Helm

I feel like there's been a bit of a buzz around Sarah Hall's novel Helm, which is centred around the only named wind in the UK (I must admit I hadn't heard of Helm and didn't realise that it was a real thing: a unique, powerful, occasional force). It's such a cool concept for a novel and Hall has constructed a rich narrative of interweaving strands through the history of human interactions with the wind. Hall has given Helm a wild, poetic voice, and it has motivations and desires of its own, which adds a distinctive flavour to the novel.

For me, some of the narrative strands were more successful than others, though Hall has obviously expended a lot of effort in creating authentic and researched stories for each time period. Most of the narratives are focused on attempts by humans to tame or measure Helm: a medieval churchman who sees Helm as a demonic force; a Victorian scientist who wants to set up an elaborate machine to dye the air flow; a modern climate scientist who becomes paranoid in isolation; a Bronze Age wise woman who sees a sacred stone in a vision and dedicates her life to finding and erecting it. Often the protagonists are women who develop a special relationship with the wind, like Janni, a victim of 50s psychiatric treatment who is eventually reclaimed by Helm as Helm's own.

I especially loved the Janni story and the Bronze Age narrative, perhaps because they both came to a satisfying conclusion. Some of the other plotlines petered out or ended anti-climactically, but there is more than enough meat here to compensate, and the actual prose is rich and wild and gorgeous.