(Cover image by John Jude Palencar)

Guy meets girl. Girl disses guy. Guy limps off with wounded pride with thoughts of vengeance. No, this isn’t your typical tale of jilted love, this is the story of normal goings on happening in a place that is anything but normal: Charles de Lint’s fictional city of Newford. And while the guy in this case is at first glance your typical egotistical, self-centered jerk, the girl is not so typical. Not at all. In fact she believes her origins are from a website called the Wordwood. And when she meets up with another young woman who is herself the cast-off shadow of a Newford author, the two soon discover that there is a very thin line between what is and is not “real”, and that a petty act of prideful revenge can have consequences far greater than anyone could have anticipated.

This is the second and final post in the discussion that Kailana and I will be having in regards to our buddy read of Charles de Lint’s book, Spirits in the Wires. There will be mild spoilers in the post here and I suspect on Kailana’s site as well, so please be forewarned. If you choose not to read on, please allow me to take a moment to encourage you to spend some time in Newford. This was yet another novel in which I closed the final page with an intense feeling of satisfaction. Charles de Lint knows how to tell a story with characters who are at once tangibly real and impossibly fantastical. He demonstrates with Spirits in the Wires that he can take what seems to be an implausible premise–spirits living in the internet–and weave a sophisticated story around it that hits all the right emotional notes while exploring concepts such as our belief systems as well as what it means to be alive.

This week I had the task of coming up with the discussion questions. I do hope you’ll join us and share any thoughts you feel like sharing.

1. This book made several references to incidents that happened in other stories. Were there any in particular that stood out to you?

One that stood out to me most prominently was when Robert was asked if his guitar had a name. Bojo made reference to his people naming their instruments which of course immediately brought to mind the story of Meran Kellady that we read in The Very Best of Charles de Lint last year. You and I both thought [think] very highly of Meran and her invisible presence in this book, in the form of Bojo who is caring for her home with she and her husband are touring, was very special. As were references to Geordie and Jilly that built off of previous stories, some of which I hadn’t read, and hint at future stories like Widdershins which happens after the events of this novel.

Building off of that, I like the meeting of Galfreya and how the end of the story sets things up for where we find various characters at the beginning of Widdershins.

And then there are references, like Christy and his former girlfriend who was actually the spirit of the city, that sound vaguely familiar and yet I have read doubts about having read anything about it previously.

2. Suzi and Aaron were certainly the most distrusted characters as the story progressed. What were your feelings about them throughout the story and were they any different when all was said and done?

Aaron certainly started out as a pig. The kind of character with no redeeming value that was easy to dislike. I remember thinking early on that he would be an annoying character throughout the book and his initial moves of vengeance towards Saskia seemed to confirm those assumptions. And then de Lint surprised me with the introduction of this mystery character, Suzi, and her affect on Aaron seemed profound. In taking things that direction de Lint not only kept me slightly off balance in regards to Aaron but also allowed that character to have much more dimension than I had originally pegged him for. Charles de Lint does his own magic with these characters, a sleight of hand that has you waiting for the other shoe to drop all through the remainder of the novel while at the same time you slowly begin to root for these characters and hope that they turn out to be more than what they initially seemed. Or at least that is what happened to me.

I was worried Suzi might be something of a throw away character, an eventual red-shirt in Newford, and thus I was pleased when Charles de Lint left things open for her to be an interesting character in her own right, along the same lines as Saskia and Christiana.

3. Charles de Lint wrote some chapters from a first person point of view and others were not. How did you feel about this back and forth style of storytelling?

To be honest it threw me a bit at first and I think that added to feelings I mentioned last week about the initial chapters feeling like a tacked on prologue. But once it settled in I didn’t mind it at all. It actually provided an interesting way to feel more intimately connected with certain characters while also being able to maintain a global perspective on the story. This helped a great deal considering the many and varied characters that inhabited these pages.

4. As the story came to a close, which character(s) were you most drawn to? Which one(s) did you make an emotional connection with?

Christiana was the big draw for me in this story. By the end it was her experiences that I found not only most interesting but it was her denouement that brought a few tears to my eyes. I made the biggest emotional connection with her. Being a shadow, having an identity that told her she was a cast off made up of bits of what was unwanted, gave her such an enormous range for growth in this story. Things could have gone either way for her and yet her story was so engaging that the reader couldn’t have helped but to follow along whichever road she chose.

I also liked Saskia, especially when she was a passenger with Christiana. That was once again a story element that I initially thought would grow old and would not work for me but instead the opposite happened. I enjoyed seeing their friendship grow throughout the story. I also really liked Suzi from the moment she appeared even though there was an aura of distrust surrounding her.

And of course Robert was very fascinating. He was fascinating in the way that folklorish characters are in Neil Gaiman’s novels. He represents a great deal of mystery and although the reader gets to spend a good deal of time with the character, he/she also realizes that what you see if only a fraction of who this character really is. I love that kind of mystery. I want to see Robert again.

5. We seem to ask some version of this question whenever we discuss his works: what makes Charles de Lint’s stories so special? Or to bring it down to just this particular story, what, if anything, makes Spirits in the Wires a special book?

And I’m not sure we ever can come up with anything definitive because there are SO MANY ingredients that go into his stories and I’m not sure but that it is the combination of all those ingredients that creates such a palpable magic as that which emanates from his stories about Newford.

I have said before but it bears repeating that Charles de Lint creates some of the most genuinely real characters I have ever read. Whether they are painting a picture, frying an egg, or stepping through portals into worlds beyond their own they seem so authentic. Some of his characters are broken, others in various stages of healing from that brokenness, and still others who are the embodiment of things deemed “impossible” by those with little or no imagination. And yet all of them are deeply real.

Whether I am reading a novel or a short story, I feel almost privileged to get a brief glimpse into the lives of the inhabitants of Newford. It is a very special place, and the people in it are special too, much more because of the way in which a reader can relate to them than because of any fantastical elements in the story. Whether beautifully tragic or gloriously triumphant or somewhere in between, Charles de Lint’s stories have the “it” factor that make a reader become deeply enmeshed in the tale.

6. Any other thoughts you would like to share about Spirits in the Wires?

It has been a true pleasure reading this along with Kailana. For several years now we have spent part of our spring immersed in the daily lives of the citizens of Newford, and this wonderful novel was yet another great experience to share. The novel quickly became one that was hard to put down and most of my reading of it came in huge chunks of uninterrupted bliss. Anytime I can close a book with an uncontrollable smile on my face and a few tears glistening in my eyes I count myself particularly blessed.

In case you missed it, here is Part One of this discussion. Don’t forget to go and visit Kailana for her responses to this week’s questions.

And consider taking a trip to Newford sometime in your future. It will be a journey that I promise that you will not soon forget.