a short story.
Bajazzle was strange. Oddly enough, the references the title evoked for me ended up having more relevance to the story that I expected. Other than that, it's an open-to-interpretation piece and I don't think I can say more about it without saying too much. That and I suspect my reaction to it says as much about me as about the story itself. Heh.
Significant Dust was two stories really. The foreground events in the main character's life — themselves told in two time lines — and the story with the dust and the possible aliens. I think I will need to reread this one when I'm less busy and stressed. I have a feeling there's a bit more to the background story than I picked up on the first time through.
All in all, this is a strong collection which fans of Lanagan will enjoy. For those who haven't encountered her work before, I recommend it to fans of magical realism, fairy tales sneaking into the real world and magic in everyday places. I'm not the biggest fan of short stories, particularly not in large doses (a definite upside of the slim Twelve Planets series), but Cracklescape has made me mentally bump White Time, another Lanagan collection waiting on one of my shelves, up my TBR.
4 / 5 stars
You can read more of my reviews on my blog.
dearbhla's review
Cracklescape is a collection of four short stories by Margo Lanagan. I have no idea what the stories are about but they make for great reading. They hint at things, and the unknown, but they don’t have to hunt after the answer to any of the questions they raise, it is enough for them to make you wonder.
I think of them all my favourite was Bajazzle. I loved the Sheela-na-gig reference, and the idea of the Sheelas was just great, although really want to know more about them. And Don, urgh, he was such a dick but at the same time I liked reading about him. His inability to appreciate what he had, his uncomfortableness with other people’s needs. And of course, the icky sex.
I reviewed each of the stories on my blog:
The Duchess Dresser - http://www.susanhatedliterature.net/2012/06/the-duchess-dresser/
The Isles of the Sun - http://www.susanhatedliterature.net/2012/07/the-isles-of-the-sun/
Bajazzle - http://www.susanhatedliterature.net/2012/07/bajazzle/
Significant Dust - http://www.susanhatedliterature.net/2012/08/significant-dust/
I think of them all my favourite was Bajazzle. I loved the Sheela-na-gig reference, and the idea of the Sheelas was just great, although really want to know more about them. And Don, urgh, he was such a dick but at the same time I liked reading about him. His inability to appreciate what he had, his uncomfortableness with other people’s needs. And of course, the icky sex.
I reviewed each of the stories on my blog:
The Duchess Dresser - http://www.susanhatedliterature.net/2012/06/the-duchess-dresser/
The Isles of the Sun - http://www.susanhatedliterature.net/2012/07/the-isles-of-the-sun/
Bajazzle - http://www.susanhatedliterature.net/2012/07/bajazzle/
Significant Dust - http://www.susanhatedliterature.net/2012/08/significant-dust/