Polishing raw pearls: A review of PatchworkPoltergeist's Somewhere Only We Know · 12:05pm May 31st, 2013
Fair warning: I might be a bit biased in this fic's favour by virtue of its excellence.
PatchworkPoltergeist’s Somewhere Only We Know: A slashed masterpiece
“If thus to sleep is sweeter than to wake,
To die were surely sweeter than to live,
Though there be nothing new beneath the sun.”
—Monna Innominata [I dream of you, to wake], Christina RossettiAt some point, we must look back at our old idols.
I’ve counted that I’ve so far done eleven positive reviews and six negative ones, but if I had the chance I’d have done sixty of the former and one of the latter. I would rather love books than hate them, because—
Ha, you thought I was seri—
Alright, look, fuck it. I can’t be cynical about this. PatchworkPoltergeist’s Somewhere Only We Know is my favourite fanfic. It is, without reservation, the best fanfic I can ever remember reading. It is simple and elegant and every other buzzword you want to read, but in a single word it is perfect and I do not want to read it again, because it lies enshrined in my memory as a story whose very name can invoke a heaving in my chest and a clenching in my guts. It is a beautiful story, and I worry that it is beautiful because it is an idol of my metaphorical childhood: one of the first ponyfics I ever read, a hazy mess of emotion and missed detail.
I have an almost religious reverence for it, and if I were to read it again I would want to read it out loud and I would want every feeling in it to come back; I want to read it with the emotions I want to have rather than the emotions I ought to, like a Catholic filled with joy at Dies Irae rather than revulsion, but I cannot because this story isn’t in bloody Latin.
In other words, I like this story a lot.
That is why I must read it again.
—
Damn it.
It’s not perfect.
The story as a whole seems to attempt to remain contiguous as a striving effort towards its excellent punchline, but in doing so there is an eventual sense that it misses a great deal of the same in its attempt to get there in one piece.
Indeed: Pinkie’s forgetting, Rarity’s bridling and Applejack’s weariness all make for excellent punchlines in themselves, and the story suffers greatly from its inability to exploit these—but the entire style in the bits where they are relevant renders their adequate execution impossible because the ‘real world’ has almost all of its sadness painted with exposition, almost as if the story wishes to make itself depressing in the same way an overbred chihuahua might try to make itself look even cuter and ends up having one of its eyeballs pop from its head.
While this can easily be explained as a sort of tone-setter, especially in light of Equestria’s excellently saccharine-utopian prose, it outstays its welcome long before its uncertain point is made. It in fact eschews entirely what makes the fantasy’s so clearly memorable, and while this may be some reflection of reality’s muddiness that doesn’t change that the prose itself is not entirely good, insofar as it keeps the reader hanging more by frustrated suspense and confusion than genuine curiosity or enjoyment.
All this being said, the Equestrian sections are nothing short of pure genius, like if George Orwell met Enid Blyton, had lovingly tender buttsex and wrote a collab snuggling each other or whatever it is that heterosexual Englishmen do: the prose’s delicate mix of aspartame and stevia—and here the typography helps greatly—quite happily creates the impression of a dream, and in doing so it remains as perfect as it is remembered.
It is at its core a fundamentally touching story, even if its theme of unassailable despair resonates quite clearly with the modern cliché of pessimism; its view of escapism is clearer than reality, and while it may seem to encourage it—and here I must say that I do not—there is something to be said about living a life in a life without one.
In other words: despite its prosaic flaws and missed opportunities, it remains one of the best fanfics I’ve ever read, even if it doesn’t bear for me the same magic as it used to.
Read it.
31st May, 2013
Yishun, Singapore
AMIT WAS PATCH ALL ALONG
1116106
nope nope nope I fixed it before you made your comment you can't point it out because I can't reply with 'fixed' and a twilight smiley nope nope nope
1116106 And now, you've immortalised it forever more!
...That might be the best thing anyone has ever said about words I made.
Oh, bloody hell Amit, THIS one. It all came back to me. I got told to read it on account of a fan of my 'Gharry Pony' (another pitch-black grimdark) told me there was this one other story like it. I don't think so: they're similar but have very different agendas and very different transcendence when you get down to it.
Yeah, I read it for you. I think you're right in your re-appraisal, but all the same you're still right that it is a masterwork. Now I'm gonna lie down and cry for a while before gettin' back to work, okay?
Don't mind what happens to me, but poor Dashie's leg… I mean, nothin'. Nothing to see here, certainly din't mention knees, no sir!
It has always bothered me that "Somewhere" has only about 5000 views on here.
And then MLD has more views than any single author on this site, because everyone is just godfuck retarded, or something.