Book Review: Ecstasia, by Francesca Lia Block
Ecstasia, by Francesca Lia Block
Page one begins with Calliope's vision::
Rather than describe Francesca Lia Block's writing style, I decided to rather excerpt it to illustrate my thoughts. Those who have read her other books will recognize it immediately-- sensual, vibrant, but also disjointed-- as if the reader were stumbling through a waking dream. In Ecstasia, the story is told almost unaware of narrative, through a series of visions, song lyrics, drugged fever-dreams. Many characters tell the story, and it as if we've simply dropped in on their thoughts-- they are completely unaware that they are relating a story to us, the reader.
The story, by the way, is an amalgamation of many myths, but primarily those of Orpheus and the Underworld and the myth of Persephone. If you try to match the characters to their archetypal roots, beware, for they often overlap. Rafe and his father are both Orpheus. The father is also Hades, lord of the Underworld, or, in this instance, Under, the gray, wraithlike world where the aging go to die. Calliope is both her namesake, the muse of poetry, and Proserpina/Persephone, abducted to the underworld by plucking a flower from the soil. She later becomes Demeter, and her daughter Primavera is also Persephone, bringing Springtime to the barren world. Dionisio-- well, that should be obvious, even if the character is a watered-down version of the God of the vine. Estella is Eurydice, the lost love. And Paul is uniquely a creation of Block's Shangri L.A., her mirror of Los Angeles, cast here as Elysia-- a glittering glass candy world where youth is the only currency.
The story starts out strong-- Rafe meets Lily, a tightrope walker in a glowing circus tent. They fall in love, but Lily has a secret. She is a drug addict-- she dances for a drug called Orpheus, a drug that can bring back the dead through visions and hallucinations. The drug ages her quickly, and, in Elysia, everyone who ages goes Under-- into a labyrinthine tunnel system, over the river with the boatman, and eventually to sickrooms where, when they die, they will be preserved forever in youthful plaster casts. Rafe cannot get her her beats, and so Lily dies, prompting Rafe himself to become addicted to Orpheus.
To get his drug, Rafe must venture Under to see The Doctor, who has conjured all manner of chemical cocktails. He is rescued and coaxed to detox by the members of Ecstasia, and particularly by Paul, who loves him perhaps more than he lets on. The healing power of love is a common theme in Block's books, and here it is very prevalent. Calliope also ventures Under to find her mother, and she would have stayed there in her grief if it were not for Rafe, her devoted brother, who finds her and brings her back. Thematically, I would say Rafe & Calliope's mutual journeys to and from Under should constitute this book, because after the halfway point, it is almost as though we are reading a second book, a sequel. Thus far, it has been fairly easy to follow a plot, but it is rushed-- Rafe's falling in love with Lily, Calliope's trip to see Estella. I almost wish that Block had slowed and added more detail to these events, particularly since the book seems so thematically cloven in two.
The second part of the novel is largely concerned with The Doctor, whom we have met before, and his captivity of a now-pregnant Calliope. Hades-- father, not lover-- holding Demeter/Persephone underground. A new character is introduced-- 'Calliope creature,' a Buffybot-like doll who replaces Calliope aboveground. She is heartbreaking-- a doll who learns how to love, a doll who understands that love may require the most heartwrenching of sacrifices. Again, if the novel were split into two, we would have been able to spend more time with her, instead of a few scant pages.
Also in the second part of the book, Paul and Rafe have become a couple. Ordinarily, I would be cheered by this, but I couldn't help but feel a slight sense of unease. Block makes it clear through hints from the beginning of the novel that Paul loves Rafe very deeply. However, she also has Rafe express denial and discomfort over his feelings for Paul, which he describes as 'nothing.' I would think that getting these two to fall in love would take more than a few pages for it to be believable. From this point on, we hear very little of Rafe's thoughts, and so I found it terrible character development.
