Scan barcode
A review by archytas
The Swift Dark Tide by Katia Ariel
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
3.25
"It seems to me that opening a marriage is less about trading permissions and more about riding a force. This is its brutal and wonderful power, its unstable elemental property, what makes it bloom like nitrous oxide and slide like mercury; the final stage of labour, irreversible and bloody."
The writing here is as gorgeous as the cover. The prose is assured, with Ariel wielding her keyboard with confidence in the joy of words, sharply and effectively contrasting with her documented her journey to confidence in her own sexuality. She writes with sensual force, and control even as she writes about the gradual surrender of control in her increasingly messy personal life, the discovery of a heart sensuality with a complexity new to her. The overall effect can be stunning, a balance that stops this from feeling either too uncertain or lacking in vulnerability to connect too.
A Stella nomination tempted me back to this memoir (and it won't be the last), but my discomfort with the genre remains. I am acutely aware of the act of writing and how it intersects with future events (Ariel's husband is painted in saintly colours, at times without the life and movement the 'character' would require to feel real, making me even more acutely aware that this is the story of a family going through something difficult.). There is also something about doubling down on subjectivity, which probably contradicts my preference. These are not mediated factors here, making this less comfortable.
Or, to quote one of my favourite bits, "it makes me suspicious of our love of words, of names, of the way we have played with them like glitter when they were really ground up glass."
The writing here is as gorgeous as the cover. The prose is assured, with Ariel wielding her keyboard with confidence in the joy of words, sharply and effectively contrasting with her documented her journey to confidence in her own sexuality. She writes with sensual force, and control even as she writes about the gradual surrender of control in her increasingly messy personal life, the discovery of a heart sensuality with a complexity new to her. The overall effect can be stunning, a balance that stops this from feeling either too uncertain or lacking in vulnerability to connect too.
A Stella nomination tempted me back to this memoir (and it won't be the last), but my discomfort with the genre remains. I am acutely aware of the act of writing and how it intersects with future events (Ariel's husband is painted in saintly colours, at times without the life and movement the 'character' would require to feel real, making me even more acutely aware that this is the story of a family going through something difficult.). There is also something about doubling down on subjectivity, which probably contradicts my preference. These are not mediated factors here, making this less comfortable.
Or, to quote one of my favourite bits, "it makes me suspicious of our love of words, of names, of the way we have played with them like glitter when they were really ground up glass."