Book Review: Desdemona and the Deep

 Desdemona and the Deep, by C.S.E.Cooney

    This book reads like animation, complete with a comic sidekick and larger-than-life characters.

    Consider, for instance, when we are introduced to Desdemona's guide through the World Beneath the World Beneath. The Gentry Sovereign bellowed for Farklewhit:

"The response was immediate. From the air at Desdemona's left elbow there came a loud popping noise. This was followed by a fizz, a flare, a sizzling dazzle of color so bright in the mother-of-pearl twilight that Desdemona had to squint her eyes against it. And out of this fireworks display stepped a cloved-hoofed creature in a pink lace apron."

    But this short novel is much more than its multi-genre combination of science-fiction, fantasy, and a little romance.

    It's also an allegory, set in an alternate world rife with industrial pollution and its idle-rich overseers They spend their days drinking, dressing up in wild costumes, and holding elaborate fundraisers for the victims of their wealth. We first see the world during a ball for the Phossy Girls, young women who are literally wasting away from the phosphorus poisoning they get from their jobs as match makers.

    The characters can be gender-fluid -- Chaz, who dresses in woman's clothes in the surface world, becomes a woman -- and species-fluid, which involves growing tails, fur and extra eyelids. Mostly, this shocks and then delights the characters.

    The story, which starts slowly but builds to a crescendo, involves a act of conscience from Desdemona, when she overhears her father bargaining for the lives of the workers in his coal mine in return for great seams of minerals. She decides to go underground to save the tithe -- the extra men who will die in payment for the deal.

    What follows is a bizarre tale in a mostly different reality. The characters are strange yet reconizable, with a mix of human emotions and non-human bodies and senses. With its wild descriptions and colorful narrative, it becomes at times like a stoner novel. 

    But ultimately, it deal with life, wealth, and suffering. Sometimes for pleasure, but sometimes for a cause beyond one's self.