There was also the added intimation that their homosexual relationship was something to be reviled in Elysia's culture, which I found odd. For the sake of her unique storytelling, Block does not go into particulars when creating this world. However, there are very few children in the novel, and the reader is led to assume that this is because Elysia is so overwhelmingly hedonistic that very little emphasis is placed on raising children-- why raise them when you will not be around to see them grow? Rafe & Calliope's parents went Under when they were very small, after all. In that case, why would a culture so little-concerned with reproducing have any care about homosexuality? It just rang false for me.
Overall, the novel was gorgeously written, a decadent prose poem. The storytelling style is enchanting and vibrant. New. Fresh. I could have done without the hackneyed song lyrics between each chapter, but they were easy enough to skip. The ending is rushed and somewhat unclear, and themes (bringing the Old Ones aboveground) are abandoned to be picked up in Ecstasia's sister-novel, Primavera. Also, and maybe this is simply because I'm a hardcore Dune fan, the desert does not become lush and green with one rain. I get that this is magical realism and symbolic and all, but it simply led me to feel confused and cheated.
The thing to remember with this book is that it's not about the particulars-- this is a broad stroke of a paintbrush-- and that in itself is magical, but without a certain amount of detail, the plot shows weakness and holes. If you like experimental or speculative fiction, Greek mythology, or are a fan of Block's other writings, I think this will be a good escapist novel for you on a rainy day. If not, you're likely to be more frustrated than absorbed.
2006 Book Log:: http://sihaya09.livejournal.com/439937.html.
Synopsis:: Calliope and Rafe, sister and brother, were born of a woman of the desert and a man who made magic with his mind, who could fight off illness and age with his potions. But now the children have grown and their parents are gone. Now Calliope and Rafe, along with Dionisio and Paul, are Ecstasia-- the most popular band in Elysia, a city where the only crime is growing old. Then Calliope's visions drive her journey to Under, where the Old Ones go to die, and where here mother and father had vanished long ago. And Rafe goes Under too, in search of the one known as the Doctor, the spectral figure who can bring back the dead to eas their loved ones' broken hearts. And that is when rapture turns to nightmare. -- from the book jacket
Page one begins with Calliope's vision::
The girl is floating above. Folding out from her thin, white back are wings. They are dusted with pollen like poppies. They have veiny eyes, always just out of reach.
She remembers-- in her bones and blood, for she has never seen them-- she remembers when there were others-- smaller, all wings, like flowers lifted from their stems. Their eyes did not protect them. She remembers, in a dream, flowers growing from the earth.
Beneath her, the boy drifts in a river. He is a river. His hair is shiny black ripples. His eyes are bright, wet reflections. His limbs flow. He is the song. Like the river he sings. And always, above him, the wings hover. As the sunlight shines through, they are like stained glass, casting their rainbows on the river. The river that travels through a desert, toward a place where horses will join it, where swans will join it and lilies grow on its banks, where there will be green again, as there was once.
The river-boy will join a body of water, his song becoming part of a chorus. The winged girls will dance above him. He will rise from the water and walk on his legs. She will alight beside him. Her vast wings will leave her, becoming other, smaller pairs of wings.
The desert will green once again.
Rather than describe Francesca Lia Block's writing style, I decided to rather excerpt it to illustrate my thoughts. Those who have read her other books will recognize it immediately-- sensual, vibrant, but also disjointed-- as if the reader were stumbling through a waking dream. In Ecstasia, the story is told almost unaware of narrative, through a series of visions, song lyrics, drugged fever-dreams. Many characters tell the story, and it as if we've simply dropped in on their thoughts-- they are completely unaware that they are relating a story to us, the reader.
The story, by the way, is an amalgamation of many myths, but primarily those of Orpheus and the Underworld and the myth of Persephone. If you try to match the characters to their archetypal roots, beware, for they often overlap. Rafe and his father are both Orpheus. The father is also Hades, lord of the Underworld, or, in this instance, Under, the gray, wraithlike world where the aging go to die. Calliope is both her namesake, the muse of poetry, and Proserpina/Persephone, abducted to the underworld by plucking a flower from the soil. She later becomes Demeter, and her daughter Primavera is also Persephone, bringing Springtime to the barren world. Dionisio-- well, that should be obvious, even if the character is a watered-down version of the God of the vine. Estella is Eurydice, the lost love. And Paul is uniquely a creation of Block's Shangri L.A., her mirror of Los Angeles, cast here as Elysia-- a glittering glass candy world where youth is the only currency.
