Orfeia
Written and Narrated By: Joanne M Harris
Length: 4 hrs and 27 mins
I have a feeling I was supposed to LOVE this… but can I have Foooour Of My Freakin’ Hours Back?!?
JAYSUS!
Yeh yeh yeh I’ve read the reviews, listened to the gorgeous imagery/the lovely speaking voice/the gentle lilt to the singing (Yup, there’s singing… like, a LOT), and when it aaaaaallll comes down to it?
JAYSUS!
It must be meeeee, and not the audiobook. I’m such a boor…
JAYSUS!
But I’m kinda getting bogged down in just how over freaking whelming this little 4 1/2 hour story is.
The elements I’m s’POSEd to love:
Hey, it’s a grief-stricken mother. When am I NOT there for Grief?! Lost her young adult daughter Daisy to suicide. I’m sooo there, am considering grief work in end-of-life doula work. Daisy suffered from severe and haunting images, mental illness even as a youngster. Sooo there, right?
Lovely, stunning writing even tho’ not m’ favorite trope, the whole, Gee What’s Real? Or Is It But A Dreeeam?
Author/narrator Joanne M Harris has a rich and warm voice, as she weaves gossamer strands of gold with images of bleakness and horror. The story begins with Daisy’s preoccupation as a child with the Step On A Crack, Break Your Mother’s Back song going horribly awry in her mind, her life. It’s how the sudden fears that started when she was 6-years old grew to haunt her, even as mom Fay tried loving her no matter what, holding her close, keeping them together even as the two grieved for a father/husband gone way too soon. As tho’ Fay’s life wasn’t tenuous at best with early grief, with worry for her child. Does she know how unutterably she will bend and break when Daisy throws herself under a train, finally finding peace?
Then a grieving Fay finds herself in a London But Not A London with smoky, dreamy, madcap and eccentric individuals over a campfire. A Hellride, the Night Train, riddles to untangle, the chance to bring back the dead… if only Fay will give up her most precious Self: That which loves Daisy, remembers Daisy.
Through this all, Harris (The author of the charming Chocolat) draws upon the traditional Child Ballads of England and Scotland pulled together around the second half of the 1800s, and they’re a tad, well, odd. Odd as in: A Horror Show kinda sorta like the way The Brothers Grimm set forth tales to surprise and delight the beJESus outta kids.
Now see? What’s not to love, this blending of folklore and mythology and brooding dark fantasy, all with magical elements, and even Death Death Death?
Oh jeez, let’s start with the plodding, ever-so-serious voice of Harris doing the honors for her own book. And again, that whoooole lotta singing. Don’t get me wrong, even as I was listening I thought, Gee, lullabies at her house must be wonderful, but here? TRULY—This is only 4 and a 1/2 freaking hours freaking long and I fell asleep maybe oh I dunno, what? Ten, Twelve Times?! She sings a line in a song, sloooowly, then pause… then another line in the song, sloooowly, then paaaause… Okay, dozing off, wait whazza? ANOTHER line, sloooowly, then paaaause, snooze, wait, whazza? ANOTHER FREAKING LINE? Like going on forEVER?
How many times can a person be soooothed into sleep then woken up most ruuuudely? It gets on the very last nerve, I tell ya!
Oh yeeeeah, plenty of simply GLOrious writing, brava brava, blah blah, brava, blah. Stunning imagery, blah, whazza? Harris is writing about moths and butterflies yet AGAIN? blah blah, so we see how cleverly the book cover captures it all, blah?
Oy, the plodding, the capturing of oh sooo much in oh such a short timeframe, cramming it aaalll into a very compact bundle, sooo much that I danged near blew m’ much enchanted brains out. Are you tired of reading all the extended vowels in so many words? I get it, but I simply do not know another way to convey just how far back into my skull my eyes rolled back, whether in nodding off or in cringing at the writing which tries just way too much, the narration that conVEYs way too much. Ouch, oh ouch, oh ouch!
JAYSUS… and off to sleep I go… with the knowledge that I best stay away from grief work, huh?
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