In which Dag finds out that those cool mathematical objects he came up with are called "matrices"

[cahn]

Finally got around to Horizon (Bujold). Well, I liked it fine. It definitely reminded me of Cherryh a bit (though markedly less grim): the big bad was not defeated, or even understood, but a minor (well, relatively) part of the big bad is defeated, with the idea that it may now be easier to defeat the big bad entirely; and a culture is not changed upside down, but nudged, little by little, into a better shape.

Have I mentioned lately how much I hate Bujold's publishers for splitting the book up and making me think I disliked it much more than I actually do? So I was rather annoyed at the last book when Dag turned out to be a total Gary Sue Expert In Everything. Well, okay, in this book it turns out that yeah, Dag is smart, but not actually so smart that he happened to stumble on something, all by himself without help, that people who, y'know, spent their lives studying didn't know about-- as happens in real life to smart people as well (as you may know, the title of this post refers to one of my favorite physics stories, Heisenberg's experience with Max Born when Heisenberg came up with a cool new way to talk about the mathematics of quantum mechanics). I have to say I laughed out loud when Arkady was all, "uh, yeah, of course I know about that stuff, and why do you do it so badly?"

The training of Dag, in general, was a lot of fun. Points for mentioning ectopic pregnancies, which I was relieved to see did not actually appear in the rest of the book, because, ick. I liked Arkady very much, and was very pleased at his arc. (Though was it just me, or was Dag just plain rude to him after Arkady basically lays his whole life on the line for Dag and all Dag can say is, "You'd better follow my rules"? How about, you know, "Thanks"?) Remo and Barr were fun to watch as well. Fawn's adventure at the end did give me chills, like it was supposed to (eek!), and Dag's confrontation after that was really rather immensely satisfying, even though it probably makes me a bad person to say that I found it so.

I did have one huge problem with the ending specifically. It seems like the whole book was bringing up these Cultural Issues (the status, or lack thereof, of half-breed children, the problem of Lakewalkers curing farmers and the riots when they can't) and then... poof... the epilogue happened and the problems all sort of magically disappeared. Apparently no one gives any of the half-breeds a second glance anymore, and Dag magically became a healer who has pretty much no problem with people wanting him to perform miracles he can't perform. Oh, there are some explanations given, and I suppose it is believable that living in a society where they are friends and neighbors, they aer able to coexist peacefully and in a friendly way (which, as well, is how Card's Worthing Saga glosses over the same issue)... but I still wonder, a bit, if it isn't glossing, and if Nattie-Mari will have problems, one day, when a boy wants to court her and his parents say he mustn't or they'll disown him, or if some crazy farmers from another town come and lynch Dag because he has gone over his maximum for dirty ground so he can't cure their daughter but it sure looks like he is malingering to them.

I also am still sort of worried about how idyllic Dag and Fawn's relationship is. I mean, I know, it's a romance, but... D and I have been married for three years now, and I feel our romance is pretty idyllic, and we've never had a knock-down drag-out fight (of the sort I have with people in my family every couple of years or so), but... you know... we have issues, occasionally. Very small ones, so far, but there are certainly days when life has gone badly for one of us and we are lashing out at the world, and the other one gets caught in the edges (never taking the brunt of it so far, which is good), with some disgruntlement ensuing. Dag and Fawn seem to understand each other perfectly always, which strikes me as a little... unlikely, given their extremely different backgrounds and extreme lack of common features (yes, I know some mixed-race/culture marriages that have done quite well-- I don't count my marriage as this kind of mixed-race/culture, though it certainly could count as one, because though we are of different races we are really from the same American-middle-class schema-- but only because they share some sort of major culture, like a fairly strong religion, or at least the experience of being from an immigrant culture). It's a far cry from the lifebonds I used to make fun of all the time, but it still seems to promote a slightly perniciously perfectionist view of marriage. (Compare Sayers' Busman's Honeymoon, where they did have to work out some things, though they also never really got into a fight.) But, you know, I'll let it slide, as it's a romance. (If it weren't a LMB book-- I really do expect her to be perfect-- I wouldn't even be bringing it up for a romance book.)

