That Inevitable Victorian Thing: review
Jan. 3rd, 2019 04:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rymenhildIn E.K. Johnston's That Inevitable Victorian Thing, a princess in disguise comes to a debutante ball in Canada, which is part of a contemporary or near-future alternate British Empire. Queen Victoria I decided to build a more inclusive empire, and her descendants, including HRH Princess Victoria-Margaret, are multiracial, multicultural royalty who, like most people in the empire, choose their spouses based on computer-assessed genetic compatibility.
This fascinating premise is both the best and worst part of the book. On the one hand, there are balls and high-tech corsets and women friends in a friendlier, kinder neo-Victorian world. On the other hand, it's still an enormous empire, and fixing some of the colonialism only draws attention to the violence inherent in the system. For instance, the progressive Archbishop of Canterbury once praises the Church of the Empire for being inclusive -- it has welcomed Islam and Judaism and other religious groups into its fold. But it's possible to be too ecumenical. As a Jewish person, I am pretty horrified by the concept of Judaism being absorbed into a larger state religion, especially when the primary shared premise of the state religion seems to be "Thou shalt marry one of thy possible genetic matches and be fruitful with genetically diverse children."
I am, however, pleased by the resolution of the love triangle. One of the, er, points of the triangle is much less interesting than the other two, but that's okay, because the people I care about get what they deserve. Yes, this book is queer.
Anyway, I do want people to read the book so you all can discuss it with me.
This fascinating premise is both the best and worst part of the book. On the one hand, there are balls and high-tech corsets and women friends in a friendlier, kinder neo-Victorian world. On the other hand, it's still an enormous empire, and fixing some of the colonialism only draws attention to the violence inherent in the system. For instance, the progressive Archbishop of Canterbury once praises the Church of the Empire for being inclusive -- it has welcomed Islam and Judaism and other religious groups into its fold. But it's possible to be too ecumenical. As a Jewish person, I am pretty horrified by the concept of Judaism being absorbed into a larger state religion, especially when the primary shared premise of the state religion seems to be "Thou shalt marry one of thy possible genetic matches and be fruitful with genetically diverse children."
I am, however, pleased by the resolution of the love triangle. One of the, er, points of the triangle is much less interesting than the other two, but that's okay, because the people I care about get what they deserve. Yes, this book is queer.
Anyway, I do want people to read the book so you all can discuss it with me.