The story starts out strong-- Rafe meets Lily, a tightrope walker in a glowing circus tent. They fall in love, but Lily has a secret. She is a drug addict-- she dances for a drug called Orpheus, a drug that can bring back the dead through visions and hallucinations. The drug ages her quickly, and, in Elysia, everyone who ages goes Under-- into a labyrinthine tunnel system, over the river with the boatman, and eventually to sickrooms where, when they die, they will be preserved forever in youthful plaster casts. Rafe cannot get her her beats, and so Lily dies, prompting Rafe himself to become addicted to Orpheus.
To get his drug, Rafe must venture Under to see The Doctor, who has conjured all manner of chemical cocktails. He is rescued and coaxed to detox by the members of Ecstasia, and particularly by Paul, who loves him perhaps more than he lets on. The healing power of love is a common theme in Block's books, and here it is very prevalent. Calliope also ventures Under to find her mother, and she would have stayed there in her grief if it were not for Rafe, her devoted brother, who finds her and brings her back. Thematically, I would say Rafe & Calliope's mutual journeys to and from Under should constitute this book, because after the halfway point, it is almost as though we are reading a second book, a sequel. Thus far, it has been fairly easy to follow a plot, but it is rushed-- Rafe's falling in love with Lily, Calliope's trip to see Estella. I almost wish that Block had slowed and added more detail to these events, particularly since the book seems so thematically cloven in two.
The second part of the novel is largely concerned with The Doctor, whom we have met before, and his captivity of a now-pregnant Calliope. Hades-- father, not lover-- holding Demeter/Persephone underground. A new character is introduced-- 'Calliope creature,' a Buffybot-like doll who replaces Calliope aboveground. She is heartbreaking-- a doll who learns how to love, a doll who understands that love may require the most heartwrenching of sacrifices. Again, if the novel were split into two, we would have been able to spend more time with her, instead of a few scant pages.
Also in the second part of the book, Paul and Rafe have become a couple. Ordinarily, I would be cheered by this, but I couldn't help but feel a slight sense of unease. Block makes it clear through hints from the beginning of the novel that Paul loves Rafe very deeply. However, she also has Rafe express denial and discomfort over his feelings for Paul, which he describes as 'nothing.' I would think that getting these two to fall in love would take more than a few pages for it to be believable. From this point on, we hear very little of Rafe's thoughts, and so I found it terrible character development.
There was also the added intimation that their homosexual relationship was something to be reviled in Elysia's culture, which I found odd. For the sake of her unique storytelling, Block does not go into particulars when creating this world. However, there are very few children in the novel, and the reader is led to assume that this is because Elysia is so overwhelmingly hedonistic that very little emphasis is placed on raising children-- why raise them when you will not be around to see them grow? Rafe & Calliope's parents went Under when they were very small, after all. In that case, why would a culture so little-concerned with reproducing have any care about homosexuality? It just rang false for me.
Overall, the novel was gorgeously written, a decadent prose poem. The storytelling style is enchanting and vibrant. New. Fresh. I could have done without the hackneyed song lyrics between each chapter, but they were easy enough to skip. The ending is rushed and somewhat unclear, and themes (bringing the Old Ones aboveground) are abandoned to be picked up in Ecstasia's sister-novel, Primavera. Also, and maybe this is simply because I'm a hardcore Dune fan, the desert does not become lush and green with one rain. I get that this is magical realism and symbolic and all, but it simply led me to feel confused and cheated.
The thing to remember with this book is that it's not about the particulars-- this is a broad stroke of a paintbrush-- and that in itself is magical, but without a certain amount of detail, the plot shows weakness and holes. If you like experimental or speculative fiction, Greek mythology, or are a fan of Block's other writings, I think this will be a good escapist novel for you on a rainy day. If not, you're likely to be more frustrated than absorbed.
2006 Book Log:: http://sihaya09.livejournal.com/439937.html.