Review - Words of the Witches

First off I apologize for this post being late—this week is going to be kind of insane, so I may not get all of my usual weekly entries done.

Today is a good old-fashioned (and extremely lengthy) book review, catering to a sector or the Pagan literary world that has always been, and continues to be, sadly unfulfilled: modern Pagan fiction.

Pagans are united by few things, but one thing that most of us seem to have in common is that we long to see our worldview reflected in stories and novels. Contemporary fiction is usually painfully mainstream, especially the abominable "chick lit" genre that assumes all women are obsessed with shoe shopping, carb counting, and trapping a husband. For the most part, we have to make do with science fiction and fantasy novels, where alternate philosophies can find a variety of creative expressions ranging from wishful thinking (The Mists of Avalon, which I would rather be tied naked to an anthill covered in honey than read again, and yes, I realize they can take your pentacle away for saying that) to the urban faery tale (anything by Charles DeLint, who I am excessively fond of).

When it comes to finding modern fiction that is not laced with fantasy elements (as in, the Witches don’t all have Fireball Power, and there are no Elves lurking in the local metaphysical bookstore), the best we have so far is the mystery genre, where authors like Rosemary Edghill and M.R. Sellars have contributed solid work without the use of Fireball Power. Edghill’s Bast mysteries in particular are favorites of mine, for several reasons:

First, the protagonist is wholly believable. She acts and reacts the way a real woman—and more importantly, a real Gardnerian Wiccan—would behave in the situations she stumbles into. She is flawed but noble, smart as hell and occasionally laugh-out-loud hilarious; her view of the Pagan community in New York is both deeply affectionate and mildly exasperated, as are most people’s after a few years. Secondly, Edghill’s writing is a perfect balance between assuming the reader is a Pagan and explaining a few of the more esoteric vocabulary words just in case the reader isn’t. Thirdly, the mystery elements are well-crafted, but more importantly, there are crazy things like character development and something a little toothier than the standard whodunit. Bast actually ponders some pretty deep questions after her experiences.

With my love of the Bast mysteries, I was thrilled to discover an anthology called Words of the Witches, edited by Yvonne Jocks, which has been out since 2002. The book bills itself as “Short fiction by modern-day Witches and their friends.” It features stories by romance novelist Maggie Shayne, Jocks herself, Lorna Tedder, and others—and, most appealingly to me, an all-new Bast mystery by Rosemary Edghill.

In my thirst for Pagan fiction I have to be honest and say I’ll forgive a lot. I am normally kind of a literary snob—most of what is popular out there I find mediocre at best (case in point: The DaVinci Code, which I thought was almost unreadable). But if you slap a Witch into the story, you’ve got me for at least a few chapters, and I find this to be the case with many people I know; the same thing happens with Pagan music, I’ve noticed. Unfortunately this means that a lot of the writing (and music, ye gods) out there is just awful, but people will still buy it because, really, what else is there that doesn’t totally misrepresent who we are and what we do?

What we need are more genuinely gifted writers out there who are also Pagan, not Pagans who want to write. It’s a subtle difference, but one that I butt my head into over and over in the land of Pagan books, both fiction and non.

Words of the Witches is much like most anthologies in that it is wildly uneven. Some of the stories are excellent, some are all right, and some are laughably horrible. Most of them, however, suffer from a sort of thematic identity crisis: who exactly are these stories for, anyway?

If you are writing for a Pagan audience, you don’t have to describe every step of a Circle casting. If you are writing for nonPagans, you do. If you are writing for both, you have to strike a balance in there somewhere—but many of the stories in WotW are so ham-handed at it that I found myself actually skipping pages because, guess what, I KNOW what an athame is.

Another problem is the Big Bad Christian story that plagues Pagan fiction. A writer needs a bad guy, and who makes a better bad guy than a Fundamentalist minister who beats his Goddess-lovin’ wife? If you’re writing for the mainstream, these stories may not be tired yet, and who knows, maybe you’ll change someone’s mind—but for a Pagan, after about five years, you start to get royally sick of the "us versus them" mentality. Yes, that sort of thing does happen, but do we really need to read more fictionalized versions of it? Naturally, by the end of the story tolerance prevails and everyone joins in for a chorus of "We All Come from the Goddess" with every Who down in Whoville holding hands.

I should say that the story in question wasn't bad from a literary perspective. It was, however, out of place if the audience was supposed to be people who have actually come up against that kind of thing in the real world; there was nothing new or insightful about it unless you're not a Pagan and this sort of persecution comes as a genuine surprise to you. Again, it's the book's identity crisis at work. The story would be eye-opening for a nonPagan but doesn't do much for a Pagan.

The best stories in the book are those that assume a Pagan audience and don't waste a lot of time on the Wicca 101. Sappy though it is, "A Reverence for Trees" is probably my favorite; it tells the story of a woman who wants desperately to heal her terminally ill husband, while suffering the guilt of missteps early in their relationship that keep her from letting him go. Another good one, though given an unfortunate title, is "The Spelling Error," which is a romance that, despite a not-wholly-believable storyline, is excellently written. "A Solitary Path," whose heroine came off a tad cartoony for my taste, brought in supernatural elements that made sense with the narrative but weren’t overblown.

There are a lot of stereotypes in the anthology which are obvious to a Pagan reader: the reluctant psychic, the evil Christian minister, the pop-culture Witch, the stuffy reconstructionist, the woman looking for her power animal, the Pagan celebrity who secretly has a heart of gold, and so on. Even a stereotype, however, can be handled well, and sometimes they are. Sometimes not so much.

In fact, most of the writers in the anthology are also romance writers, so most of the stories read like mini-romances in tone if not in narrative. There’s not a lot here to appeal to the male audience, nor to an audience that finds romance without any other sort of plot irritating, as I tend to do. It’s mostly "chick lit" for Witches—Witch lit, you could say, although certainly less superficial than its namesake.

The biggest disappointment for me was Edghill’s story. There wasn’t anything wrong with it, per se, except that it seemed fairly pointless, as most mysteries do to me anyway. I am just not a mystery fan—the Bast series is a shining exception, for the reasons I outlined above. However, when you condense Bast’s character and the story into a couple dozen pages, there’s no room for character, only clues and revelation about a murder that you don’t have time to care about. I think Bast was best served by novel format; it was her character, her life, that made Bell, Book, and Murder so fantastic.

I’m sure I’ve painted a pretty vile picture of the book as a whole, but keep in mind that, as I said above, I’m a snob. The stories in Words of the Witches are varied, and it’s definitely worth a look; what drove me batshit might be right up your alley, who knows? I think the problem for me is that I’m never going to be satisfied with a story about a Wiccan character that I didn’t write. *laugh* Until I manage to find the story I’m looking for and get my novel written, I’m doomed to snarking on the efforts of others. I’d say I feel bad about that, but…yeah, well. My favorite stories, in actuality, are those that combine believable Pagan characters with fantasy elements, so chances are that’s what you’ll see from me someday. It doesn’t help that I have a bit of an Elf fetish.

To conclude: check out Words of the Witches. You might find something to love, or at least have the rare pleasure of seeing a glimpse of our own world in its pages.

Comments

[Sara]

Great post. I myself steer clear of Pagan fiction for all the bad literary reasons you talk about. I *have* heard some really great things about these Bast books, though like you I am not a mystery fan. I will have to try them out....

And another Charles de Lint fan checking in. :)

-S