The Golden Enclaves and Nona the Ninth
Nov. 3rd, 2022 10:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnSo I read The Golden Enclaves and Nona the Ninth in September and October, respectively, and I kept meaning to post how much I loved both of them and here we are in November, so... okay, I'm not going to make the long posts I was hoping to make about them, but at least I will post about them!
The Golden Enclaves I read in a couple of days after it came out (because I wanted to know whom I should nominate for Yuletide...). If you liked the other two Scholomance books you will probably like this one too! (And if you didn't, you... probably won't?) I absolutely adored it, I adore this whole series.
-okay I thought the whole El/Liesel and El/Liesel/Alfie thing was totally delicious
-I was totally bowled over by El killing the maw-mouths meaning she was destroying the enclaves, and partially that was because ALL THE CLUES WERE THERE IN PLAIN SIGHT and I just didn't see it coming at all, and also partially because El got it a page before I did, and I sat there and was like "...how does she know Dubai's going to be hit? What do you mean she's going to wait a half hour -- Oh. Oh. OH. OH CRAP."
-the thing I was probably most moved by was Deepthi, and how she had actually meant nothing but good for El this whole time but had had to throw her out anyway, and also how she sent her favorite grandson to his death -- which El actually wonders about in Graduate -- and how El's grandfather says he has to leave because this is too much, even if he doesn't actually, and how Deepthi says he would have jumped WITH EL and even that would have been better than the future she saw could have happened
-the characters I was most fascinated by were Olivia Rhys-Lake and Li Shanfeng, because they were the ones who did the horrible realpolitik calculations. They were the ones who, with their eyes wide open, did terrible, awful things -- for what they thought was the greater good. For what even might have been the greater good, sometimes? It gets glossed over a bit, but it's clearly a thing that El was able not to have to make hard unethical decisions because Ophelia and Shanfeng (and Deepthi!) did. Li Shanfeng is especially fascinating to me because he tried so hard to do the right thing, but sometimes all his choices were bad, and he owned that. I loved him in his brief scene and would have loved a ton more!
-having said all that, I do think the pacing was a bit off -- there was a lot of "where in the world is El Sandiego," so to speak, as they kept jet-setting everywhere, and we could have had a LOT more of Gwen, and poor Chloe just got... dropped entirely?? But Novik's writing is so compelling that I didn't really care in the moment while reading it (except about poor Chloe, where I kept expecting her being out of communication with everyone to be a plot point, but no, she just got forgotten).
Nona the Ninth I am very pleased to say that I obtained fromase in an airport a couple thousands of miles from where either of us lives, because we had ascertained that we were going to be at that same airport at approximately the same time and that we should say hi for about ten minutes before we both had to be elsewhere, and also that I should read Nona :) It was a quite nice ten minutes!
I loved Nona, both the book and especially the character. I also did not reread GtN or HtN before reading it, so I was extraordinarily confused throughout the entire book, to the extent that I completely misunderstood a lot of what was going on, including who Nona was, untilase set me straight. (Thank you! :D ) I loved the found-family/friend-groups, I loved
SPOILERS for Golden Enclaves in the comments! (None for Nona, yet.)
The Golden Enclaves I read in a couple of days after it came out (because I wanted to know whom I should nominate for Yuletide...). If you liked the other two Scholomance books you will probably like this one too! (And if you didn't, you... probably won't?) I absolutely adored it, I adore this whole series.
Spoilers!
-okay I thought the whole El/Liesel and El/Liesel/Alfie thing was totally delicious
-I was totally bowled over by El killing the maw-mouths meaning she was destroying the enclaves, and partially that was because ALL THE CLUES WERE THERE IN PLAIN SIGHT and I just didn't see it coming at all, and also partially because El got it a page before I did, and I sat there and was like "...how does she know Dubai's going to be hit? What do you mean she's going to wait a half hour -- Oh. Oh. OH. OH CRAP."
