(no subject)

I didn't feel like doing anything last week. So I read a lot.

-Privilege of the Sword (Kushner) - I wanted to like this book. Some bits I liked a great deal-- I did like Katherine (the main character). I thought it was a nice touch that she liked petticoats. I loved the soap-opera book/play, and loved all the scenes between Katherine and her teachers, especially the Master. And I did like Artemisia. And I was SO afraid that Katherine would turn out to be a Mary Sue Master Swordswoman, but Kushner sidestepped that trap neatly.

However... I thought the plot left a bit to be desired. I guess it's a bit my fault, as I've been rereading a lot of Brust and Bujold lately, and they are the masters of well-crafted, superbly-engineered plots that tidy up the loose ends and tie everything together in an elaborate and elegant bow. This was more... like a hairball. None of the subplots seemed to connect to anything, and the main plot seemed just kind of stupid. Perhaps it would help if I read the preceding books? (Which I tried to do, but my Annoying Library seems to have a mission statement never to have the first books of series.) I'd read a couple of short stories set in the same universe, so at least I was vaguely familiar with the names.

( The plot from my point of view (spoilers, though to my mind the plot was thin enough that there isn't really much to spoil): )

Also, this is a really dumb point, but all the characters kept saying, "Oh my god!" And every time they said it I would think, "Wait! What is the religion here? Lessee... looks like Dumas-era France what with the swords and all, so maybe some sort of degenerate Catholicsm? Or perhaps the lowercase indicates they're all Deists? I guess it can't be polytheism... hmm... So, like, how exactly does the economy of Riverside sustain itself, anyway?" See, when you hit a discordant note like that it just breaks the spell of suspension-of-disbelief. And it makes me sad, because Kushner writes too well to lose me due to a stupid detail like that.

-Josephine Tey, Brat Farrar and Daughter of Time. All mistful's fault. Why did I not know about her before now? Daughter of Time won my heart with its description of the bestsellers Grant has by his bed, as well as its characterization of Mary Queen of Scots as "silly." (Well, she was!) However, I do kinda wish I'd read it before reading the Weir. Because Grant would say, "Clearly x means Richard didn't kill the Princes," and I'd be all, "But what about Y?"

Brat Farrar had no such problems, and I adored it. Tey ... reminds me vaguely of Agatha Christie, in that it's very English and almost cuddly, only stronger and better. Like, I actually care about Tey's characters.

-The Eyre Affair (Fforde), which I've heard is good. I had a really difficult time getting into it, mostly because I feel like it's trying too hard to be witty and flippant and oh-time-travel-isn't-it-cute, and look-the-heroine-is-named-Thursday-Next-isn't-that-cute, and the literary references are often kind of clunky ("Look!! Jane Eyre doesn't marry Rochester in this universe!!") - I'm much more a fan of my literary references being tossed off effortlessly, like Sayers does. Make it look easy! Also, it interfered with my actually caring about the characters-- I was really kind of not very interested in the narrator's tribulations. On the other hand? The Richard-III-recast-as-Rocky-Horror ("When is the winter of our discontent?" "Now is the winter...") was just awesome and made up for a lot.