enuja

Tooth and Claw. Jo Walton. 2003

I picked this book up at a Little Free Library, because it looked like a quick and well-contained read which would be fun and easy, to help my goal of reading more. This wasn't as easy a read as I expected, although it is a delight.

Tooth and Claw is a Victorian novel, specifically modeled after Framely Parsonage, by Anthony Trollope, from 1859. However, it's a Victorian novel in which the characters are all dragons, because, as Joe Walton says in the "Dedication, Thanks, and Notes" of the novel, "It has to be admitted that a number of the core axioms of the Victorian novel are just wrong. People aren't like that. Women, especially, aren't like that. This novel is the result of wondering what a world would be like if they were, if the axioms of the sentimental Victorian novel were inescapable laws of biology."

This novel was written by an author who loves Victorian novels, and written for readers who love Victorian novels. I have never even read a single Victorian novel, and therefore do not know the core axioms of Victorian novels. I do have the habit of reading novels twice in a row, the first time devouring it for suspense and speed, the second time taking it more slowly, looking at nuance, and writing my review. My second time through, the beginning of this novel makes a lot more sense. If you're experienced with Victorian novels, you might be able to really understand it the first time through, but the fact that the main characters are cannibalistic dragons might turn you off a bit. However, this is just making the cannibalistic scheming for inheritance in high society extremely literal.

Tooth and Claw really is wildly inventive, with the dragons wearing hats and sometimes riding trains, and, of course, having a hugely important hierarchical social structure, and extreme biological differences between male and female dragons. Female dragons have hands, and so can easily write, while male dragons have claws, which makes writing harder, but fighting easier.

This is a biting satire of Victorian society and novels, making Victorians actual monsters instead of metaphorical monsters. But it's also a sentimental Victorian novel where circumstances conspire to marry people off ideally. It is (mostly) beautifully well crafted, and I'm very happy I read it. I am not the ideal reader, but I loved it for the creativity and world building, for the literilization of metaphor.

Jo Walton's review of her own book, and description of how she came to write it, is delightful, and, like the novel itself, well worth the read.
https://reactormag.com/dragons-of-the-prime-jo-walton-on-writing-tooth-and-claw//