Passage (Bujold)

[cahn]

Ok, here's hoping the hands stay stable! Anyway.

Now that Dag and Fawn are thoroughly married, I don't find them nearly so irritating, basically because I am far more sympathetic to the "We're doing things together as partners" concept than the "We're doing this for looooove!" one. However, I still think he was completely running away from his responsibilities, as evidenced by the part where he wanders around not knowing what to do. Usually, people figure that out first and then start doing it. I'm just sayin'.

This is also to say that I am now clearly seeing that this was all intended as one book - and - I know LMB has said this from the beginning, but it's a little different when you're reading it piecemeal. I really, really wish it had been one book; I would unsay a lot of the mean things I said about the first couple of books. I'm also now, for the first time, planning on buying this sequence, but NOT until it's all released as a single volume. (Hear that, publishers? You could have gotten my money up front, but noooo, you had to try to be all clever!)

Because now I see what LMB is trying to do - she's trying to trace a romance, not just through the easy infatuation stages, but also through the much more difficult stages of trying to do something with all that energy. I don't always buy it, but I can get behind it the way I couldn't get behind the love story of book 1.

This book also plays to LMB's strengths more - a strong diverse cast of characters, the unintentional humor of life, romance in the background and not at the forefront (Whit is really cute!), partnership, a plot twist (the outcome of Berry's quest) I was certainly not really expecting. So, yeah. I liked it. A lot.

Other random thoughts:

-Speaking of hating the publishers, I really kind of hate and despise the cover. Aw, plucky Fawn, protected by her brave tall (old!) man. To be fair, I would have hated it pretty equally as much if he were leaning on her, so I think I might just be grumpy. (But! I'd just like to point out that Aral and Cordelia wouldn't be caught dead either way. They'd be both standing tall. Actually, Cordelia would probably be in the middle of taming lions or rescuing hostages while Aral was coordinating military campaigns.)

-Boy, Dag and Fawn sure do agree on everything pretty quick. I mean, it's not like I fight with my husband all the time either, but we come from basically the same sort of cultural background. And we do occasionally get snippy, with less provocation than Dag and Fawn sometimes have.

-The Dag-Fawn age thing still squicks me out. Usually I can ignore it, but when he says "Behave, child," as, basically, part of foreplay, it completely overwhelms my squick-sense.

-Fawn is growing on me (the sheep-rescuing thing was excellent), and her spunkiness is being turned to good use instead of stupid use (e.g., watching the knife ceremony). Although I love Dag's POV, I'm worried Dag is turning into a Gary Stu. I mean, patrol leader, okay, makes sense. Medicine man too? Er. And a knife-maker? Kind of skeptical.

-Major, major points for Fawn and Dag admitting their trek might be a stupid one. I'm sure it won't be, but major points for their being okay with that.

-Now that I'm done... I really enjoyed reading it... but... did anything actually happen in this book? Is this going to be a Cherryh-style sequence? Nothing wrong with that, I'd just like to know.

Comments

[ase.livejournal.com]

This is also to say that I am now clearly seeing that this was all intended as one book - and - I know LMB has said this from the beginning, but it's a little different when you're reading it piecemeal.

Compare to Dickens; I suspect his novels would be more fun one chapter a week than all at once. (I've only finished A Tale of Two Cities, unfortunately, so I don't have any data for this hypothesis.)

Now that I'm done... I really enjoyed reading it... but... did anything actually happen in this book?

Character development? Middle-book syndrome? More happened than in Beguilement, I think; or the type of "slice of life" was more interesting to me.

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

Compare to Dickens; I suspect his novels would be more fun one chapter a week than all at once. (I've only finished A Tale of Two Cities, unfortunately, so I don't have any data for this hypothesis.)

...yeah, probably. I think the way she writes, she really needs to be read all in one gulp. Did you like Cities? I have never been able to get even halfway through it, but if you liked it I shall persevere. Great Expectations, on the other hand, I quite liked.

Character development? Middle-book syndrome? More happened than in Beguilement, I think; or the type of "slice of life" was more interesting to me.

