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cahnFinally 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.)
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.)
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no subject
Date: 2009-07-08 05:54 pm (UTC)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....
no subject
Date: 2009-07-12 01:18 am (UTC)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.)
no subject
Date: 2009-08-19 06:43 pm (UTC)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.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-21 02:33 pm (UTC)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!)