Book Review: Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary

[osprey_archer]

I've finished Pamela Dean’s Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary, which I loved loved loved even though it went off at the end. Possibly this is just something Dean’s books do? I thought Tam Lin ended quite abruptly too, although not quite as much as Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary.

But it’s not the kind of unsatisfying ending that spoils everything that came before. It doesn't retroactively invalidate Gentian's lovely friend group or her interesting family or anything else that happens in the book; it's just not very conclusive.

If anything, it’s unsatisfying because I wanted more. What’s going to happen to Gentian now that she’s lost nine months of her life because she’s been building a time machine with the devil? At least, I think Dominic is the devil. One of the reasons I’m not very fond of the ending is because it’s rather unclear.

Or, rather, I think everything is pretty clear up till the last chapter. Dean did a good job showing Gentian’s mental fog as she worked on the time machine, which made it seem that only days passed when in fact months slipped by. But the last chapter is set up like it’s supposed to Explain It All, but actually it totally confuses everything.

For instance, why didn’t Gentian’s parents interfere? I thought I understood - I thought Dominic messed up their sense of time so they didn’t realize how long she’d been gone - but in the last chapter, it turns out her dad did know, because he’s secretly a wizard, and also he placed a spell on all three daughters as babies which is...related somehow...to everything that happened... I don’t even know.

I appreciate the non-interference model of parenting, but at the same time I feel that when one’s daughter is spending nine months vaguely outside of time doing battle with the devil without realizing it, then that is a good time to interfere.

And her nine-month absence leaves so many questions! What will she tell her friends? What will she tell her school? What did her parents tell her school? I realize it’s an open school, but I imagine they want their students to attend at least occasionally. SO MANY QUESTIONS AND NO ANSWERS.



I wanted at least another chapter - not least because then we would get to see Gentian’s friends again, and I wanted to spend as much time with the lot of them as possible. We do get another lovely sonnet from her best friend Becky, but I wanted more.

But in a way, that wanting more is a recommendation in itself: the book is such a pleasure to read, the characters such a pleasure to interact with, that I never wanted it to end. Despite the conclusion or lack thereof, I highly, highly recommend Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I appreciate the non-interference model of parenting, but at the same time I feel that when one’s daughter is spending nine months vaguely outside of time doing battle with the devil without realizing it, then that is a good time to interfere.

Phssst! That would be SEVERE helicopter parenting!

j/k I don't know! I'll have to see what I think when I read it.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Possibly if the helicopter is so far away that it is actually IN SPACE.

Yay, I'm glad you're planning to read it! I'll be curious to see what you think.

[nnozomi.livejournal.com]

I hope you don't mind a comment from a mostly-stranger, but nobody ever talks about this book! My feelings about it accord very much with yours (actually, the ending tends to bother me so much that I sometimes stop at the New Year's party when I reread it)--I guess I found Gentian and her friends (and sisters) and their daily lives in fact more interesting than the plot with Dominic. I think you're right that he's supposed to be the devil.
I always have a strong feeling that the book is trying to say something specifically about men and women and gender attitudes--the various takes on being a girl among the friends' group, Erin in particular, the attitudes of Dominic and Micky towards girls/women, the way so many conversations seem to tend toward issues of sexism and womanhood and relationships, even the Laurie Anderson song about menstruation...only, I don't think I know what it's trying to say. Do you have any ideas about this?
Sorry to go on at you; as you say, so many questions and no answers...

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I don't mind at all! Especially given that the comment is so in-depth and interesting.

And yes, definitely, Gentian and her friends and family are way more interesting than Dominic. I found it hard to feel why she found him so captivating, because mostly he seemed grating to me. The devil ought to seem more tempting than Dominic, I think - the reader ought to be able to feel it too.

I agree that the book is trying to say something about gender roles. The friend group is interesting because they all have different ways of being female, and even though Gentian sometimes gets irritated at Stephanie's more conventional self-presentation, all the different ways are presented as being fine, and they all get along despite their differences.

But the book is saying something about sexuality as well as gender, particularly with the bit at the end about the spell Gentian's father laid on his daughters - to protect them from sexual assault? The whole chapter is just so unclear. And because the chapter is unclear, I'm not sure what the book wants to say about relationships.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

When this book first came out, there were long, in-depth discussions about it on usenet at rec.arts.sf.written. You might be able to still dig some of them up.

I recall Jo Walton making a very convincing case that Dominic was the Devil, and he was building a time machine in order to go back to Heaven and not rebel against God - to reverse his own Fall. It was a very well-constructed argument and may well have been Dean's intent, but apart from Dominic being the Devil, I don't think there was anything actually in the text to support it. It would have been purely by implication.

The novel began as a short story which does make it explicit that Dominic is the Devil.

I don't understand Gentian's parents' actions (or lack thereof) either. That is, they seemed spectacularly negligent, but that seemed strange since previously they had seemed to be perfectly good parents. And yes, the spell seemed to be a protection against sexual assault and other forms of overt violence, but not against timey-wimey enchantments. Perhaps the point was that often men victimize women in subtle ways?

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I don't think there is anything in the text about Dominic's intentions, aside from the fact that he wants to entice at least one of the girls into working on his time machine forever and ever - but it's not even clear why he wants to do that. Then again, I guess the Devil doesn't need a reason to tempt people.

I'm still not sure what the point of the spell was, thematically speaking. It seems very odd that he would put a spell on his daughters, but not interfere when the Devil himself tried to victimize them. Maybe the point is that parents can't protect their children from everything - that girls need to learn how to protect themselves?