THE NORTHERN GIRL by Elizabeth A. Lynn(review written in August 2006)How do I write about ‘The Northern Girl’, one of my favourite novels? The city of Kendra On The Delta haunted me for years after my first reading twenty years ago. Reading it again recently was like catching up with old friends. Sorren, the 17-year-old bondservant. Her lover Paxe (37), yardmaster for the Med house. Arre (40), head of the Med house. Of Sorren, Arre will say, “She is the daughter I never had.”‘The Northern Girl’ is the story of these three characters, each strong and determined, and of the events that will culminate in Sorren’s early freedom, written with tact and precision. Arun is a country at peace with its neighbours. Kendra On The Delta is its main city, where politics are rife with selfish plotting and petty calculating. Arre and her friend/ally Marti Hok are the only wise heads of the council; everyone else is corrupted, manipulated or manipulative, in the name of power rather than the greater good. The witchfolk from the Tanjo are not exempt from these conflicts.With Arre, we are immersed in council meetings, politics and responsible decisions. With Paxe, we follow the life of the guards and the day-to-day dealings to ensure the safety of the city and each of its districts. With Sorren, we discover glimpses of the city’s underbelly and the life of a bondservant.‘The Northern Girl’ is the final instalment of award-winning fantasy trilogy ‘The Chronicles of Tornor’. It was written at a time when lesbian fantasy was feminist, political and meaningful, hence probably the style, the choice of words and the correctness of the main characters.If it is fantasy, you need one of the main characters to be a witch. Sorren is reluctantly holding the title. She is afraid of witches and does not wish to live in the Tanjo, even if it means losing her gift. Rejecting the potential honour, she chose to keep her gift of mind-travelling a secret, sharing it only with her lover. Paxe, respectfully, chooses not to advise on any best decision.You will meet a few secondary characters. Marti Hok is the oldest councillor in Kendra On The Delta, but far away from being senile. Kadra used to be a messenger, but is now a drunk mostly living on the streets and mocked by most people for being a ghia (hermaphrodite). Isak, Arre’s brother, is a greatly admired dancer, but hates his sister and won’t hesitate to conspire against her. Sorren happens to drum for him, which puts her occasionally in an uncomfortable position.While Sorren is slowly finding out that the keep she is regularly having visions of, is the Tornor Keep, built more than 400 years ago, by one of Arre’s distant ancestors, Paxe has to deal with the discovery of a short sword in one of her men’s belongings and the following infiltration of the city with more of the same item. Edged weapons were banned in Kendra On The Delta less than 100 years ago, but there seems to be a loophole around the short swords. Whatever the world, there are always unscrupulous people in power willing to exploit such discrepancy. Who is behind it? The Ismenin family? These brothers have the reputation to get into fights more often than anyone in the country does. With the Festival approaching fast, it is more and more of an emergency to solve this problem.How does it affect a bondservant like Sorren? Read the book! What drastic decision will Arre have to make? Read the book! And what about Paxe, what will she do when her lover Sorren will eventually leave Kendra On The Delta to travel to the Tornor Keep? You will find everything and more in ‘The Northern Girl’, captivatingly wrapped up with musical words and legendary loyalty.
Elizabeth Lynn's Chronicles of Tornor are richly characterized but have no connecting characters, her style changes per book to fit the period described, and she muses challengingly on both gender and orientation. the cumulative effect of all the life journeys depicted is one that encourages careful reflection on some weighty matters: what makes a person, what makes a community, what makes a civilization?this third novel in the trilogy takes a wider look at the themes Lynn has previously established, eschewing the rather chamber piece-like qualities of the first and the pastoral sentiments of the second. she chooses instead to show how components of the past, as established in those two preceding novels, have been transformed into key elements of a now richly imagined and contrastingly complex present. the protagonist Soren is a crowd-pleasing creation: a plucky young lady with emerging psychic powers (perhaps), destined to experience the wider world. she is surrounded by a host of engaging, warmly depicted supporting characters; they all live within a narrative that is often traditional, but at times genuinely mystifying. despite the host of progressive values on display, a central thesis appears to be the necessity of force in maintaining the careful balance of community and forward movement towards which any civilized society should always be striving...an idea first illustrated within the first novel (although one that was compellingly critiqued) and in some ways rejected in the second novel. with this third novel, it becomes clear that Lynn has been guiding and transforming her themes and ideas all along; these shifts in perspective clearly parallel the growth and maturation of both her central protagonist, and the world itself.overall, a wonderfully absorbing achievement.
Do You like book The Northern Girl (2000)?
I first read Lynn's "early" books -- all of them -- between 1979 and 1984 or so, when they were new. "The Northern Girl" was probably my favorite then, and I just re-read it over the last few days. (And: I bought the e-book edition and I am very grateful to Richard Curtis and his crew at ereads.com for re-publishing Lynn's work for a new generation.)There's one little scene in this book, almost at the end, that really stuck with me for years, and which I could visualize so clearly. It's a brief description of a character, but when I re-read it again this afternoon, it was just as lovely as it had been then, and made me feel nostalgic and warm.At the time the "Tornor" trilogy came out I suppose "mainstream" SF/Fantasy was not full of non-hetero relationships or really strong women; perhaps that's part of what attracted me to these: the plain matter-of-fact way the characters in that world had relationships, and whether those were homo or hetero was basically irrelevant -- part of the ordinary background.Lynn's actual prose style is rather spare and direct; not as "lush" or detailed as I often like in a book. But she does a good job of defining this world, making us see the people and the city, and giving us glimpses of a much wider world. And I always wanted more more more... Unfortunately, she stopped writing in the mid-1980s, and we will probably never get any further books about this interesting world. We'll have to cherish the ones we have, I guess -- but that thought made me sad when I finished reading today.
—Richard
