“The old gods may be great, but they are neither kind nor merciful. They are fickle, unsteady as moonlight on water, or shadows in a storm. If you insist on calling them, take heed: be careful what you ask for, be willing to pay the price. And no matter how desperate or dire, never pray to the gods that answer after dark.”
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is a 2020 fantasy romance novel published in the English language by American author V. E. Schwab, and it was nominated for a Locus Award in 2021, for the category of Best Fantasy Novel.
Addie LaRue is a young woman in 18th century France, fearing a confined future she does not want for herself, as a wife, mother, and caregiver of her aging parents. Not unlike Belle from Disney's Beauty and the Beast, she is an avid lover of stories (and later a zealous reader of books), and she wants more freedom and adventure than her agrarian village and sexist religious family would allow her to enjoy. In a moment of desperation, she breaks the one rule she was given by a village elder, and prays to one of the gods of the forest during the nighttime, and she is answered with a Faustian bargain - ageless immortal life, to do with however she pleases, but in exchange, she will always be forgotten by every person who encounters her, as soon as she moves out of their presence, even for so brief a time as stepping into the next room. Furthermore, if at any point she despairs at her existence and chooses to give it up, the god who answered her call will have the right to claim her soul. Annually, though sometimes less often than this, her dark god pays her a visit, to tempt her to give up her life, much after the style of Dream of the Endless paying a once-every-century visit to the immortal optimist Hob Gadling, in the Sandman series of graphic novels.
From this point onward, Addie's story spans the centuries of her globetrotting life, as she seduces artists in an attempt to have any aspect of her life rendered permanent and memorable, even after she parts ways with them. Her progress is sometimes thwarted by her "benefactor," who takes joy in stymying her efforts and mocking her, though it is also clear that he shares in the loneliness of being undying and always-forgotten, and over the course of the novel, their familiar animosity takes on romantic overtones.
The novel takes a turn for the fascinating and complicated, when Addie encounters a man who remembers encountering her previously, and she attempts to investigate this peculiar exception to her bargain, as well as the unprecedented possibility for a romance that lasts longer than the time it takes to walk out of a room.
I confess I find myself surprised that this node was not already populated by a review. I find myself more surprised still that I had not already written a review here; I could have sworn I wrote one the same year I read this novel, more than three years ago now! I can gladly recommend Addie LaRue to fans of This Is How You Lose the Time War, The Gameshouse, and The City in Glass. It will also remind readers of The Sandman, in tone and in its acute preoccupation with story and art as a vehicle for immortality. The prose is graceful, if not lavish, and the dark god Luc is just charming enough to be attractive despite (or perhaps because of) the fact he's also an utter bastard. Addie herself is resourceful, self-absorbed, and just petulant and mean-spirited enough that it usually feels like her lesser misfortunes are well-earned, yet also humane enough that her suffering is not unsympathetic. The contentious sniping between Addie and Luc really keeps the story alive and full of momentum, as the reader finds themselves wanting Addie to "win" the bargain, yet also wanting to see Luc's growing attachment to Addie continue to undermine his efforts to defeat her and steal her soul away. I personally found the ending of the novel very satisfying, though I'll put forth here that it received a very mixed reception among readers, not all of whom sympathised equally with each of Addie's love interests and goals for her own life. In any case, it's a lovely novel, and a fairly quick one, able to be finished in a day, if your schedule is clear.
Iron Noder 2024, 05/30