The Nature of Witches by Joan Sanders
~The Quick Take~
For being called The Nature of Witches, this book spends more time portraying the nature of misogyny. Despite above-average writing and surprising voice, this book is terrible.
~The Real Review~
Well fuck.
I thought I had found another Suffer a Witch to Die: an obscure Occultish book from the 1960s with surprising voice, style, and a bomb-ass cover. I also expected a lackluster ending, but boy howdy I did not anticipate just how lackluster it could be. With that in mind, plan for spoilers aplenty because a) this book is so obscure I doubt many of you will stumble across it and b) it deserves to be spoiled because TW, rape.
But to start with: A scientist named Gil arrives in Uppsala, Sweden, on a year-long research grant. He’s a wee bit pensive and introspective, with a keen eye for human interaction. We soon learn he’s recently separated from his wife, Lynne. Also a scientist, she has her own research and couldn’t be convinced to drop everything she’s worked for to cross the world and twiddle her thumbs while her husband is at work. Thus, divorce.
It’s not clear exactly why their physical separation must end in an emotional separation, but it’s heavily implied that Lynne insisted on it. It’s also heavily implied that Gil is upset that Lynne wouldn’t drop everything to come with him. Not just in a “I’m sad, I wish she were here” sort of way, but more of a “why is she so selfish?”
I should have sensed the danger here: Lynne is always to blame.
But for so many pages, Gil never really steps out of line. One of the first things he does is meet a trusting and enthusiastic young woman of about 20. It’s unclear how old Gil is, but I’m guessing at least mid-thirties. I was terrified that Gil, fresh off his divorce, would put Polly in his sights. Instead, he classifies her as “sweet young Polly.”
Now, that’s paternalistic as fuck, but he’s not her boss or in any position of power over her, so it doesn’t invalidate Polly in any meaningful way. And maybe my expectations are way too low, but I was mostly thrilled he wasn’t trying to fuck her. This lulled me into a false sense of security.
I was further disarmed by Gil’s voice. I usually dislike metaphors and similes; they often either obscure the point behind symbolic language or reiterate an already clear point in a needlessly flowery way. In The Nature of Witches, they actually helped me understand a complicated feeling better. Take my favorite simile of the novel:
Quatro was both stimulating and distressing to Roger, who was given to taking figurative walks all around him as if surveying some phenomenon of nature, the way a gardener may look at a meteorite in his flower bed, tapping it here and there with a stick, interested but shocked that the extensive destruction of the rhododendrons.
It really paints a picture that just saying “Quatro both intrigued and distressed Roger,” couldn’t possibly convey. Combined with Gil’s insight into the human condition and the natural intrigue of watching an intelligent man adapt to a new situation, there was plenty to keep me interested.
If you’re wondering where the Occult intersects with The Nature of Witches, it’s at a conversation between Gil, Polly, and Quatro. Drunk, Gil describes Lynne’s nature and its effect on their relationship. He claims she can be violent and cruel, yet never actually gives an example of such behavior, either aloud or in his thoughts. He describes her as particular, capricious, judgmental, perhaps overly indulgent, and in some ways child-like.
With unreasonable glibness and on-the-nose-ness, both Polly and Quatro decide that she must be a witch.
It’s worth noting here that at no point does Gil claim that she, like, drinks blood or dances naked in the light of a full moon like a Hollywood witch, nor does she do any of the more nature-y things of real Wiccans. She’s just not docile. And the witchy text on the back cover? Happens in a dream. Doesn’t count.
After that conversation, life goes back to normal, though some doubts linger in Gil’s head. Maybe Lynne is a witch.
Even halfway through the book, when it was clear no true paranormal or supernatural element was going to break onto the scene, I enjoyed The Nature of Witches for all the reasons already mentioned, but mostly for insight into Gil and Lynne’s marriage.
I’m not sure why, but realistic fiction from yesteryear often makes the past feel stodgy. I intellectually know that folks were as vibrant in the 1950s as they are today, but the books I read rarely seem to capture that.
The Nature of Witches, does.
