Matthew Swift awakes in his own bedroom, but something is decidedly wrong. For one, he’s been dead for two years. And for another, the house is no longer his own.
Thus begins the remarkably dense and chewy A MADNESS OF ANGELS: OR, THE RESURRECTION OF MATTHEW SWIFT, by Kate Griffin. Swift is a sorcerer — an extremely powerful magician, if you will, who extracts magic naturally from urban sources: things like electricity, the movement of trains, underground cables and more. His magic is so attuned to these urban constructs, that he is much less powerful when in the countryside or removed from the source of what he is and who he is.
He has been resurrected for a specific purpose: to destroy his mentor. That’s Robert Bakker, an even more powerful magician who, in an effort to stave off his own eventual destruction, is roaming around the city destroying things in a convoluted effort to steal the lifeforce of others.
Oh, and one more thing: Swift is no longer just one individual soul. He is completely intertwined with the living essence of telephone interference — the thoughts, beliefs and emotions that are captured in the telephone lines when humans speak to each other. Huh? Yeah, right. I said it was “dense and chewy.”
Griffin’s style has a poetic rhythm, but it’s sometimes too thick for its own good. And the cryptic levels of meaning can get a little tedious. But if you can work beyond the first 50 pages or so, one starts to enter into the spirit of the tale, and begins to discover the curious thought that life is so full of magic, so completely chock-full of it, that it’s remarkable so few people can feel the world-changing electric power of a subway train or a street lamp or an elevator.
Swift explores the edges of this power, all while attempting to learn whether he can still be thought of as Matthew Swift, or indeed, if he is now the same as the interference with which he once merged. It’s confusing, but worthwhile. This is fantasy for those who don’t mind thinking about the story — and its potential implications — long afterward. —Mark Rose
Related posts:
- Dark Resurrection
- Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
- The Narrows
- Finding Atlantis: A True Story of Genius, Madness, and an Extraordinary Quest for a Lost World
- Memory and Dream
