"I couldn't possibly fail to disagree with you less."
9 October 2006Diffraction effectsI admit to being a sucker for off-kilter love stories — even off-kilter teenage love stories, if they're done with some degree of finesse. Laura Whitcomb's A Certain Slant of Light has so much finesse it nearly slipped away from me, but I was able to maintain some semblance of a grip right up until the only possible ending that made any sense. "Someone was looking at me, a disturbing sensation if you're dead." And so she was, her own life having run out a century before, bound to a succession of "hosts" who are never aware of her existence, final disposition of her case evidently still pending. While looking after "her" English teacher, she's somehow seen by one of his students, and she must find out more. He, like her, is Light, assigned to this in-between world. Yet he somehow has a body:
"How did you take Mr. Blake's body?"
"He vacated it," said James. "He left it, mind and soul, like an empty house with the door open." He seemed excited to tell me his strange adventure. "When his spirit left his body, why didn't he die?" I wanted to know. "His body didn't die," he said, still fascinated by his own luck. "His spirit chose to leave. It's difficult to explain. Instead of the ship going down taking the crew with it, the crew abandoned the ship, but the ship was still seaworthy." Now he looked embarrassed. Something in my expression had shamed him. "It seems wrong," I said. "Like stealing." "Better that I have him rather than —" An untold and eerie story flashed by behind his autumn eyes. "Than what?" "Well, left adrift, something evil might pirate him away." This seemed more plausible to me than I thought it would. And eventually the want overwhelms the rules, and she finds an "empty" body of her own:
Jenny’s eyes closed and her hands folded. I decided I couldn’t wait forever. I stepped over the sleeping child and sat where Jenny was sitting. The ringing sound of crystal vibrating was all around me. I felt like I had pressed myself into cold marble. I stayed in her, and in a moment I started shaking. It was frightening, but I wouldn’t let myself run. I tried to see James in my mind’s eye, smiling at me. The ringing stopped with a popping sound. I felt like an ice sculpture starting to crack into pieces. Then it happened. I felt the shape of her, the shape of myself, inside the fingers and shoulders and knees of her. I even felt the snug shoes and the difference between her warm arms inside her sweater and her cool legs exposed to the breeze. I could feel the tickle of Jenny’s hair brushing my cheek. My hand went to my mouth when I heard myself cry out in amazement. I opened my eyes to see every face in the circle turned to me, and then the ground flew up and I was in the dark.
Two people, both long dead, now pretending to be the teenagers whose bodies they inhabit. It's not hard to see where this is going, but it's difficult not to feel something for them, so long deprived — or for the departed youngsters who had no idea what they were giving up. It's a fascinating story, more than a little bit creepy in spots, and, I'd say, worth the extra effort it demands of the "young-adult" audience to whom it's pitched. How did I wind up with this book? I wish I knew. Posted at 8:16 PM to Almost Yogurt , Table for OneFor a different type of love story- on DVD though- Danny Deckchair. Posted by: Diane at 5:27 AM on 10 October 2006 |