Nothing sort-of-on-racefail
May. 27th, 2009 10:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnOkay, I may actually post a couple of times, for a change!
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julianyap told me to read Octavian Nothing (Anderson), without telling me anything about it. (It is a YA book, though it's one of those YA books that is perhaps better read after one is a YA.) And he was right, both to tell me to read it and to tell me nothing about it. Because if you know something about it before reading, it does take something out of the lovely first section of the first book (it is a two-book series), which starts out, you think, as one thing, and gradually one finds out one is in another world entirely.
This is an astonishing pair of books which tackles some pretty explosive issues (mostly with great finesse, showing and not telling, although Octavian does have a couple of annoyingly anvilicious whines in the first book); I was blown away by it; and I think everyone should read it. I do not love it desperately (it's pretty grim, and I have a hard time loving grim books, which is not really the author's fault), and I do not own it.
On racefail: I have been making no secret of the fact that as far as I can tell, racefail is at least 99.9% a complete and utter waste of time. On both sides. But then... there is always that 0.1% (and I'm glad for the people who wade through the crap to bring me the 0.1%, even as I marvel at the black hole of what must be gobs of their free time) that makes me, at least, think about things a little more. It was in the context of racefail raging in the background that I read these books, and it made me think about how I responded to the first and second volumes, and what that means about me as a reader, and I came to some less-than-comfortable conclusions.
The first volume starts out in a mannered eighteenth-century prose that reminds me a little of, say, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell in its mannerisms -- that is to say, it could be our world or it could be a fantasy world (and the dice are loaded to make you think the latter) -- but in either case, a very, very, culturally white milieu. Octavian, the narrator, further encourages this mindset on the part of the reader by being very Western-culturally-trained (e.g., he knows Latin and Greek).
This has two effects. First, when you find out Octavian and his mother are, in fact, black, it is a shattering surprise (for Octavian as well). Second -- and this is what racefail made me realize -- I think I was captivated by the book because of Octavian's educated white voice. Had the book been instead a straightforward tale of how blacks fared in the Revolutionary War (and indeed the second volume is much more in that vein, complete with African stories that Octavian sometimes transcribes), I would have been less interested in starting the book. And Anderson knew that. I dont think it's at all a mistake that he (she?) structures the books the way he does. But I think it does say something about me that Anderson had to do that to get me to read the book.
Also, I love Dr. Trefusis. Asjulianyap remarked, the scene where he tells Octavian why he saved him -- that it was all selfishness, in a way that in fact transcends selfishness (and race, for that matter!) -- is the most moving and lovely scene in the entire sequence.
(edited to fix annoying typo)
julianyap told me to read Octavian Nothing (Anderson), without telling me anything about it. (It is a YA book, though it's one of those YA books that is perhaps better read after one is a YA.) And he was right, both to tell me to read it and to tell me nothing about it. Because if you know something about it before reading, it does take something out of the lovely first section of the first book (it is a two-book series), which starts out, you think, as one thing, and gradually one finds out one is in another world entirely.This is an astonishing pair of books which tackles some pretty explosive issues (mostly with great finesse, showing and not telling, although Octavian does have a couple of annoyingly anvilicious whines in the first book); I was blown away by it; and I think everyone should read it. I do not love it desperately (it's pretty grim, and I have a hard time loving grim books, which is not really the author's fault), and I do not own it.
On racefail: I have been making no secret of the fact that as far as I can tell, racefail is at least 99.9% a complete and utter waste of time. On both sides. But then... there is always that 0.1% (and I'm glad for the people who wade through the crap to bring me the 0.1%, even as I marvel at the black hole of what must be gobs of their free time) that makes me, at least, think about things a little more. It was in the context of racefail raging in the background that I read these books, and it made me think about how I responded to the first and second volumes, and what that means about me as a reader, and I came to some less-than-comfortable conclusions.
The first volume starts out in a mannered eighteenth-century prose that reminds me a little of, say, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell in its mannerisms -- that is to say, it could be our world or it could be a fantasy world (and the dice are loaded to make you think the latter) -- but in either case, a very, very, culturally white milieu. Octavian, the narrator, further encourages this mindset on the part of the reader by being very Western-culturally-trained (e.g., he knows Latin and Greek).
This has two effects. First, when you find out Octavian and his mother are, in fact, black, it is a shattering surprise (for Octavian as well). Second -- and this is what racefail made me realize -- I think I was captivated by the book because of Octavian's educated white voice. Had the book been instead a straightforward tale of how blacks fared in the Revolutionary War (and indeed the second volume is much more in that vein, complete with African stories that Octavian sometimes transcribes), I would have been less interested in starting the book. And Anderson knew that. I dont think it's at all a mistake that he (she?) structures the books the way he does. But I think it does say something about me that Anderson had to do that to get me to read the book.
Also, I love Dr. Trefusis. As
julianyap remarked, the scene where he tells Octavian why he saved him -- that it was all selfishness, in a way that in fact transcends selfishness (and race, for that matter!) -- is the most moving and lovely scene in the entire sequence.(edited to fix annoying typo)