Comments

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

Great review. Hadn't heard the Heisenberg story. Good analogy. :-)

Fawn seems pretty committed to trying to make things work - and I think that is reasonable - but I'd expect Dag to have more problems. Maybe successfully being on patrol all those years is good practice for a marriage?

[jekni.livejournal.com]

Plus the fact that he's been married before, so he at least is aware of the pitfalls and has some ideas on how to structure a relationship.

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

Yes, although on the other hand it would be very easy to imagine, every once in a while, Dag thinking, "Wow, my first wife was never weird like that..." Also, it is amazing to me that Fawn is almost never jealous of the first wife (I think this may have showed up in an earlier book, but certainly not in this one); if it were me I would be madly jealous, at least until I had the kid (at which point I would totally feel all superior).

Then again, Fawn is almost certainly a better person than I am :) Also, I really have no idea what goes through the minds of widowers marrying again. My husband's aunt married a widower (her first marriage) and they seem to be really, really happy, so your point is probably more valid than mine.

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

Thanks! :)

I'm not really questioning either of their dedication/commitment so much as I question that they necessarily are always able to make it work without at least small misunderstandings or emotions getting in the way... But you make a very good point; I could see how keeping your temper with a bunch of unruly patrollers is good practice for keeping it with a spouse.

[amazon-42.livejournal.com]

Good god, I wish this series were over. I did NOT sign up to be a rabid LMB fan to read Fuck Books.

[barbara-the-w.livejournal.com]

*blink blink blink*

Fuck books?

Except for the one (stunningly mild) sex scene in each book... and mentions of sex in the other books, she hardly touches on the sex at all.... I'm really croggled by the animosity I hear in this. It seems far in excess of what the actual text could deserve.

[amazon-42.livejournal.com]

I read the first book, and the first fifty pages of book two.

I wasn't nauseated by the sex, per se. I was nauseated by the fact that Fawn felt like fooling around so soon after a miscarriage.

Apparently, Lois has never had one. I have.

I was nauseated by the fact that the whole book seemed to be written by Mercedes Lackey. All it needed was those stupid sentient horses. We HAVE a one of those (a Mercedes Lackey, that is), and I've been hoping she'd give up writing for quite a long time now and take up pottery or weaving. She gets on my nerves. Her characters twitter and flutter and flap and use the same plot devices over and over and over.

And the fact that Mr.Hero had a Great Big Piking Dick that Needs lube...is just not neccesary.

And in the parts of the series I read...there was NOT ONE Cordelia. Not a Droushnakovi, nor a Bel Thorne. Not one Cazaril. Not even an Ijada. Certainly not a Mad Ista or a Miles.

Instead there were cardboard cutouts and "insert woman x here"

I'm sorry, but I hold Lois to a higher standard than people who write vampire fiction. She has as many Hugos as HIENLIEN, and THAT is the standard I hold her to. I hold her with Clive Barker and Niel Gaiman....not writers of "Chick Lit".

I've decided that this mess is like the spells Tori Amos goes through. Three brilliant albums, and then she has to go batshit nuts write a disaster like "The Beekeeper" where she sings about her underwear and issues a 56 page booklet to explain the album and it still makes no sense.

So, I'm anxiously awaiting, so to speak, Lois' "American Doll Posse", where I can find once again a world previously unknown and chracters no one's seen before and so real that they breathe in my dreams.

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Thanks for coming back and clarifying, because I didn't know how to respond to your first post.

I agree completely with you that the whole Sharing Knife saga has not really been up to what I think she is capable of (and has done in the Vor and Chalion books). I think there is a reason for that: she is the kind of author who is always trying to do something new and interesting. In Chalion, for example (particularly Curse of Chalion), she explored writing theology, in the context of fantasy. I think she did a very good job and that it was a successful experiment. Here, she experimented with writing a romance novel in the context of fantasy. I do not think Bujold has EVER written romance well (I love Civil Campaign to bits, but let's face it, not for the romance), so as far as I am concerned it was a colossal failure as an experiment. Still, I respect her for trying, with the caveat that I really, really hope the experiment is now OVER.