Certainly I found Passage more interesting, even if more happened in Beguilement. But think of how much happened in the middle third of Chalion! I am not trying to underestimate her powers of pulling it all together so that I'll be all "...oh!" - but it hasn't happened yet.

[ase.livejournal.com]

I liked parts of Cities. I liked the flawed characters - Syndey Carton and Madame de Farge - but found some of the other characters hopelessly noble. I would never have picked it up, or finished it, if it hadn't been assigned reading. What did you like about Great Expectations?

I am not trying to underestimate her powers of pulling it all together so that I'll be all "...oh!" - but it hasn't happened yet.

I suspect the last book will pull things together somewhat, but not in the ways I am expecting - a long-term strategy for malice containment/eradication, Farmer/Lakewalker education, Dag and Fawn in a healthy established community.

I enjoyed Passage more than the previous two books - okay, Beguilement and Legacy are pretty much my least favorite Bujold novels - but I'd have to reread it at this point to come up with any deep thoughts.

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

Great Expectations has a main character who is, as a boy and adolescent, basically hopelessly confused by life and other people, and generally knows it. Since this was a major component of the way I felt as a kid/adolescent, I rather identified with it.

Wait, you don't think we'll get those things, or that we will? Seems like we will to me... although Dag's method of "let's tell Farmers about our rituals in the hope it won't get completely garbled," while appealing to my open-source "information wants to be free!" tendencies, also seems somewhat... idealistic.

[ase.livejournal.com]

...basically hopelessly confused by life and other people, and generally knows it. Since this was a major component of the way I felt as a kid/adolescent...

You mean there comes a time when people aren't hopelessly confusing? ;-)

Wait, you don't think we'll get those things, or that we will?

I don't think we'll get them. Or we'll get some, but not all. I want the SK universe to be about the way social systems are imperfect, especially when they divide people into binary groups (Farmers/Lakewalkers, adult/child, single/married, childless/parent), but I don't think that's quite what LMB's doing. Does that make any sense? I want Dag and Fawn to come out of the series better people for their experiences. I think that will happen somewhat, but not in the directions that would make me really happy.

...while appealing to my open-source "information wants to be free!"

Information doesn't want to be free; information wants to be pirated achieve the lowest available energy state. [/cynic] People want information to be free, but there's a time and effort investment in creating usable information, so it's only ever going to get very cheap. The time cost of a pop-up ad, say. Sorry, rant mode on there; it's been middling-tough day ruined by summer temps and virtue vs pizza. (Virtue won. Talk about your Pyrrhic victories.)

Dag gets points for trying, but his pioneering spirit is likely to be sorely tried by not one, but two societies set against his message. Dag the reformer and expat is in for a really rough time.

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

You mean there comes a time when people aren't hopelessly confusing? ;-)

Hee! Well... I'm definitely more clueful now than I was as an adolescent, so less likely to wander about in a miserable haze of not understanding anything. Now, this developed theoretical knowledge, alas, is not always useful in practical situations...

I want the SK universe to be about the way social systems are imperfect, especially when they divide people into binary groups

Ah, ok. I think I see, and I agree this is unlikely to develop to the extent you want.

Information doesn't want to be free;

Okay, this sentence made me laugh out loud.

My real problem with Dag is not his reformer tendencies, because reformers in the right place at the right time really can change the world sometimes (though, I admit, rarely). My problem is that in my experience doing world-changing stuff without thinking it through beforehand and really figuring out the consequences (which Dag demonstrably doesn't do; I forget where but somewhere in Passage someone calls him on some half-baked idea) is liable to get you a whole lot of usually negative consequences you didn't plan for.

[ase.livejournal.com]

Okay, this sentence made me laugh out loud.

Oh, good. :-)

My problem is that in my experience doing world-changing stuff without thinking it through beforehand and really figuring out the consequences . . . is liable to get you a whole lot of usually negative consequences you didn't plan for.

Yes! Yes, yes, yes. Sometimes you get good unintended consequences, but much more often it's bad consequences that you see.