This is a difficult book to form an opinion on for me because I tend to look at the craftwork of a novel in a very analytical sense. I’ve tried to watch and read a bunch of reviews on this before coming to an opinion, something I never do, usually. Mostly because everyone I know thinks of this in glowing terms. What I’ve come to realize with this is I think the authorial intent is atypical.

For me, the concept of this book was excellent. More so than the granularity of sailing and war and military type fiction, which made the drama take place in a setting I couldn’t care a whit about. Then the characters felt somewhat discordioate with things until a few of the conceits are revealed. And this is where I think the people that disliked this book tend to focus.

But I actually think the authorial intent is just different than people expected. It’s much more concerned with conveying something about history and maintaining an emotion. The craftwork bends to accommodate those goals, and that’s why it’s so polarizing. I actually thought of this as more a three star read until I thought on it for the day. Now I think it did exceed my expectations, which were subverted. In the end, I like that about it, though. When thinking about the central sort of tenants of the intent here, the issues I had make sense for what this book is trying to achieve. It’s queer, it’s trying to communicate something about imperialism and hegemony and a lot of things about history and memory.

I think you have to pay attention to the strangeness of the dream, so to speak. And also just realize that there is a vibe that Pulley is trying to maintain throughout. So yeah, the protagonist reading a letter slowly, in parts, is a plot device. But it also says something about history as it relates to his memory. So if you have a gut reaction and don’t think on the primary themes, you really could miss the Forrest for the trees, I think.

Had the prose work been there and I had been more interested in the myopic setting for around half of it, I think I’d be left with even more of a positive impression of it. And yeah, I realize this review is more about my thought process ON the review than the book. Much of the fun of this book is going in blind though, I think. It’s very difficult to talk about W what makes it interesting without spoilers.

So I won’t.