Also, I will say that I too had some violently negative reactions to the first () and second (http://charlie-ego.livejournal.com/13389.html) books (http://charlie-ego.livejournal.com/13717.html), that I think jibe well with your above points. The third and fourth books, I thought, were much better in comparison, if only because they mute those issues a bit, and also because the first two books suffer a LOT from half-book syndrome. Now, don't get me wrong, the Sharing Knife books will never stand out in my mind as Great Books at all (the way that Memory or Curse of Chalion do), but boy howdy are they better than Mercedes Lackey, if only in general writing style/humor/worldbuilding. (And way better than some of Heinlein's later stuff, for that matter. Talk about ow!)

So I still wouldn't recommend that you read the third and fourth books, unless you're totally bored, but I will say that in my opinion they are decent books by non-Bujold standards. Arkady, who shows up only in the fourth book, is my favorite character of the series.

I've never (thankfully! cross fingers!) had a miscarriage, so that particular thing didn't really occur to me. Though I have a very dim grasp on time in books in general (on a fairly regular basis, huge spans of time go by in books and I fail to notice completely). I am very sorry that you have experience with that.

[amazon-42.livejournal.com]

Huh. Personally, I LOVED "A Civil Camaign" as a romance book because it....wasn't. It was so much like the romances that actually happen, complete with a custody squabble, and a wedding to plan with a vengeance...(Gods save me from ever doing THAT again!)

But as a stand alone book...oh heck no. It's a giant in-joke for the longtime Vorkosigan universe crowd.

As for the miscarriage...it may sound odd, but I was lucky in my misfortunes, as far as that was concerned. It was believed I would never GET pregnent, for one, so my doctor was actually thrilled and declared me cured of my long infertility and called the miscarriage a fluke. My partner was (and is) as loving as can be (so we grieved together), and old friends were VERY kind. One even knitted me a uterus out of yarn I'd spun so the next time would be successful...and it was. Our son Nicholas will be two in a few weeks. But it did take almost two months to recover, and I spent a good three weeks in bed.

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

Ah, I'm glad your troubles ended happily.

Oh, I agree that Ekaterin is a lovely character, and I love her relationships with Nikki, Tien, her family, Kareen, etc. The Miles/Ekaterin romance... not so much. In my experience, the issue of "My boyfriend [leaving aside the added issue of whether Miles is her boyfriend; she'd be within her rights to call him a stalker instead] can be kind of obnoxiously aggressively manipulative, and I just got out of a ten-year marriage nightmare where subconscious manipulation, and my buckling down under same, was The Major Problem" does not go away with a) an apology, which is certainly nice, but bolstered only by b) two (count 'em!) sexual-tension-filled private conversations, much of which are focused on problems external to the relationship, and c) a proposal. Now, by the end of ACC, Ekaterin seems to be demonstrating that she has fixed this problem and so she can soak Miles' head in water when necessary, which is great, but I am not quite sure how that suddenly happened. A year later, after she's gone to school, developed her own life, gotten back some self-confidence (which, by the way, Miles inadvertently pretty much flattened back down again), grown into herself-- yeah, no problem, go for it! At that point in her life, I'm not really convinced. (And notice how in Winterfair Gifts, all her friends seem to be a subset of Miles'? Ick.)

I was, however, too harsh in saying Bujold can't write romance. Mark/Kareen, for example, is lovely. That's an example of a relationship where there are clearly Problems, but Mark and Kareen are both good personality fits for dealing with the problems, and they have clearly done a lot of communication about Their Issues. Gregor and Laisa (and their wedding) are also quite cute, I agree.

[barbara-the-w.livejournal.com]

Now, that's interesting. After my pregnancy ended, I was very eager and happy to move on to my life.

