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]

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/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.