Family – Genes or Upbringing?
All three new stories by Aneta Jadowska revolve around the theme of family ties, attachment and intergenerational understanding for good and bad. At times they are very touching – if you know Thornverse, you know that the concepts of “herd”, defending your own and your love are very important there, treated with deadly seriousness softened with pizza and tubes with cream. This volume is also a decent dose of macabre and grotesque, so stick to PG16 here and do not show the youngest.
The title Kurczaczek and Salamandra are daughters of Witkac and Dora – the first biological, the second adopted. You both have already met in the pages of Hexalogy . The girls face their difficult legacy every day: the first sees ghosts, the second – burns with living fire whenever she gets angry. Both pose a threat not only to themselves (see Satanic Tango ). Jadowska’s third kid is a little lynx fascinated by Nikita, you can remember him from Pumpkin and mistletoe .
All parents and guardians appearing in this volume face the difficult task of raising exceptional children. Each family has to deal not only with the extraordinary abilities of the youngest, but also with the prejudices or open hostility that children sometimes arouse in others. In these texts, the problems of racism, misogyny and self-acceptance reappear. Is it possible to get rid of a dangerous, inconvenient talent? And at the same time become yourself? As you may have guessed, in the world of magic, every little mermaid pays a disproportionate price for a pair of ordinary, down-to-earth legs.
Welcome to Thornverse
As you can see, this volume is closely related to previous books about the inhabitants of Thorn and Wars. Do not start your adventure with the Jadowska universe with him, the Pumpkin and mistletoe mentioned above are better suited for this . To have fun reading and understand the logic of events, you do not necessarily need to know a lot about the world of magical cities, but certainly about the relations between the heroes of the Hexalogy and the Shamanic Cycle .
Kurczaczek and Salamandra are examples of Jadowska’s characteristic style, where irony is mixed with openly talking about feelings, attachment and loyalty are the most important values, and all those who want to threaten them should be kicked. This time, the kids have a voice, and while it works well in stories about a young shaman and lynx, it did not quite succeed in the first.
The protagonists of Igrania with Fire are two twelve-year-olds. The narrative consists largely of their inner monologues … which sound too much to Dora to be believed in the girls’ age. For children, the characters rationalize too much, they are simply too sensible. Of course, I wouldn’t expect infantile dialogues without logic, but some softening of tone or a clearer separation of third-person descriptions from girls’ deliberations would add credibility to the character’s psychology. At the same time, it is this story that has the greatest emotional charge. No spoilers, but beware – there is a risk of “your eyes getting sweaty”. The story of the lynx and Nikita, in turn, has such a large dose of grotesque that I do not recommend it to sensitive people, especially believers in the innocence of childhood.
My favorite story from this collection is Pride and Continuity . First, its title will prove to be bitter and touching at the end. Secondly, the dark motif of a dissociative personality, common in Jadowska, returns. I wouldn’t say that magic is just an excuse to tell something else, but it undoubtedly allows for a very direct comparison of the times of two generations.
The pleasures of childhood
Chicken and Salamandra show childhood as a completely non-idyllic period and far from innocence understood as instinctive kindness and gentleness. At the outset, I mentioned To or Stranger Things , because just like in them, Jadowska’s kids face a threat completely disproportionate to their age. They have to deal with it, fortunately in Thornie and Warsie the keepers are almost as involved in the lives of the youngest as in Hawkins. As with Jadowska, you will read about the strength of the herd, which, if you see injustice, will burn it out with hellfire, unless it is willing to improve and rehabilitate.
The collection appeared in the SQN Originals series, which means that you will not find it in bookstores, but only in the publisher’s store. This distribution includes books by other authors of Sine Qua Non, such as Łukasz Orbitowski or Jakub Małecki. When you visit the shop, pay attention to the book boxes full of book gadgets. So many ad breaks, come back to reading urban fantasy and fantasy simply. We will then exchange comments over a pint of something good in our Tavern.
