The Song of Stork and Dromedary by Anjet Daanje, author of the excellent The Remembered Soldier and again translated by David McKay, is unlike anything I’ve read before. The narrative tells the story of Eliza May Drayden, based on Emily Brontë, and her relationship with her sisters. We’re never allowed all that close to the Draydens though, never hear from them directly - instead the novel follows 11 people who have some connection to Eliza, and the stories of their lives. Some of these connections are very close, people who knew Eliza personally, and some take place more than a hundred years after Eliza’s death, with connections only gradually becoming apparent.

I’ve never taken so many notes while reading a book in my life. The number of allusions and connections between each chapter rewards close reading, as mysteries established in one section are resolved (or at least expanded upon) hundreds of pages later. I’ve seen it described as a literary puzzle and that is apt, but it also doesn’t spoonfeed easy answers - it’s unflashy, the answers are there but take your eye off the ball and you’ll miss them. I’m certain I’ve missed lots, I’ll catch them on a reread. In the meantime I have pages of notes saying things like “what does the fly mean!!” to think about.

Chapters are interspersed with secondary sources, biographies and eulogies of the Draydens, and we see how these misinterpret and misrepresent aspects of their lives and characters. With this Daanje asks questions about legacy, how we’re remembered, and how stories persist through time. Themes of death and time are key, though again nothing is straightforward - the dead don’t always stay dead, the past doesn’t always stay in the past, Gothic supernatural elements abound.

Covering hundreds of years and huge philosophical questions, this is a story that is massive in scale, but the links between stories through time and space keep it from ever feeling unfocused. As with The Remembered Solider, I think this is an incredibly crafted novel, full of stunning ideas and sentences, and can’t recommend it enough.

Thanks to FSG and NetGalley for the e-ARC

Well. Since it’s impossible, (and with my level of intelligence in comparison with Daanje’s, frankly insulting), for me to try and accurately review this novel from the author of the beloved The Remembered Soldier, I will keep this brief. Probably the most transportive novel I’ve ever read; I feel like I’ve been gone on a trip and am having to readjust to the current time zone (nod to the book). At over 600 pages, it’s a commitment but one I found to be well worth my time. You know how you hear a song by the Beatles like Mother Nature’s Son or A Day in the Life and you’re like “if they had just written that song and THAT’S IT, that would have been enough to solidify them as geniuses? This is that. I finished this book 30 minutes ago and just that simple, small amount of hindsight has further solidified this as one of the best books I’ve ever read. Bold statement, I know.