reading this is how you lose the time war
"i have built a you within me, or you have. i wonder what of me there is in you."
after being recommended this book twice: first by dearest friend and fellow dm, marco, and then by twitter user bigolas dickolas wolfwood; i have finally gotten around to reading it, albeit many many months (a full year?) later. the former had also suggested that i try reading erin morgenstern's the night circus, but i gave up on that around 16% into the book. honestly speaking, it's the one that started my slump last year, so i could not help but go into this book with some trepidation that things may go similarly.
i was not expecting this to be the sapphic epistolary novel that it was. i was also not expecting this to be so revealing of my friend's tastes. both this and the night circus are very enmeshed in the enemies/rivals to lovers tropes. of which i'm not a connoisseur, or even casual enjoyer of. (i don't like the bite. i like my romance cloying. sickly sweet and easy. full of fluff. i'm an established relationship enjoyer. mutual pining/longing. the works.) but this one worked for me.
our two protagonists are on opposite sides of the title-mentioned time war. red is with the agency, which is what seems to be your standard, futuristic & technologically advanced society-thing where minds "decant" into cybernetic bodies. conversely, blue was "grown" within the garden (of honey libraries, of sowing, of neural pollen), a society more rooted in nature, ala solarpunk. a techy dystopia vs hivemind cottagecore land of my dreams. they're both operatives, essentially save-scumming and trying to secure the true-end/good-end for their respective organizations. sent to-and-fro along the braid, to different fantastical worlds and times within strands, they begin to find stability in their communication with one another — at first showing off how cleverly they've foiled the other's plans. and later, in genuine curiosity of the other.
i enjoyed the purpled prose (lol), and the story in itself (though the twist was very obvious to me), but most of all i enjoyed the correlation of the mediums of each letter & the contents of each.
chapter 1, burn before reading; and a fun nod to ozymandias, which i know not because of breaking bad, but because of a dream smp technoblade animation that continues to haunt me to this day.
chapter 3, a letter in the whistle of wind through bones; this letter is all peacocking, even in delivery. blue enumerates the changes she's made in the life of a pilgrim red was attempting to influence. he's long gone. the time red spent, painstakingly arranging bones to create a 'prophecy', and instead it's blue's voice? very funny. (thank you mario, but our princess is in another castle!)
chapter 5, a letter in tree rings; i think the first letter where they are not actively thwarting the other. red is stationed in a strand with the mongols and genghis khan. blue confronts red's misguided understanding of the garden and asks the beginning of a more sincere correspondence; such a gentle, slow medium for it. impossible it seems, to be done without care.
chapter 10, a letter on blue paper, flecked with lavender buds and thistle petals; one that blue receives after severely injuring herself saving red. a turning point, where they admit they're no longer enemies. red describes handing blue a knife and guiding it to her own neck. it is the first and only that does not self-destruct.
across many chapters, 6 letters in 6 seeds; blue responds, referring to the paper-trail letter. "it's mine. i am careful with what belongs to me." (obviously hinting to much more) and speaks of words as abstraction, a pattern, unreliable and ossified like trees."
chapter 17, by carrier bee, "i write to you in stings, red, but this is me, the truth of me, as i do so: broken open by the act, in the palm of your hand, dying."
unfortunately, i do not see myself shelving this book or buying a physical copy. i think there was something missing in it for me. i wish there was more world-building. more meat. this book is wholly about red and blue. its characters are definitely given precedent over the setting. it works for its format, but i did not care for or connect to them as much as i would have liked (which is strange, because i feel like should have! their story is not so dissimilar to my own experiences under a very very conservative catholic mother.)
in some capacity, i maybe envied red and blue? at most? i envy their capacity to carve time & to control things i could only dream of. i envy their ability to be articulate! to be vulnerable! to love and be able to express it! (that one richard siken q&a i think about a genuinely normal amount. it crosses my mind every so often.) i'm always awed by the power of words - i'd like to become a more eloquent person overall.
when i was much younger, and much earlier on in my relationship with my partner, i loved letters, and wrote them for him every year: for valentine's, for our anniversary, for his birthday (these ones are a special bit. i write like i'm a solider at war and he is my wife waiting for me on the homestead), for the new year, etc. and i would labor each time to make them new. exciting. to find new ways to profess affection. i also love to receive letters, however short. and i also used to keep them. i was (and still am) very sentimental. i have letters given to me from classmates from the 4th grade. all of them with the same "you're nice" message, "i'm sorry if i ever hurt you", "let's keep being friends". some are pasted up on the walls of my closet, even now.
i try to hold onto things less these days. most things i treasure are also self-destructing. i delete chat logs with friends where i have been vulnerable or intimate. i avoid taking pictures. i hide letters in the margins of other files. i try to keep them in my memory but i am so fallible. i have lost so much to fear & paranoia. i am even afraid for this blog. i still have so little space for myself in the world & i am trying to make more. but for while this is exists, thank you for sharing this one place with me! i am so happy you are here.
lines i loved:
"it is difficult—it is very difficult, to befriend where you wish to consume, to find those who, when they ask, do i have you still, when they end a letter with yours, mean it in a substantive way."
"letters are structures, not events. yours give me a place to live inside."
"i want to live in contact. i want to be a context for you, and you for me. i love you, and i love you, and i want to find out what that means together."
"i want to ride you poetry, and i am laughing, understand, as i teach this small body my joy, laughing at the joke of me and the relief, the relief of being supine on a stone slab with a knife above me and seeing your hand and eyes guiding it. that surrender should be satiety. that it should have taken me this long to learn that."
words i loved:
epiphyte — a kind of plant or plant-like organism that grows on the surface of another plant and derives its moisture and nutrients from the air, rain, water, or from debris accumulating around it.
apophenic — of or relating to apophenia (the tendency to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things).
haruspex — (in ancient rome) a religious official who interpreted omens by inspecting the entrails of sacrificial animals.
rhapsodic — feeling great rapture or delight.