Review: Death, the Gardener by Daniel T. Dodaro

The Grim Reaper is not at all like legends describe. In reality, he is a debonair gardener by the name of Mot. Every person’s life is bound to a rose in his garden, and every person’s death occurs when their rose is snipped. Every person but one.

Let’s start with the exclamation marks.

No, wait.

Let me first say that I’m not going to discuss “good” or “bad.” Those terms are far too subjective and don’t actually get into the meat of what’s going on in a text. Instead, “getting to the meat” is what I intend to do.

On little sleep, “getting to the meat” also sounds really gross and bloody.

Moving on. Death, the Gardener is an opportunity to look at several trends new-ish writers often find themselves in.

Now the exclamation marks.

Crazy-Ass Punctuation

I’ve had many a student roll their eyes when I start getting fanatical about punctuation. What does one comma matter? Or whether a period goes inside or outside quotation marks?

It matters, kids.

There are many examples of sentences that would have wildly different meanings depending on punctuation, but I like this one:

woman without her man is nothing

Over-zealous use of exclamation marks, however, is a realm unto itself.

Exclamation marks are meant for emphasis. That is, unless it’s a thriller where things explode many times, most fiction have very few.

Even fewer will have entire paragraphs with every sentence ending in an exclamation mark.

The inexperienced writer often interprets the exclamation mark as an indication of passion, anger, any strong emotion. But there’s strong emotion and then there’s strong emotion.

Exclamation marks are for the latter. Even then, more often than not, you can convey that emotion far more effectively with context than an exclamation.

Imagine that every sentence with an exclamation mark is someone screaming the words at the top of their lungs because that is exactly what it is.

Yes, I’m going to say it…

Show, don’t tell.

It’s tempting with first-person or close-third to explain every thought a character has, or walk through an entire thought process.

The thing is, though, it’s totally unnecessary.

Much like dialogue is a simulacrum of real speech, internal dialogue is a simulacrum of real thought processes. You take shortcuts.

And again, context is a fairly effective way of conveying thoughts, ideas, and reactions without having to explicitly state - and then explain or justify - those thoughts, ideas, and reactions.

I gritted my teeth through the exclamation marks, but the fact is, telling the reader everything a character thinks is very boring for your reader.

Readers are pretty savvy folk. They understand the narrative game, and - contrary to what you might think or have been told - they don’t read with the intention of getting every single answer to every little question. That ruins the fun of it and kills the sense of collaboration between writer and reader.

Trust your reader to figure some things out on their own. They may not come to exactly the same conclusion you had in mind, but so what? By the time it’s in their hands, it’s their book, not yours. Let go.

Know your symbolism

Death, the Gardener is loaded with symbolism of all shapes and sizes.

Unfortunately, Death, the Gardener is loaded with symbolism of all shapes and sizes.

This is part of the larger motif of world-building I’ll look at in the next section, but symbolism deserves some close attention on its own.

I make no claims to know every symbolic reference from every culture that’s ever existed, but I’ve met a fair few. When you follow monsters, you pretty much always hang out in myths, legends, and folklore.

The four deity-ish characters in Death are a submissive dog (Death), a lark (Life), a dragon (eternity), and a koi (memory).

That in itself is a rather hodgepodge assortment of totems with no real link or connection with each other.

I want to focus on Mot (death) and Santiago (memory), though.

Santiago is a borderline-offensive/definitely stereotypical depiction of an overtly effeminate mer-person. He’s gossipy, shrill, petty, kind of a doormat, and his gross unattractiveness (in a world of attractive people) is heavily emphasized. More often than not, his “friends” referred to him simply as “Fish,” rather than his actual name. He also ended every sentence with “hun.”

Every. Sentence. That’s not an exaggeration.

I take it back. It was actually really offensive.

The link between memory and koi is one I can stand behind - depiction notwithstanding. If you pull the whole dragon/koi symbolism together with eternity/memory, you get a concept really worth digging into.

Koi, however, are symbols of strength, courage, and perseverance. The idea of a koi/mer-person being cowed - of memory - being cowed by anything, even eternity, is a little hard to swallow.

And then there is Mot, whose totem is a brow-beaten dog. This is presented as completely obvious but also never explained. I have no quibbles about this representation of death, but it’s so, so far removed from any conventional idea of death that it does warrant a hint or two.

Like Santiago, Mot’s characterization doesn’t add up with this representation, which makes it even more puzzling as the novel progresses.

And then there’s his name. This is the second time I’ve come across an author associating mot with death. The first was definitely irksome because it was purely (and evidently) a mistranslation.

Here - and probably only because of that earlier experience - it’s also a little irritating. On the other hand, the word = death equation is also pretty interesting. Much like koi/memory, I would’ve liked to have that concept explored and utilized more.

It just has to make sense

The thing is, you can make up any kind of world/universe/pigeon colony you want as long as the rules of the pigeon colony are consistent with itself.

It doesn’t have to follow the rules or logic of the real world at all, but it does have to make sense within the logic you’ve created.

At least it does if you want your readers to buy into it.

Mot readers will go along with anything you give them. Readers tend to be pretty generous with authors and usually give them benefit of doubt. It’s best not to abuse that generosity. As I’ve already said, each novel is a collaboration between author and reader. If you’re not pulling your weight, your reader’s going to get sick of the partnership.

The world in Death, the Gardener sort of sometimes almost makes sense but also spends most of the novel in perpetual WTF does that mean?

Big Bad is evil for the sake of being evil. Little Bad is cruel just to be cruel. And that pretty much sums up all of the characters’ motivations. They are nice, forgiving, compassionate, bitter, cruel, etc. based on the role they play in the narrative and nothing else.

Many fairy tales and folk legends successfully lean on this sort of characterization, but it gives your characters about as much depth as a dried up mud puddle.

This skimming of the surface paired with being told every thought and feeling is a weird contrast that is both confusing and frustrating. As a reader, you’re being given a lot of information, but not the useful information you’d actually like to have.

Death’s world-building is much like its symbolism: All shapes and sizes and all over the map. It’s difficult to really examine this section closely without wandering into spoiler territory, but suffice it to say, I very much wanted to experience this world but only got to glimpse it from the outside.

This book has a lot of potential but it needs a good bit of tightening to stand up. Would I recommend it? Maybe to a tween audience, but then probably not.