Glass Town grog and other delights
Feb. 13th, 2022 04:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bloodygranuaileBack in the before-times I was at a real live in-person convention and attended a kaffeeklatsch for Catherynne M. Valente, whereupon I bought a copy of The Glass Town Game. All I knew about it was that it was about the Brontes, and since I like the Brontes, that was about all I needed to be interested.
The Glass Town Game is a novel about a fictionalized version of the game that the Bronte children actually played together. It is, in many ways, a classic children’s portal fantasy, with strong The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland vibes and very similar illustrations. It’s got the same long winding sentences and twee capitalizations and charmingly pun-based humor, and lots of references to British history and literature. It’s nominally for younger readers but full of references to things that most likely only adults will get, so it was very charming to read as an adult, especially one with a degree in English literature. I can’t quite decide if I like it with the same part of me that likes the Muppets or the same part of me that likes Cold Comfort Farm, but it definitely goes in a very different direction from most of the 19th-century-Gothic-novel fanfiction I’ve seen, and I appreciate that.
Despite clocking in at over 500 pages (which is one of the reasons I picked it up now), it’s a very fast read, since it is written more or less at a middle-grade level. I’m not sure it was real deep–themes include the importance of storytelling, and that Branwell is a sexist little shit–but it was a very charming, Anglophilic way to sink a February weekend.
The Glass Town Game is a novel about a fictionalized version of the game that the Bronte children actually played together. It is, in many ways, a classic children’s portal fantasy, with strong The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland vibes and very similar illustrations. It’s got the same long winding sentences and twee capitalizations and charmingly pun-based humor, and lots of references to British history and literature. It’s nominally for younger readers but full of references to things that most likely only adults will get, so it was very charming to read as an adult, especially one with a degree in English literature. I can’t quite decide if I like it with the same part of me that likes the Muppets or the same part of me that likes Cold Comfort Farm, but it definitely goes in a very different direction from most of the 19th-century-Gothic-novel fanfiction I’ve seen, and I appreciate that.
Despite clocking in at over 500 pages (which is one of the reasons I picked it up now), it’s a very fast read, since it is written more or less at a middle-grade level. I’m not sure it was real deep–themes include the importance of storytelling, and that Branwell is a sexist little shit–but it was a very charming, Anglophilic way to sink a February weekend.