#the kingdoms

LIVE

castlereagh, tournier, zhang

they the type of friends who would sit in complete silence for hours then go home to their SOs and say they just had the time of their lives

Reread Natasha Pulley’s The Kingdoms this week, and I have SO MANY questions about Jem “Bigamist” Castlereagh

  • Joe spends the entirety of The Kingdoms trying to get back to his daughter Lily, meanwhile Jem hangs out in the past for 7? 8? years without attempting to get back to his son. Joe v2 later has ‘epilepsy’ visions of baby Lily, but not of Jem’s son. Jem?? What was your home life like??
  • Did Jem try to form a polycule with a pair of siblings??? What was the plan here?? 
  • Not to make things weird (she said, making things weird), but what kind of marriage did Jem and Agatha have? Joe v2 mentions Agatha talking to him “in bed” the night of the wedding, which implies something marital happened. They also lived together for some time, in between Jem’s navy service. But then Joe has all these extremely strong warm and protective feelings for Kite, but none for Agatha. Jem?? WHAT WAS YOUR HOME LIFE LIKE??
  • Speaking of: Is Jem/Joe/Joe v2 bi or gay? Jem certainly gets married to a lot of ladies of his own free will, which implies bi. But then Joe’s encounter with Alice is one of the most excruciating things I’ve ever read, he’s having such a bad bad bad time ohmygod, and it seems to be more than “it’s weird to have sex with my brother’s wife in another timeline”. JEM WHAT WAS YOUR HOME LIFE LIKE PLEASE EXPLAIN

DID I create an entire musical playlist for The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley solely populated with Napoleonic War-era songs and sea shanties, and then end the whole thing with Waterloo by ABBA?

You bet your buttons I did!

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4a1USrcR4Yifuwy9i3RQwM?si=0a4e48c7acc8489c

My attempt to capture the eerily beautiful descriptions of the lighthouse and sea pillars from Natasha Pulley’s fantastic novel “The Kingdoms” ⚓️

loading