Translation State
May. 7th, 2024 10:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnIn the Imperial Radch universe, Enae's life gets upturned from sie's previous circumscribed existence as sie is given the task to track down someone who has been missing for a couple of hundred years; at the same time, Reet struggles with never fitting in, and Qven grows up in a milieu that is alien to a human POV.
So for some reason, the only part of this I knew before starting was a little bit of Enae's opening dilemma. It was a much more complex and fascinating book than my priors made it sound! Which I should expect from Leckie; I love about her work that it always has a whole lot of threads running through it.
It's the sort of book where there are so many things I could talk about, but it turns out that I really only want to talk about a couple of things enough to type it out:
a) I really really like alien books from the POV of the alien, which probably says something about me, but anyway, I really like the idea that things look very different from the alien's POV and that they might have very different motivations and imperatives than a human in many ways. (This is something I loved about the Ancillary books.) This book kind of did that superficially -- Qven's upbringing is certainly very, very different than a human's and I enjoyed reading that (unsurprisingly, I especially enjoyed reading Qven's viewpoints about human scripts) -- but as the book goes on, I feel like it becomes clear that e's upbringing is just flat abusive and there's just nothing good or acceptable about it, which makes it much less interesting to me.
b) There is one character in the book that was absolutely my favorite -- who does try to do the right thing to the extent they are capable of, for no other reason than that they feel it's the right thing, as they are likely to not have gotten any reward or happy ending from it. I am speaking, of course, of Teacher. Teacher tries their best to tell their charge what they need to know and not to lie, and even fights off-screen for their charges to have access to more information than the other Translators and clades are willing to provide. (Question: Teacher says that the only chance most injured Edges have is if an Adult notices and taking pity, and that's how they ended up with this "shit assignment" -- was Teacher the injured Edge, or was Teacher the Adult who noticed? Either way it's a fascinating story, but a different one. I think Teacher must have been the Adult who noticed, because they say earlier that they have had experience with "problem children." Though I suppose it's possible that their experience was with being a problem child?) When Qven needs someone who will tell e the truth... it's Teacher that e turns to. Teacher even fights with Translator Dlar about it. And then... who knows. Teacher is never mentioned again. I imagine that Teacher has managed to survive this far and will probably continue to survive, but it's probably not... great for their clade status, or whatever? I want Teacher fic now... first, I want Qven/Reet to acknowledge that Teacher did what they did at risk to themselves and that even though Qven rightfully wants to leave all that behind, e does owe a little to Teacher... and also I just want to know more about what happens to Teacher, both what their past was and what their future is!
I'm really glad this was Hugo homework, because like everything I've read by Leckie it was very worth reading. I still prefer Some Desperate Glory for the Hugo because it played to all my tropes, engaged even more with questions that really interest me, and blew my mind in ways that TS didn't, but TS would be a worthy Hugo winner, and I could totally see others preferring it to SDG.
So for some reason, the only part of this I knew before starting was a little bit of Enae's opening dilemma. It was a much more complex and fascinating book than my priors made it sound! Which I should expect from Leckie; I love about her work that it always has a whole lot of threads running through it.
It's the sort of book where there are so many things I could talk about, but it turns out that I really only want to talk about a couple of things enough to type it out:
a) I really really like alien books from the POV of the alien, which probably says something about me, but anyway, I really like the idea that things look very different from the alien's POV and that they might have very different motivations and imperatives than a human in many ways. (This is something I loved about the Ancillary books.) This book kind of did that superficially -- Qven's upbringing is certainly very, very different than a human's and I enjoyed reading that (unsurprisingly, I especially enjoyed reading Qven's viewpoints about human scripts) -- but as the book goes on, I feel like it becomes clear that e's upbringing is just flat abusive and there's just nothing good or acceptable about it, which makes it much less interesting to me.
b) There is one character in the book that was absolutely my favorite -- who does try to do the right thing to the extent they are capable of, for no other reason than that they feel it's the right thing, as they are likely to not have gotten any reward or happy ending from it. I am speaking, of course, of Teacher. Teacher tries their best to tell their charge what they need to know and not to lie, and even fights off-screen for their charges to have access to more information than the other Translators and clades are willing to provide. (Question: Teacher says that the only chance most injured Edges have is if an Adult notices and taking pity, and that's how they ended up with this "shit assignment" -- was Teacher the injured Edge, or was Teacher the Adult who noticed? Either way it's a fascinating story, but a different one. I think Teacher must have been the Adult who noticed, because they say earlier that they have had experience with "problem children." Though I suppose it's possible that their experience was with being a problem child?) When Qven needs someone who will tell e the truth... it's Teacher that e turns to. Teacher even fights with Translator Dlar about it. And then... who knows. Teacher is never mentioned again. I imagine that Teacher has managed to survive this far and will probably continue to survive, but it's probably not... great for their clade status, or whatever? I want Teacher fic now... first, I want Qven/Reet to acknowledge that Teacher did what they did at risk to themselves and that even though Qven rightfully wants to leave all that behind, e does owe a little to Teacher... and also I just want to know more about what happens to Teacher, both what their past was and what their future is!
I'm really glad this was Hugo homework, because like everything I've read by Leckie it was very worth reading. I still prefer Some Desperate Glory for the Hugo because it played to all my tropes, engaged even more with questions that really interest me, and blew my mind in ways that TS didn't, but TS would be a worthy Hugo winner, and I could totally see others preferring it to SDG.
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Date: 2024-05-08 06:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-05-08 04:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-05-08 07:01 am (UTC)Though she should probably be getting some kind of subliminal advertising payment from luxury tea and crockery companies.
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Date: 2024-05-08 04:04 pm (UTC)Hahahaha yeah, you have a point about the tea :D
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Date: 2024-05-10 04:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-05-12 02:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-05-10 09:59 pm (UTC)I guess I read the child abuse as primarily there for people who wanted a distanced way to think about that element in their own lives; it's something that a lot of Leckie fans (not me personally) seem to resonate with.
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Date: 2024-05-12 02:47 pm (UTC)...that is somehow weirdly hot at the same time...!
Ha, that's a great synopsis. Which also doesn't really resonate with me, though maybe it would with my sister... I feel like the thing with families is that (a) most families aren't 100% terrible even when they're abusive (*) (sorry, J. Michael Straczynski, I'm not talking about you, your family totally was 100% terrible) and also that (b) most kids have a deep craving for parental love. And maybe even (c), that with child abuse there's often some element of possibly faux-love that is in large part about control. With the Presger Translators, (b) doesn't seem to be a thing, as for (c), there's no love or faux-love but only control, and as for (a) we don't really see any way in which they're not 100% terrible (except for Teacher, who appears to be a complete anomaly), so it just, idk, doesn't work for me as a resonance. Maybe all I'm saying is that it's too distanced for me? so I guess I'm not its target audience? (Though I guess Teacher worked for me as a metaphor for "that adult who actually tried to be minimally decent"?)
I just want to read about aliens being alien and learning human scripts and stuff and having very different cultural expectations(*) hopefully it doesn't come across like this, but I'm not trying to be apologetic about abusive families or argue that it's "not that bad." It's more just that human beings tend not to be 100% one thing or another -- which, of course, makes it even harder to separate from abusive people.