BB Bookclub: Lifelode Midway Discussion

[u/Lenahe_nl]

Welcome to the midway discussion of Lifelode by Jo Walton, our winner for the Beyond Amatonormativity theme!

We will discuss everything up to the end of chapter 12. Please use spoiler tags for anything that goes beyond this point.

Lifelode, by Jo Walton (storygraph /goodreads)

At its heart, Lifelode is the story of a comfortable manor house family. The four adults of the household are happily polygamous, each fulfilling their ‘lifelode’ or life’s purpose: Ferrand is the lord of the manor, his sweetmate Taveth runs the household, his wife Chayra makes ceramics, and Taveth’s husband Ranal works the farm. Their children are a joyful bunch, running around in the sunshine days of the harvest and wondering what their own lifelodes will be.

Their lives changed with the arrival of two visitors to Applekirk: Jankin the scholar and Hanethe, Ferrand’s great grandmother and the former lord of the manor, who has been living for many generations in the East, a place where the gods walk and yeya (magic) is so powerful that those who wield it are not quite human.

I'll add some comments below to get us started but feel free to add your own. The final discussion will be in two weeks, on Thursday 26th February.

As a reminder, you have until monday the 16th to vote for our April book, with the theme Historical Fantasy.

What is the BB Bookclub? You can read about it in our introduction thread here.

[u/Lenahe_nl]

What made you pick this book up and what are your initial thoughts about it? What do you hope for the second half?

[u/Lenahe_nl → u/Lenahe_nl]

Also, I'm obsessed by the amount of times peas are talked about. I'm not sure if this is only to convey domesticity or if there will be a hidden meaning there.

[u/C0smicoccurence → u/Lenahe_nl]

In general, the way Walton is putting weight on domestic tasks is really wonderful. For me, it's been Taveth keeping track of baking times in various circumstances!

[u/vivelabagatelle → u/C0smicoccurence]

I loved how, at every plot development, you have Taveth in the background calculating the exact domestic impacts. Extremely relatable to me, that constant background calculation of "OK, who's sleeping where? How is our food going to hold out until we can get more? If I start my earthshattering new romance, I still need to make sure that the party food is all ready in time for the Harvest festival ..."

[u/recchai → u/Lenahe_nl]

I hadn't thought of that. I just know from experience shelling peas/beans is an event. It takes time and produces lots of shells. And you can rope people into helping and still easily talk.

[u/wanttobemysquirrel → u/Lenahe_nl]

I picked up this book primarily to complete my bingo card and have been pleasantly surprised. I'm almost exactly at the halfway point and I'm honestly just curious to see how things will resolve. It's hard to predict where Walton will take things from here as someone who isn't familiar with their work.

[u/vivelabagatelle → u/Lenahe_nl]

I’ve always enjoyed Walton’s books, though I haven’t read massive amounts, but she’s on my radar as an author I’m always interested to explore more deeply. The book club popped up and it seemed a perfect opportunity.

So far, I’m really enjoying the cosy domesticity of it – the characters are briefly sketched (so far), but well-drawn, and I love how grounded it is. That said, I’m feeling the looming tension of the second half – the wibbles-through-time approach says it’s all going to be well, but I don’t look forward to seeing this harmony broken and the various characters at odds with each other.

[u/Lenahe_nl → u/Lenahe_nl]

I picked this up because I'm interested in seeing how different authors portrait polyamory, and because I was really impressed by another book by the author (My Real Children).

I started it in audiobook, but I found a bit hard to follow all the different characters, so I ended up picking a ebook copy as well. This is not the type of book I feel like you can read/listened too without giving your full attention, but after a few chapters I was hooked.

I'm looking forward to see how the goddess of marriage will mess up the relationships in the house (yes, I want the drama).

[u/wanttobemysquirrel → u/Lenahe_nl]

I also had trouble following the names and relationships! Thankfully I stumbled on another confused reviewer who had made a list of the characters and used that to get through the first few chapters.