-the thing I was probably most moved by was Deepthi, and how she had actually meant nothing but good for El this whole time but had had to throw her out anyway, and also how she sent her favorite grandson to his death -- which El actually wonders about in Graduate -- and how El's grandfather says he has to leave because this is too much, even if he doesn't actually, and how Deepthi says he would have jumped WITH EL and even that would have been better than the future she saw could have happened
-the characters I was most fascinated by were Olivia Rhys-Lake and Li Shanfeng, because they were the ones who did the horrible realpolitik calculations. They were the ones who, with their eyes wide open, did terrible, awful things -- for what they thought was the greater good. For what even might have been the greater good, sometimes? It gets glossed over a bit, but it's clearly a thing that El was able not to have to make hard unethical decisions because Ophelia and Shanfeng (and Deepthi!) did. Li Shanfeng is especially fascinating to me because he tried so hard to do the right thing, but sometimes all his choices were bad, and he owned that. I loved him in his brief scene and would have loved a ton more!
-having said all that, I do think the pacing was a bit off -- there was a lot of "where in the world is El Sandiego," so to speak, as they kept jet-setting everywhere, and we could have had a LOT more of Gwen, and poor Chloe just got... dropped entirely?? But Novik's writing is so compelling that I didn't really care in the moment while reading it (except about poor Chloe, where I kept expecting her being out of communication with everyone to be a plot point, but no, she just got forgotten).
Nona the Ninth I am very pleased to say that I obtained from
ase in an airport a couple thousands of miles from where either of us lives, because we had ascertained that we were going to be at that same airport at approximately the same time and that we should say hi for about ten minutes before we both had to be elsewhere, and also that I should read Nona :) It was a quite nice ten minutes! I loved Nona, both the book and especially the character. I also did not reread GtN or HtN before reading it, so I was extraordinarily confused throughout the entire book, to the extent that I completely misunderstood a lot of what was going on, including who Nona was, until
ase set me straight. (Thank you! :D ) I loved the found-family/friend-groups, I loved spoilers for NtN
Cam and Pal (although I'm not sure what I think of Paul yet), I loved that John is so entirely terrible, and all the cow jokes were just wholly terrible and incredibly hilarious.SPOILERS for Golden Enclaves in the comments! (None for Nona, yet.)
no subject
Date: 2022-11-04 04:09 pm (UTC)I just wasn't yet up to re-reading Harrow again and hoped Nona would rekindle enthusiasm.
Ohhhhh, same. And it did! I now want to reread the whole series again before Alecto comes out (though I might skim a bunch). I hope it stays at four books, though...
(Not the same trajectory but I'm reminded of Londo's set of juxtapositions - Funny and light; then funny and dark; then dark and tragic; then tragic and light.)
Oh, interesting! I wouldn't have thought to compare the two, but I see what you mean. And as to their different trajectories, I think the difference that John doesn't ever seem like he would say I'm sorry to any of it, which is what sets Londo on his different path (and which I loved!)
no subject
Date: 2022-11-05 07:21 am (UTC)I feel like John canonically SAYS I'm sorry, and I see him as a character who occasionally makes steps towards deeply meaning it, but then anger and arrogance and all his protective mechanisms take over. Real sorry is too scary. Like death.
And I love him so much.
The biggest real twist for me in Golden Enclaves was
the whole deal with Orion...
I was ready for it to really be that El "saw" him and no one else did, but also very glad that there was more going on. And the more I've thought about it the more I like it. It is, uh, a great metaphor for abuse (as well as depiction of same) that Orion is the way he is because his mother put something specific in him that he could not control and is not at fault for - but he cannot escape it, either; it is part of who he is and it affects every aspect of his life going forward. The idea that he might not be able to resolve it. Wow.no subject
Date: 2022-11-05 06:33 pm (UTC)And I love him so much.
Yes! <3 (I think my feelings are less "love" than "deeply entranced by his awfulness," but... yes.)
And
OH YES ORION!
I was totally surprised and shocked by that as well, although my surprise at Orion was overshadowed by WOW OPHELIA YOU ARE SOMETHING ELSE.While Orion as a character was not my favorite, I agree that I found what he represented really quite fascinating. Before the reveal I wondered if he might be a metaphor for being on the spectrum; the way that his dad reacted to El really struck a chord with me. But then after the reveal:
that Orion is the way he is because his mother put something specific in him that he could not control and is not at fault for - but he cannot escape it, either; it is part of who he is and it affects every aspect of his life going forward. The idea that he might not be able to resolve it. Wow.
ahhhhhhh I hadn't specifically thought about it as an abuse metaphor before, but YES, this is amazing.