Book review: “Spear” by Nicola Griffith

The girl grew up in a hut in a hidden place among the trees, and, later, after going out in the world and starting to find her way to where she belonged, she thought back to that childhood.

But to her mother she was not a person in her own right, not Peretur Paladr Hir; she was Tal, the payment her mother felt owed; she was Dawnged, her treasure and gift, stolen from Manadan without his knowledge.

Always something owed and owned rather than loved.

In her 2022 novel Spear, Nichola Griffith retells the story of Arthur and his queen and his magus and his knights in ancient Britain, but, unlike many previous retellings over the centuries, this is a story in which heroic deeds play second fiddle.

Griffith’s story is about a clever girl who grows into a warrior woman.  It is about her search for herself and, even more, her search for connection.  You could call it love, but it is love of many varieties — friendship and loyalty, lust and intimacy, a shared mission and a shared comradeship.

Here’s how Griffith describes it in an Author’s Note at the end of the novel:

Winning for Peretur is not just about triumphing over enemies and slaying monsters — which of course she does — but about learning, changing, and growing.  Her journey is not linear but circular; she revisits her past and the people in it.

The main difference between Peretur’s Journey and a traditional Hero’s Journey is that her real goal is connections: finding her people and a place to belong; finding happiness — for herself and others — at least for now.

“My spear enduring”

The first step in this journey is for the girl to learn her real name.  Her mother has called her Tal because she sees the girl as the “payment” for her oppression by the girl’s father, and she has called her Dawnged because she sees the girl as the “gift” that she was due.  The girl was “something owed and owned rather than loved.” 

“I have need of a name.”

The girl says this more than once to Elen, her mother, who finally agrees, because the girl is about to leave, to reveal her name:

The four treasures of the Tuath are the sword, which is given, the stone, which is hidden, the cup, which I have, and the spear.

You are my Berbyddur, my spear enduring.  You are Peretur.

She is Spear.  And, later, as she hones her skill as a warrior, she is called other, similar names: Peretur Hardspear, Peretur Bitterspear, Peretur Spear Enduring.

Many times an outsider

Peretur’s childhood was isolated, hidden from others.  As she ventures out into the world, she is an outsider who has to find a way to fit in while remaining true to herself.

In fact, she is many times an outsider.  She is an outsider because she is preternaturally aware — she senses things the normal person can’t sense. 

For instance, after learning new insights about herself, Peretur wonders if she is mad or corrupt.  But Nimue, the young woman-seer, puts bread on the table before her and soup.

The bowl of soup Nimue put before her smelled of barley and beans and lamb.  Ordinary, worldly scents.  She wrapped her hands around the wooden bowl.  This was real.  This was the stuff of life.

They ate the soup, and bread spread with butter — when she tasted it Peretur knew the name of the cow the milk came from, and how the maid at the dairy who milked her that day had hurt her ankle from slipping on a cowpat — and because they were joined Nimue laughed aloud. 

And because they were joined, Peretur laughed, too.  And then she laughed because it was good to be in a world where maids milked cows, air was just air, and time moved in orderly ways.

“Filled with another hunger”

When Griffith writes that Nimue and Peretur are joined, she means, on one level, that they are both sensitive to, aware of, alert to the nuances of life — they feel the connections, such as the cow the milk came from.

Also, they are joined because they love each other, with a deep physical craving.  A short time after sharing the soup, Nimue touches Peretur’s arm, and it feels good.

In the flickering ochre-and-gold light, Peretur saw the heat rise in Nimue’s cheeks, and her lips redden, and her own belly warmed, and she filled with another hunger….

Peretur’s breath sharpened, and her breasts.  They looked at each other.  Peretur leaned forward, just a little, and Nimue also, and now they could smell each other, and Peretur breathed deep.  She rubbed her cheek on Nimue’s, and smelt butter, and salt, and smoke, and, beneath, sharp woman scent.

As a woman attracted to women, Peretur is an outsider in still another way.

“Crips, queers, women”

In her Author’s Note, Griffith, a highly praised feminist and lesbian writer, explains:

Most importantly for me, historical accuracy also meant this could not be a story of only straight, white, nondisabled men.

Crips, queers, women and other genders, and people of colour are an integral part of the history of Britain — we are embedded at every level of society, present during every change, and part of every problem and its solution.  We are here now; we were there then.  So we are in this story.

Of course, Peretur is also an outsider as a woman who is a warrior wanting to join Arthur’s core of soldiers, known in earlier tellings as the Knights of the Round Table, but, in Spear, as his Companions.

A character who resonates

And, yet, for all her outsider-ness, Peretur is one of us. 

She is a character who resonates with readers — even with readers who are not female or lesbian or highly sensitive or eager to engage in violent battles.

This is one of the wonders of literature.  Someone who is not like us can still be, at a deeper level, just like us.

Every human being, in some way, at some time — perhaps in many ways and at many times — has felt like an outsider.  Every human being has taken to the road literally or figuratively to find herself, himself — to find a home, a community, a family, a love.

Spear is a universal story.  I may not feel like an outsider in the specific ways that Peretur does, but I know what it’s like to feel that I’m an outsider.  Like her, I have taken the road of life to find a home, a community, a family, a love.  And this is true of any reader who picks up the book.

We relate to her because she is us.

For fans of the story of Arthur, Spear is a clever, insightful retelling of the myth with intriguing new wrinkles, dealing with such things as the relationship of Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot, and the sword and the stone.  There is even a minor subplot about the Holy Grail.

But, more than that, Spear is a book for fans of what it means to be a human being, and all of the struggles that entails, and the pain and joy of finding your way.

Patrick T. Reardon

6.20.23