I welcome more people writing on Swann! He's certainly someone who could sustain a good deal of critical inquiry, especially his weirder and worse books.

damn, that's something...

I'm sure someone more versed in literary animal studies theory—which I am definitely not—would have much smarter things to say.

...actually doesn't make a ton of narrative sense, since Gloomer is far removed from just about everything that happens except for a few scenes, namely the important death of Curk. But more importantly he narrates the novel as though interior to Charlie and sometimes Jill or Elizabeth. It's v. odd.

Yeah, these are good points, too! I touched in the eroticism of the dolphin but didn't go much into such comparisons, partly because I hadn't thought about the horse stuff you've posted here, but it makes sense!

In large part I meant, re: dolphins, why choose Gloomer as narrator in this case. It...

Yeah, got it. It's a very weird commenting interface. Thanks!

thanks! alternatively, I can add an addendum to the end of my post with your words credited as yours, if you prefer.

I did ask myself "why dolphins?" but honestly didn't have anything interesting to say and already I was at 6.5k words and just wanted to be done for now with this book lol

btw if you have wordpress or just want to do it anonymously, I'd love for you to put these thoughts in a comment on the essay, just so they're there for anyone who might read this piece in the future. Because I think you're totally right and I hadn't asked the question "why Caribs?"

... Blackness seems always at the edge of his work. We'll see if it even comes up in his final novel, Queens Walk in the Dusk, which is set in Carthage and should at least have reason to reference Black Africans.

...that said, his scant references to "Libyans" and folks with Black skin in other novels tend to be quite negative. So we'll see! But I honestly had thought going in to this novel that the villain was going to be Black b/c of setting but also the voodoo reference in the title. ...

...simply weakened and became "degenerate" (though the comparison here might be made with the Mandrakes, who are "degenerate" but also tragic figures). The only novel where Swann deals more explicitly with Blackness is, I think, Minikins of Yam. But I'm not yet there so idk how he handles it...

...extinct probably made sense to him for all the reasons you suggest. The key difference with and curiosity about the Sidhe comparison, though, is that the Sidhe are something to be marveled at for Charlie. They left b/c the world got bad (as in other prehuman stories). The Caribs, however, ...

Yeah, I think that's probably right! There are two mentions of Black folks. One is of enslaved Africans getting free and landing on Oleandra, only to be eaten by the Caribs. The other is that the Caribs have adopted "Negro" speech patterns. But choosing an Indigenous people generally thought...

I feel that! I've found a lot of folks have responded to The Historian in a very similar way.

Looks really awesome! Congrats!

That would be awesome. Happy to learn more! My email is here: www.leverpress.org/authors/. Feel free to just send a pitch/description and we can have a chat.