The Night of Turns, by Edita Bikker
This is a little long, but I write this in the hopes that I can have a conversation with the others of you who have read this book. You can skip it if you want.
The Night of Turns was the second book from Broodcomb I read, after A Trick of the Shadows. While I recognized Trick as being top notch literary horror, there is something about The Night of Turns that really got under my skin. Trick is weird, but it also is something I recognized. Turns is something else. It pulled me in immediately, partly because it is so different from most anything else I’ve read. If there is a single word summation of this book, it is: unsettling.
***SPOILER ALERT***
Its strengths:
Turns begins abruptly with Edita’s arrival across the border (from the settlements.) We are given no reason for her having crossed the border, but it seems obvious that she did it intentionally and does not wish to return to the settlements. Right away we are put off balance, and the book never gives us a chance to right ourselves. We told very little about Edita’s life before this, though Edita is a character in The Settlements, which I would have read first if I’d known this. About all we learn about her is that she is a triplet, and that her sister Greta died when they were nine. But it seems clear that Edita has chosen to come to this place.
This book has the feel of twilight, though this is not technically true of it. There are days and nights, of course, but somehow everything seems dim. The world here is small, almost claustrophobic, there being only seventeen caravans, though the path they follow must be many miles around. Edita realizes it is a circle somewhat early in the book, but I can’t really remember how many days/weeks have passed.
The spiral theme is fundamental to the book, along with its cousin the circle. The idea of a circle being related to a spiral is shown in the wheel of the calendar, in the way that we are now again in the middle of the winter, but it is not the same winter; time has passed, adding the needed third dimension. (A similar example that I’ve used recently is a carousel: one goes ’round and ’round, but time passes, so each trip is different.) The spiral, of course is a part of the Game of the Goose, which is the cover illustration, and of which there are several images inside (in color!) The spiral is also used as the symbol that shows on the tab of the website (there must be a name for this…) This weaves the text together. I get the impression that the Game of the Goose images were done first, then described in the text, which makes sense. Ultimately, this adds another layer, which is what Broodcomb is all about.
The writer manages to make the character Mousen both childlike and sinister. This last quality isn’t so much anything threatening, but more because of what she believes. She is the one who tells Edita the most about this world, and having the information come from a girl makes it chilling (because it is unsettling.) Like children generally, she doesn’t question the ways of her people, and what ways they are.
There are multiple words and phrases used here that are initially given with no context, but that are later expanded upon. More than once I came across one of these, and at first it seemed just weird. But I waited, and sure enough, I was eventually enlightened, and the meaning was something I had not anticipated. One of these is the title, the Night of Turns. Turns? Like turning? No it’s like taking turns. Another is the term that is opposite the settlements: the unsettled, and unsettlers. Now I wonder exactly what the Settlements refers to. I’d assumed that it referred to places where people lived in the midst of wilderness, but I never thought of the word settlements being related to the word unsettling. Unsettling means disturbing. And these people are unsettled in that they are in constant motion, never stopping for long.
This leads me to the crux of this world, namely that these people believe that being safe is a bad thing to wish for. I don’t know why, but that freaked me out. Yet that is the thing they all strive for. Ultimately, it seems like giving up the fear of death, but if giving up the fear of death means to embrace it, well, that is not what I had in mind. It is not that these people are choosing to die, they are accepting death as one of the terms of life. They are unsettled.
The various Nights of Turns are somehow all of a type, yet are also each really different. The ingenuity on display here is almost virtuosic. Each one was something so originally disturbing I was left wondering what could possibly come next. I was not disappointed. (The Caravan of Virtue was downright disturbing, wasn’t it?)
A little less than halfway into the book, we witness the first Night of Turns. After that, it is one Night after another. I wasn’t sure about this for a while. I was afraid the book was turning into just a series of gross out scenes, but I eventually realized that is was a way to develop the character Edita: she was changing, becoming a true member of the caravan. (Still, maybe there were too many? It did get a little slow here, for me.)
All through these nights of turns, I was wondering when someone would be outed, and whether the writer would out one of us or one of them. It was one of us, of course, and as it progressed on from that, I realized it pretty much had to be so.
And that ending was yet another freaky thing. I am not sure exactly what happened there, but the imagery was so dreamy and very compelling. But it seems that Edita is now changed, and she belongs to the Caravan of the Burning Woman. She even comforts Hoofman, who so disturbed her (and me) at first.
Its shortcomings:
The beekeeper is somewhat of a deity who rules this world. The three times we see him he appears differently. The weirdest one is when Edita sees him collecting honey. I am not completely convinced by this; it seems a little arbitrary, like there were too many ideas and the writer wanted to put them all in the book when maybe it would have been more consistent if they hadn’t been.
Then there is the goose symbol. That by itself works just fine: the Game of the Goose and the goose-tarot. But it seems inconsistent with the beekeeper symbol. I know life works like this, but I want my literature to be more integrated.
Where do the caravans get all their supplies? There are the nurseries at each stop, which the beekeeper looks after. But what about all the other things like fabric and jars and wax and all that stuff? The book is so rich that I almost don’t really mind not knowing this, but the question kept nagging me.
Where do the caravans keep all the props for the Nights of Turns? The first one we witness uses some old school clockwork mannekins, and those were amazing. But from then on there is always something new and elaborate. Where did they get all this stuff? If there are only seventeen caravans, wouldn’t they run out of new props? Wouldn’t the other caravans have seen everything already?
Just what role does the Hoofman character play? He adds much creep value, not only with his actions, but also with his wagon and his puppets. But is there a purpose beyond that? He at least serves to unsettle the reader, which I admit is an important part of the book. What is the point of his puppets, except to unsettle the reader?
Who or what is the Fox? What role does it play here?
In Conclusion:
These shortcomings are minor, and I’m not even sure how may of them are actually shortcomings, since I found myself completely mesmerized. And unsettled.
For me, the most unsettling aspect of this book is not so much the Nights of Turns and all that goes on there, not Hoofman, not the Caravan of Virtue, not the philosophy that safety is something to be rejected. No, it is the fact that Edita has come here apparently of her own free will, and that she wants to become a part of this world. At first, I kept expecting her to flee, but no, she keeps embracing these people. It is the sort of thing one would expect with spiritual growth, but it is like no spiritual growth I’ve ever heard of.
