The Language of Limbs
by Dylin Hardcastle
ISBN 9781761269875
Reviewed by AZ COSGROVE
The main thing you need to know about Dylin Hardcastle’s Language of Limbs (2024) is that it’s bloody beautiful. I’m not the first to say that it will be a classic in queer literature, and I won’t be the last. Hardcastle’s prose is breathtaking: lyrical and edgy. And it is language that holds up to very heavy subject matter — which is unavoidable in a book, set during the AIDs crisis in the historically volatile 1970s and 80s. I should probably warn you that reading this book will hurt, especially if you happen to identify as queer or love someone who does. It deals with extreme queer phobia, the violent lineage of Mardis Gras—historical wounds that have barely healed. You’ll probably cry. My advice: allow for tea breaks and, if you can, have a dog ready to pat.
Language of Limbs begins in Newcastle, where we meet two mirrored characters referred to as Limb One and Limb Two. On the same night, these characters both come face to face with their same-sex attraction to their best friends —but while Limb One refuses to continue to lead a life hostile to this facet of their identity, Limb Two chooses to suppress this part of themself and to live out the comparatively charmed heteronormative narrative available to them. The rest of the novel continues with this couplet structure, with alternating ‘Limb One’ or ‘Limb Two’ chapters written from the perspective of the eponymous character.
As they grow from teenagers to young adults, Limb One is immersed in the queer culture from which Limb Two repeatedly turns away. They endure the unimaginable losses of the AIDS crisis while for Limb Two this remains peripheral, a narrowly dodged bullet.
This structure is unconventional, and it takes us a moment to get used to before it starts to work—but when it does, it is incredibly effective. The structure allows complex issues—like internalised queer phobia, the lack of intersectionality in the queer community, and the nuanced relationship between trauma and art—to be explored from multiple angles, giving the book a unique dimensionality. Hardcastle has said that the idea for the narrative structure came from a conversation with a friend about “how almost kissing is sometimes hotter than actually kissing,” which led them to wonder: “what would it look like to have two lives just almost kissing?” (1). The structure functions to constantly remind us to connect the individual lives we are reading about to something larger: the metaphorical “body” which is the only context within which “limbs” make sense. However, many have noted that the narrative complexity could perhaps be off-putting to some readers.
I found that while it started and ended strongly, the narrative sagged somewhat in the middle. This corresponds exactly with the mysterious and compelling slippage between the two storylines. At the beginning of the novel, it’s unclear as to whether Limb One and Two are different people or alternative, ‘sliding door’ versions of the same, , and this ambiguity hooks the reader. The chilling internal dialogue ‘I think I might die here’ (3, 10) appears in both stories, and details like apricot chicken (15, 19), and the copy of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando in the school library (19, 23) pop up in both stories and take on a ghostly resonance. Such repetitions largely vanish in the middle of the book, when the lives of the characters diverge so significantly that any connection between them feels tenuous at best. There is a resurgence of these shared experiences at the end of the book, but by this point the narratives of the two limbs are so distinct that the device feels almost perfunctory. But whilst I think the structure might have been better sustained, this is a small criticism.
Some have also observed that the Limb One chapters were more engaging to read, but as a criticism it doesn’t hold much weight, because the difference between these characters is exactly the point. Limb One has their coffee ‘strong, black no sugar’(53) and this is consistent with their personification as direct and unapologetic, while Limb Two is more careful, tentative. They study hard, get a scholarship and a boyfriend, and even in electric moments of collective action, instinctively recoil (66) when Limb One dives into the fray. On the sentence level, imagery of being ‘turned inside out’ recurs again and again in the Limb One chapters (3, 74, 137), Limb Two balks at this state of absolute vulnerability, instead choosing to remain, to extrapolate on the image, with skin facing outwards. ‘It’s easier this way,’ (13) they tell us. These characters come to represent two sides of the same conceptual coin, subtly different, in a way similar to how fresh blood differs from a day-old bruise, or the way that falling asleep is different to being knocked out.
Further, I think it could be argued that the Limb Two storyline represents a more nuanced perspective that is arguably more applicable today, when hatred has become more insidious, harder to define—when often it exists in glinting eyes, in sharp toothed smiles and sodden, dripping silences. The philosopher Slavoj Žižek distinguishes this quieter form of violence as “subjective” rather than “objective” (2). In Language of Limbs, Limb Two manages to escape the explicit, physical acts of violence—spilled blood, broken bones—that plague Limb One’s story, but is never able to escape what she has chosen to suppress:
‘I nod. Swallow and feel the memory pushed back under. Sunk down. As her face resettles on the ocean floor of my body, I feel the strangle of disgust loosen.’
(195)
The list of other things I loved about this book is long, too long to fully recount here, but I will expand briefly on a few. I loved the unapologetically Australian tone—in the opening chapters, we encounter suburban backyard barbecues (15), Arnott’s family biscuits (22), flowering gumtrees (10), and high school hookups in the back of a Ford Falcon (29). I also loved the poignant and nuanced of different relationships to art: while Limb One develops a career of art making, Limb Two finds their strength in ‘picking at and teasing apart sentences, extrapolating, like a miner sieving earth for gold’ (97) and becomes an editor, highlighting the interesting relationship between artistic practice and the internal. I also loved the unrelentingly visceral imagery used throughout the book—quotes like ‘I feel as if my lungs are on fire, like I might, in a moment, smell the reek of my muscle burning’ (74) create a consistently “embodied” reading experience that nicely complements the broader conceptual framework.
I began this review by telling you that Language of Limbs is beautiful—and it really is. The prose that Hardcastle uses is simply extraordinary. It is writing that’s simultaneously rich with metaphors but also tastefully restrained. While the imagery is dense with the figurative, it never feels flowery or confusing. Take this quote, describing the sudden influx of the AIDs crisis into ‘Uranian House’, the queer haven where Limb One lives:
‘Uranian House opens its door and those who are drowning wash in, drenched and shaken. We give them towels and chicken soup and wait, anxiously, for the blue to fade from their flesh.’
(92)
However, while I loved this lyrical, poetic writing, this prose style coupled with the heavy themes can become a bit hard to get through. See my aforementioned tips re: tea and dogs.
But that’s about it for my “cons” list. Safe to say, I liked this book. Language of Limbs is blisteringly intelligent, lyrical, and masterful in its execution.
Or, as I keep telling people in my real life: Really bloody good.
Cited
1. DYLIN HARDCASTLE: Gay Liberation Is Indebted To Blak Trans Women on Podcast: It’s A Lot with Abbie Chatfield •Sea. 7 Ep. 6
2. Violence: Six Sideways Reflections, New York: Picador, 2008