Perhaps it was because I, like Fawn, was a farmgirl. And perhaps it was because my pregnancy, like Fawn's, was not a wanted pregnancy.

Did it hurt? Yeah.
Was I grateful afterward? Hell, yeah.

I found Fawn a particularly resonant character. But then, I was a lot like her. Never really was a city girl....

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

Hey, that's really interesting! I didn't find Fawn a particularly resonant character, but then, I am fairly definitely a city girl.

So... my curiosity is piqued. One of my problems with Fawn in the first book (which isn't nearly so bad in the later books) was that I thought she was rather... immature, for several reasons, really, but first of all -- not for getting herself unintentionally pregnant really, but more for having sex for what seems like a really stupid reason (IIRC she felt like her family didn't appreciate her, or something like that), while presumably knowing, being a farm girl, about the possible effects of sex. I mean, if it had been a passionate losing-her-head thing I would've understood it a bit better, or if she'd been a city girl who was honestly a little confused about the sex/pregnancy link. Was Fawn's situation analogous at all to yours? (Obviously you don't need to answer if you'd rather not; I ask only because it would help me understand the book better, I think. And I apologize in advance if this sounds offensive to you at all, which I REALLY am not intending to be -- but as someone whose conception of farm life is basically drawn from books, I have this idea, which might be completely wrong, that people who grow up on farms have a pretty good understanding of these things, and are by and large more mature than we city folk.)

[barbara-the-w.livejournal.com]

I don't usually check this account, so sorry for the tardiness of my reply.

The reasons for Fawn's... I think "wanting" was how she termed it, which many seem to find unnatural and inorganic to her character are really bang-on-the-mark.

There's a peculiar claustrophobia that happens in small towns (like Fawn's villiage of West Blue): You are what you have always been. Small towns do not allow for individual growth or change -- especially outside of the cultural expectation. (And Fawn is definitely outside her cultural expectations.) They are stifling places, where the continuity of the whole is built on the suppressing of the individual.

In West Blue, Fawn will always be at the bottom of the social totem pole. Always. She's the youngest (viewed as lesser); she's the girl (viewed as lesser); she's the smallest (viewed as lesser). All she has is her wits -- and her culture doesn't value her type of wits. Continuity, persistance, following the day-after-day of the same duties...

Fawn's mind rebels at the things her culture values, so she reaches for the things she can to change herself into an acceptable form (for both her culture and herself): Becoming Adult. She sees that there isn't a difference between herself and her brothers -- yet, they get more respect than she does. So the secret must/i> be sex! It's the only thing left! The only boundary that she can change... maybe that will be the magic that changes her into a Respected Adult.

One of the things I like about Cordelia's exposure to Barrayar is her discussion of the Cultural Rules, especially who is allowed to Know What, and how that process works. This is connected to how the differences between humans and animals are quite noticeable (rather more when you work with them daily). The sexual differences between humans and animals stand out more: most farm animals go into heat (estrous) for breeding purposes; humans do not. And if no one will explain that humans don't go into estrous, how are you to know that you never will? (As opposed to "haven't yet")....


And you asked a personal question: Was Fawn's situation analogous at all to yours? (Obviously you don't need to answer if you'd rather not; I ask only because it would help me understand the book better, I think.

There were similarities and differences, both.
Unlike Fawn, I was in my late 20s at the time.
But what makes my situation more like Fawn's and less like amazon42's is that *I* didn't want to have a child then. I was not striving to have children, I wasn't in a relationship where children were sought or desired. Like Fawn, I got ambushed by my own fertility. So, like Fawn, I was a little sad... yet, mostly relieved by the pregnancy ending. It did not devastate me -- I felt like a prisoner who, because someone drew the guards off to the opposite direction and got shot, had the opportunity to escape. I felt bad about the other prisoner... but I was free. And moving on to do the things I wanted to do, see the places I wanted to see, create the things I wanted to create... I couldn't do it fast enough.


...as someone whose conception of farm life is basically drawn from books...)