Gil flashes back to his first year with Lynne. It’s in the early 1950s, and as newly-weds they move into a run-down house together, make out on the stairwell, have sex, share a tepid shower, then Lynne stands naked in the window looking outside at their new landscape.
It’s something you could see young newlyweds doing, even down to Lynne in the window and Gil on the bed admiring her body and wondering what’s to come. It feels fresh and real and timeless. I dunno, maybe it’s just me, but these little glimpses of modern life 60 years ago delighted me, like I was getting to look at something I thought I knew, but from a different angle.
When Gil engages in an affair with a woman his own age married to a legitimately elderly man, I naturally disapproved, even though the woman instigates it. I dunno, folks. Open marriages and poly folk and swingers all exist and I have no judgement for them, but Gil didn’t check to see if that was the case here. He just went for it. But since Maj clearly seeks his physical attention, I gave Gil a break.
But Maj is a touch too cool and detached for Gil. He wants to feel warmth, passion, emotion—all things he faults in Lynne, I feel the need to add. So, to force some emotion, he rapes Maj. Sure, the actual verbiage is something along the lines of “I would have raped her had she not given in,” but, that’s rape. Before the rape he’s violent and abusive, making his intent clear. Of course Maj is going to “give in.” It’s safer than being forcibly, violently raped. But not fighting back in this instance isn’t “giving in.” It’s self-preservation. It’s a survival tactic.
Gil is a rapist.
Naturally, I only continued reading The Nature of Witches to see if he gets his just rewards for being a fucking piece of shit rapist.
As Maj didn’t have time to prepare a diaphragm, this rape leaves Maj pregnant, which elates the fucking piece of shit rapist Gil. He imagines how motherhood will warm up her cool countenance, making her into the woman he so desperately wants her to be. He dreams of her leaving her husband and them marrying and settling down to raise a family.
Gil, of course, yells about “murdering their baby” when Maj says that she intends to end the pregnancy. Maj, being the bad bitch the world needs, looks him dead in the eyes and said, “it’s not a baby yet.”
Gil realizes pushing the issue will only cause her to dig in deeper and, thankfully, even in the 1960s Sweden’s not the place where he can get Maj arrested for expelling some unwanted tissue forced upon her by a rapist, so he has no recourse but to regroup and try to change her mind and a later date.
At this point he receives a curt letter from Lynne, which he burns to symbolically expel her from his life. Shortly thereafter he gets deathly sick. He mentally blames Lynne for causing the illness, and while specious at best, I was almost inclined to agree with him.
I imagined Lynne somehow scrying on his activities and seeing that he’s up to the same horrible behaviors with new women, and deciding to exact some revenge while buying Maj some time.
Because by the time Gil is coherent enough to ask about Maj, she’s not having his baby.
I was hoping this was the point where things started to spiral. Proven to be a piece of shit in so many ways, Gil’s life crumbles—with or without Lynne pulling some strings—until it comes out that he has always been the horrible person he was to Maj, which is what really cost him Lynne.
Instead, in the final sprint of the novel, he finally makes a move on young, sweet Polly.
Yeah, it’s consensual, and she’s an adult, etc, but Gils’ the fucking worst and Polly’s been nothing but sweet. Of course, the narrative treats them well, and depicts this relationship as something to be cherished. It’s looking like a happy ending, when Gil gets a letter from Lynne saying she wants him back.
I was hoping for a trick—Lynne somehow learned of Gil’s dalliance with Polly and wants to end it before Polly can be damaged the way he damaged every other woman in his life. Gil returns to the United States only to find an empty house with a “fuck you,” letter nailed to the door.
Alas, the narrative makes it clear that’s not the intent; will Gil dump sweet, young Polly to return to his supposedly awful wife who we’ve never had a clear example of doing anything actually awful? Or will he resist temptation and stay true to his sweet young rebound? He pens a response to Lynne—“No, thank you. Please leave me alone.”
Such strength of will Gil has when it comes to denying the siren’s call! But will this siren heed his request?
Surprise! Lynne dies in a freak accident. There’s nothing standing between Gil and Polly. They can live happily ever after.
What the fuck, The Nature of Witches. What the actual fuck.
Public Ratings: 3.25/5 | 3 Ratings
Cover art by Unknown:
