The Story Of Silence - Tumblr Posts
I just finished reading ‘The story of silence’ by Alex Myers and I don’t think I’m gonna be able to shut up about it
Right from reading the premise of “the tale of a nonbinary knight” I was already sold. However, I could’ve never predicted how much this book would truly mean to me (especially as a genderqueer bard of a man who adores Arthurian legend, Celtic mythology and grew up fantasising about knights, wizards and dragons).
This is a retelling of a 13th century poem! And it’s a gorgeous retelling at that.
We first meet our narrator, a Bard by the name of Heldris. Now if you’re familiar with my blog you’re probably pretty familiar with my adoration for bard characters and Myers’ characterisation of Heldris is absolutely no exception.
It would turn out that I pretty much fell in love with the characterisation choices of every character within the story itself. (I’ll probably go in more depth with my praise for characters in a later post). This of course includes Silence the protagonist and also merlin!
I’ll definitely be going into more depth as to why I absolutely adore Myers’ version of the sorcerer, to put it simply: he’s the blorbo if ever. A scrunkly old crow man and I truly truly adore him.
I was pretty much instantly enamoured with the choice of language used- in fact I don’t think I’ve ever fallen in love with a piece of literature so fast. To the point I was practically screaming over every line I read, rushing to tell my partners every single detail. I’m not really the kind of guy to get super excited about most things but I literally squealed(in delight) on multiple occasions.
There are definitely some difficult topics throughout the story, as expected when exploring gender identity and sexuality within a heavily misogynistic world building. However I thought they were explored incredibly well and there are some very well written authors notes at the beginning and end that expand on the writer’s choices and why these were necessary to the book itself. I’d also like to provide a content warning for mentions sexual assault (there’s a good author’s note about this at the end of the book- it may provide plot spoilers but if you’d like more information/to be better prepared before reaching that part of the story I’d recommend reading the note first!)
I have SO MANY thoughts and feelings about this work. I’ve literally been eager to come babble about this book since I read the first paragraph but I promised myself I’d wait until I finished the entire thing.
I will most certainly be making more in depth posts expanding on said thoughts and feelings later. I also have such an urge to make fan art for this book so yeah. I guess this is partially a story of silence blog too now.
Once again begging anyone who’s willing to listen, read the story of silence by Alex myers.
It’s such a good book. I don’t want to just word for word repeat what I said in my original post about it but:
-bard narrator! His name is Heldris and whilst we only get his viewpoint in the prologue of the book there are also some (somewhat judgemental) comments of his strewn throughout the story. I just find it a really neat way of constructing the retelling of the poem itself and I absolutely adore the way he is characterised.
-Genderqueer protagonist! The story revolves around the exploration of their identity and has quotes on being trans that genuinely brought me to tears (in the most positive way). I love silence as a character- honestly I think it would be hard not to love them but maybe I’m biased in that sense.
-Merlin! The whole story is within the world of Arthurian legend and this specific characterisation of merlin is so good. He’s such an ancient creature of a man and just- an incredibly unhinged old wizard.
It’s genuinely my favourite book and there is not enough discussion of it that I have seen on tumblr. I just know people would love it as I have and please! I need to talk to people about it!!