The Only Harmless Great Thing

3/5 I like the concept of communicating between the past, present, and future. I just don’t think it was executed well enough in such a short story

I should, perhaps, just send you to read Cass Khaw's lovely review, which is better written that I could ever manage. But I do like having my own say as well, and so I'll say The Only Harmless Great Thing is a work of rare beauty and hurt and anger, that Brooke Bolander's prose is achingly gorgeous, cuts like a knife, and heals like a salve. Bolander takes history and remixes it, adds myth and future and the anger that has powered her best prose so far in her young career. This is the story of man's cruelty to elephants and women, based on the historical stories of Topsy the elephant and the Radium Girls. Look them up, if you don't know them. This is the story of how they respond.

It was just too confusing for me.

The Only Harmless Great Thing takes the story of the Radium Girls and adds sentient elephants. During the war period, young women were hired to paint things like watch faces with radium paint, something scientists knew was toxic. These women, however, were not given protective material and told to keep their paintbrushes sharp by sucking on them. Needless to say, the Radium Girls died horrific deaths from cancer. This novella by Bolander adds in elephants who can speak sign language, so if you can't see how the Radium Girls situation was horribly exploitative, here's a new element to hammer that message home! It's a painful book, and my only complaint is that I wish it were longer so that it could more fully explore this alternative world and the tragic story being narrated. Beautiful work and very much worth a read.

Okay, after some very intensive, most scientific research, I have come to the following conclusion: this book was not written by Brooke Bolander but by her evil twin, Crooke Colander. Yes is has. I mean, how else would one explain that I almost quite nearly DNFed this story before the 20% mark? Now if that is isn’t the scientifically irrefutable proof that it is impossibly impossible for Brooke Bolander of the Glorious Talons and Luscious Trail of Dead to have written the present, most discombobulating story, I don’t know what is. Indeed, my dear Spockie. Indeed. The Only Harmless Great Thing is everything Bolander’s story usually aren’t: verbose as fish. Disjointed and clunky as shrimp. Confusing as squid. (Even more so if you’ve never heard of Topsy the Elephant and/or the Radium girls. So congrats to the author/editor/whatever for not giving an ounce of background information on either subjects. Ridiculously clueless readers such as my little self are most grateful and stuff.) Worse, the writing smacks of self-complacency. Bolander waxes poetic like a crab on acid, tries way too hard to be lyrical and clever, and all emotions are lost in the process. This should have been a moving, dramatic, powerful story but it ended up being flatter than my favorite herd of ironing boards. Quite the achievement, that. Especially when you know how gripping, poignant and punch-packing some of Bolander’s stories are. Yes it is, Hieronymus dear. ➽ Nefarious Last Words (NLW™): I don’t know what the members of the Nebula Award jury smoked before they decided to pick this story as best novelette for 2018, but it must have been high quality stuff. I want some. Pre-review nonsense Actual rating: 2.385896211458 stars. Who the bloody shrimp are you and what the stinking fish have you done with Brooke Bolander?! ➽ Review to come and stuff. Brooke Bolander Maths : And You Shall Know Her by the Trail of The Dead + Our Talons Can Crush Galaxies = TO READ THIS POST HASTE I NEED.

It's uncommon to ascribe poeticism to a work of such focus, but this novella manages it quite well. Moving between alternate past and future interspersed with legend (ala those of Frith in Watership Down) would lead to a mess in less capable hands. The tension and strength of the narrative is carried throughout, not for the sole sake of coherency but towards the conveyance of senses of beauty, loss, and memory.