Spindle's End (McKinley)
Apr. 1st, 2011 08:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnFor some reason, I've been trying to catch up all the McKinley I've missed (I think I stopped reading after Deerskin). The latest in this read is Spindle's End, a retelling of Sleeping Beauty that manages to recast it in a way that... doesn't suck for the female characters.
It is almost like two books. Part of the idea, see, is that the sleeping beauty princess grows up in a small village, not knowing her heritage, for the vast majority of the twenty-one years before the fateful birthday. For that amount of time, the book reads like, I dunno, Anne-of-Magic-Green-Gables. Once the actual sleeping-beauty part of the book starts, maybe two-thirds of the way in, it becomes more of a heroine-quest-type book.
Let me get the not-so-great stuff out of the way first. I found the heroine-quest book kind of boring. Well, okay, really boring. I confess I rather skimmed over that whole part. And it had one of those unfortunate pairings I hate with age and power-ish disparity, blah, and although I usually complain about romances having too much screen time I could have used a little bit more than the cliche misunderstanding-until-last-page that stands in for the romance. But the other non-romantic relationships are so good I don't care that much. And also, the bad fairy is called Pernicia? Really?
Okay, now that's over: I loved, LOVED the Anne-of-Magic-Green-Gables-book so much I cannot really talk about it rationally. It's about family and adoption and the bonds of family (and, uh, a little bit about how irritating and difficult breastfeeding is... what is it with McKinley and the coded childbirth stuff?) and the sort of female friendship that transforms your life, and it made me want to do nothing so much as go find my wonderful awesome female friends and give them big hugs. And stay up all night talking. Like Anne of Green Gables, there was a lot of extraneous detail that doesn't actually add to the plot, but which I absolutely loved. It also reminds me a bit of Pamela Dean's books, especially Tam Lin. (And, since I've been thinking about this lately, it's about women! Who have other women as role models! Who do things for the sake of, get this, other women, as opposed to a male love interest! How about that!)
It is almost like two books. Part of the idea, see, is that the sleeping beauty princess grows up in a small village, not knowing her heritage, for the vast majority of the twenty-one years before the fateful birthday. For that amount of time, the book reads like, I dunno, Anne-of-Magic-Green-Gables. Once the actual sleeping-beauty part of the book starts, maybe two-thirds of the way in, it becomes more of a heroine-quest-type book.
Let me get the not-so-great stuff out of the way first. I found the heroine-quest book kind of boring. Well, okay, really boring. I confess I rather skimmed over that whole part. And it had one of those unfortunate pairings I hate with age and power-ish disparity, blah, and although I usually complain about romances having too much screen time I could have used a little bit more than the cliche misunderstanding-until-last-page that stands in for the romance. But the other non-romantic relationships are so good I don't care that much. And also, the bad fairy is called Pernicia? Really?
Okay, now that's over: I loved, LOVED the Anne-of-Magic-Green-Gables-book so much I cannot really talk about it rationally. It's about family and adoption and the bonds of family (and, uh, a little bit about how irritating and difficult breastfeeding is... what is it with McKinley and the coded childbirth stuff?) and the sort of female friendship that transforms your life, and it made me want to do nothing so much as go find my wonderful awesome female friends and give them big hugs. And stay up all night talking. Like Anne of Green Gables, there was a lot of extraneous detail that doesn't actually add to the plot, but which I absolutely loved. It also reminds me a bit of Pamela Dean's books, especially Tam Lin. (And, since I've been thinking about this lately, it's about women! Who have other women as role models! Who do things for the sake of, get this, other women, as opposed to a male love interest! How about that!)
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no subject
Date: 2011-04-02 05:11 am (UTC)Somehow this would not surprise me.
It's been a while since I've read McKinley; her "daily life" writing is beautiful, but hangs on weak plotting. Fairytales give her a frame to work with, which is generally a win for everyone.
(And, since I've been thinking about this lately, it's about women! Who have other women as role models! Who do things for the sake of, get this, other women, as opposed to a male love interest! How about that!)
Going back to Deerskin - Lissar facing her dad to save the other Princess from marrying him. McKinley does pretty well with stories about women, in an unflashy way. (Even if I keep confusing her and Patricia McKillip.)
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Date: 2011-04-03 05:56 pm (UTC)That I stopped reading after Deerskin, you mean? There was something about Deerskin, in particular, that I couldn't get into at all. Not the rape/incest, I don't think -- it's too long ago for me to really remember, though.
her "daily life" writing is beautiful, but hangs on weak plotting.
Yeah, this was what I was trying to say, but you say it more concisely. Even when she's got the frame, it was still the daily life slices that I loved and the framing quest that was boring to me. But this is better than, oh, Chalice (which I don't recommend at all, really) where the daily life slices are supposed to be in support of a plot that's really meh.