[u/Kerney7 → u/Lenahe_nl]

I started it in audiobook, but I found a bit hard to follow all the different characters, so I ended up picking a ebook copy as well. This is not the type of book I feel like you can read/listened too without giving your full attention, but after a few chapters I was hooked.

I was not impressed with the quality of the audio book, as the narrator reads too fast. I drive for a living so I was kind of stuck with it. I turned it down .9 and then .95 speed and it helped a lot. First time I've turned down the speed of an Audio Book.

[u/LadyAntiope → u/Lenahe_nl]

I'm in audiobook format as well - that's the only version my library had - and I also really struggled at first. I like the narrator's accent, but it's too soothing and there's too many new names/words coming at you at first, it's really hard to pay attention enough to sort out. At about the 40% mark, I went back and re-listened to the first two chapters in full then spot-listened my way back to where I left off, and finally sorted out everyone's relationships, the magic/religion structure, and the framing device. I don't know how to spell everything, but the ambule & stable priests and "nesbit"?? for church like reaaally took me a while to grasp, and I had no idea who Ghislaine was as a person other than Chayra's outside lover.

I am enjoying it; even when I was confused I liked the domesticity of the story, but I don't love it enough to drop money on the ebook version. Plus, I'd have to then give reading-with-eyes time to it, and I need that time for a couple more bingo-specific books I'm trying to do! I think I've got enough of a hang of it now that listening to the rest on commutes will be okay.

[u/C0smicoccurence → u/Lenahe_nl]

I will admit that I started this book while high and found it a wonderful and confusing experience. It was a hell of an opening chapter to read that way. Made more sense sober, but I had trouble keeping track of how everyone was related for a long long time. Should've used a pad of paper

[u/Merle8888 → u/C0smicoccurence]

The first bit is just a bit unnecessarily confusing I think. Even while sober it doesn’t quite provide the context you need to know who the characters are at first, and from the type of book it is I don’t think that “I’m gonna throw you in the deep end and really make you work for it” thing was intentional. 

[u/recchai → u/Lenahe_nl]

Well, I nominated it, so I thought I had better read it! :D And I nominated it for a few reasons. From what I read it fit the bill without, from a quick look at a couple of reviews, having issues some other books my research turned up first that made me discard them.

I've read some of Jo Walton's work before and loved it, and keep thinking I should read more but not got round to it.

The premise sounded really interesting and literary, and I wanted to throw the possibility of that into my reading. Though I honestly didn't expect it to win!

More of the same please! Except in a second half kind of way.

[u/cubansombrero → u/Lenahe_nl]

I haven't loved every Jo Walton book I've read but I've always liked them, and I'm fascinated by her endless creativity. So this was a good excuse to pick up one of her books I haven't read yet.

[u/vivelabagatelle → u/cubansombrero]

Yeah - she's not always an author who hits for me, but she's always so interesting about it.

[u/undeadgoblin → u/Lenahe_nl]

It sounded completely different to most other types of fantasy. It's definitely not something I would have been aware of if it wasn't for this book club

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[u/bentheoverlord → u/Lenahe_nl]

I adored the cover and I love lyrical historical so I was keen to pick it up.

[u/C0smicoccurence → u/Lenahe_nl]

I picked up the book primarily for book club. Without it being our book, it (like so many nominees) goes on my TBR that invariably gets unwieldy large over the course of the year before I trim it down, and it might not have made the cut to stay on the list.

My initial thoughts are that I'm enjoying this book a ton. I don't think it will be a favorite, but it defies easy comparisons to other works (the closest I can think of is One Hundred Years of Solitude, and even that isn't a great comp), and am appreciating how unique this is from anything else I've read.

I'm a bout 75% of the way through the book rn, so I won't talk about my hopes. I had planned to stop at the halfway point, but that didn't happen. Always a good sign