*laughs uproariously*
Oh, we country folks talk a good game, but we're just as messed up as the rest of the humans.
I knew that Tab A went into Slot B by age 6, yes.
Does that mean I didn't crave acceptance by my culture?
Does that mean I knew and understood sexual behaviour in humans?
Does that mean I didn't get ambushed by my hormones and my brain structure?
Oh, my, no.

Recently, I unearthed my journal from when I was 15 years old. Everything then was a crisis of infinite proportions that No One Else Understands, No One Cares About, except That Boy.


Lastly, there's the culture of controlling women's sexual behaviour, which the Farmers of Dag-n-Fawn's world seem to have (like our own world), by controlling the whole woman. Are they locked in chains or in purdah? No -- they, like Ma Mattulich -- are encultured to control each other's behaviour. And in the small town hothouse, those noxious plants of Destroying Reputation grow very fast indeed.


Hope that explains some things.

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

This is really awesome. Thank you so much for writing this! I think I understand Fawn a lot better now. I don't suppose you would consider posting this to the Bujold community, would you? Not the personal stuff, but the small-town culture analysis, which is just... the whole time I was reading it I was like, "OH." (Or maybe you already have and I missed it; I read all the SK books a bit on the late side so wasn't reading anything spoilerish beforehand; if you have already never mind :) ) I really admire Bujold's writing about this a lot more now that you've explained it a bit :) and I imagine others might appreciate it too.

All of it makes a great deal of sense, and I very much liked the adult thing and the cultural rules thing-- I guess this is one thing where being a city girl trips me up; although I know in principle that animals go into estrous, it never occurred to me that *duh* it might be confusing that humans don't.

And thanks for your personal perspective as well; that was a little easier for me to grasp on my own, remembering when I was Fawn's age and an unplanned pregnancy would have been essentially the end of the world, but since I've never had a miscarriage either then or now it's hard for me to really know what it might have felt like.

(Also, I clicked through to your LJ - you work at Fire Mountain? That is SO COOL!)

[ase.livejournal.com]

Matrices, hah. (Once you described it, what a great metaphor. I wish I knew of more books about the history of science.)

I have irrational love for Arkady and his willingness to leave his previous life and attitudes behind. I wonder what the novel looked like from his perspective?

I did have one huge problem with the ending specifically. It seems like the whole book was bringing up these Cultural Issues (the status, or lack thereof, of half-breed children, the problem of Lakewalkers curing farmers and the riots when they can't) and then... poof... the epilogue happened and the problems all sort of magically disappeared.

Novels have to end somewhere, but I agree: that was a bit too tidy. How are Dag and Fawn going to handle the reactionaries on both sides?

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I just love characters who put, well, science over their own lives.

I assume you've read Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman? Which is not really about the history of science, and Feynman will surely make you grit your teeth in some ways, but it's kind of the "book-about-scientist-that-I-make-even-non-scientists-read." Because Feynman is a jerk, yeah, but he's also so much fun!

On a more serious note, I recommend Fallout (Ottaviani), a graphic novel about Oppenheimer and the Bomb. Hmm. I don't know of any good quantum mechanics histories, but I'm sure there must be one somewhere.

[ase.livejournal.com]

I did read Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman a couple of years ago - I am glad there was a Feynman in the world, but I think he would drive me personally nuts. It's wonderful that his books give such a clear impression of the good and less good of his personality.

I'll look for Fallout at the library - thank you!

[amusingmuse.livejournal.com]

De-lurking....
Both charlie_ego and ase, try, Second Creation (http://www.amazon.com/Second-Creation-Revolution-Twentieth-Century-Physics/dp/0813521777) with some JAW DROPPING stuff. Like Bohr was missing a thumb because he'd just pick up pick chunks of radioactive material barehanded. Or the case of the radioactive bench in the lab and what to do with it. (Answer? Put a fresh coat of paint on it and put it out on the lawn for all to use. omg!) And grad students...what happened to grad students!!!

going back to lurking....

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

(Sorry for the delayed response!) This sounds AWESOME. Wow, I had never heard those stories. I can't wait to read it!