Of the four, only Koja’s first two novels, The Cipher and Bad Brains, have fantastic elements. These novels often, if not always, have these elements: passive male characters, non-white characters that dispense succinct wisdom, an alienation from family, a character who delights in agitating others, a greedy and destructive quest for transcendence, androgynous names, artists living in economic if not creative squalor, ending epigraphs that present the theme, Catholic imagery and allusions, and a skepticism of art theories. The palette can get a bit sated on her style. Certain quirks, like the words “rebus” and “freshet”, are present, and, like most such writers, it’s not always a good idea to read one of her novels right after another. No Henry James-like piling of subordinate clause on subordinate clause or long descriptions.
Her sentences are unobtrusively long but unclotted. Koja is, at least in these novels, one of those literary writers who tends to write variations on the same story. The order I read them, Skin, The Cipher, Bad Brains, and Kink, was not their order of publication, and I skipped Strange Angels, so keep that in mind. From her appearance on the Lovecraft ezine podcast, she seems like a fun person, and her guest appearance at Arcana was finally a motive to seek out some of her short fiction, which I’ll be looking at in a future posting, and her early novels. Koja’s name has been lurking in mind since reading her story “The Neglected Garden” (1991) in its original magazine appearance. Alas, things came up, and I’m not able to attend. Like the Bierce project, I did it in preparation of this year’s local Arcana convention. Like the Ambrose Bierce reading project of a couple of years ago, I’ve spent the past four months reading Kathe Koja on and off. Essay: The Early Novels of Kathe Koja: The Cipher.
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