Tillerman books, part 3 (Voigt, reread)

[cahn]

...why yes, I'm still working on posting stuff I started back in August. So. The rest of the Tillerman Cycle (I'm not reading Homecoming), and these form a set for vaguely-spoilery reasons (see Seventeen Against the Dealer).

The Runner (4/5): The book about the "older generation" (mostly the Tillermans' dead uncle, Bullet, as a high school kid). Here we actually get to meet Francis/Frankie Verricker, the Tillermans' father, who's pretty much absent in the rest of the cycle. In terms of the overarching family theme of the cycle, this is the book where we see a family that fails (but because Voigt is so good at drawing characters and families as realistically complicated, this family also succeeds in some small and surprising ways), as opposed to all the other books, where we see families that are struggling to make things work in different kinds of ways, and by-and-large succeeding. It's also clearly the big setup for Come a Stranger, and the big emotional payoff of that one.

Sons From Afar (4/5): I really like this one. James and Sammy decide they need to find out about their dad. And they find — and I love this — that there are no easy answers and no good answers, in the end, there's just you and the people you love and what you choose to make of that. I think I like it because I like James, a lot; I love how he's smart and conflicted and tries to fit in and sacrifices his integrity for that and then finds that there's an integrity of the mind that he can't sacrifice. I love how he's cowardly and courageous at the same time. I'd love to find out what happened to him as a grownup.

I like the idea of Sammy and James both as different sides of Grandfather Tillerman — that between them they have all the sides that caused him to fail, and to fail his family, and to be unhappy, but because their family works, those same traits help them instead of hurting them.

Seventeen Against the Dealer (3+/5): Ummmmm. Yeah. It's a depressing book (though ultimately uplifting) and the one where Dicey loses her way before finding it again. The interesting thing about this one is Cisco Kidd.

I'm afraid I'm a very unironic reader of books that I love (though hand me some obnoxious YA dystopia, and we'll talk), and it was completely lost on me until I was reading a review on the interwebs that Cisco Kidd is totally supposed to be Dicey's and her siblings' father. Francis -> Cisco, duhhhhh.

Whether he actually is their father is, I think, not at all clear (there is never anything that can be taken as proof, and in fact Voigt is very careful never to have the man meet James or Sammy, either of whom would have tried to figure it out), and I think that's part of the point — it doesn't matter, in some sense, whether he is, although the book is more poignant if you assume he is. But whether he is or not, he's a stand-in for this man.

Comments

[mildred_of_midgard]

Re Seventeen: I don't really understand why Voigt even bothers bringing in Cisco for a non-redemption arc, except maybe that she thought it would be interesting to see the flip side of it? (I don't find it interesting, which is why I question it. I'm kind of a sucker for redemption arc, though.)

I forgot to mention in my earlier wall of text, I'm not sure what the purpose of this is either. But I think I know why I find this book so boring: it contains so little of the Tillermans interacting. Dicey avoiding her family, avoiding Jeff, and talking to various strangers (to us, the readers) in the boat-building business is just not that engaging. And until just recently, Cisco was included in that. At least now, I can read some deeper meanings into their exchanges, which makes it more interesting.

But my favorite parts are and always have been where James is talking about college, or when Dicey is helping Maybeth with her school work. When the family's together. These are the characters I love, why so little of them?

Which makes me wonder why I love Runner so much. I guess Bullet, even when we're just inside his head, is engaging with way more interesting stuff,what with the draft and the school paper and race relations and cross-country, and he gets interesting interactions with Patrice and Tamer, and even with that one teacher who reads Housman to the class and makes them think. How many coats of paint Dicey can get on X boats in Y hours just doesn't measure up.

So yeah, that's why Seventeen is so boring for me. Not enough character interactions, too much detail of the boring, frustrating, stressful side of running an unsuccessful business. (If a sense of joy in her work permeated the book, my interest would be way higher, even if I had no interest in the topic per se.)

[cahn]

Yeah, you make a good point that Bullet actually interacts with people a lot in Runner for a book that's about a person who likes to be really solitary. And the running scenes are really good too, even though they're by himself.

I snarfed up Sons today and just started Seventeen -- I agree, I love the group scenes so much. The family scenes (one of which basically starts the book). I'm sorry to hear there aren't more of them! Ah well. I think also that the boat-building people I've seen her interact with so far are also just not that interesting (sleazy boat-builder, sleazy boat-customer, enh), whereas Patrice and Tamer and even the characters like Tommy are interesting.

(by the way, I maaaay have fairly limited screen time for the next 1.5 to 2 weeks, so if I don't reply to you or make gargantuan posts on Stranger and Sons, that's why, not because I don't love these discussions :) On the other hand I will definitely have offline time to finish up Seventeen...)

[mildred_of_midgard]

Yes, exactly! The people Dicey interacts with in Seventeen are so unpleasant, it doesn't make for enjoyable reading. I also just realized that a contributing factor for me is that her *work* is so unpleasant, even though it's supposed to be something she likes. Bullet's cross-country scenes are so great in part because he's doing what's right for himself.

(by the way, I maaaay have fairly limited screen time for the next 1.5 to 2 weeks
Totally understood. After my initial burst of "Omg, a fellow Tillerman fan!"-driven obsessing, real life has returned, and especially in the last two weeks, which is why this reply is so late. I'll also be traveling most of September, and *won't* have much time for offline reading. But I'm definitely enjoying these convos!

By the way, random cross-reference:

From Dicey's Song, Millie speaking:

"I saw Ab downtown with her three children, the little girl about as pretty as your sister. They were having a race, down the sidewalk, all four of them running as fast as they could. Oh — they were having a good time.”

Dicey got back to her work, trying to see the picture Millie had been looking at: Gram a young woman, like Momma, and her three children. Momma and Bullet and John, all of them in a race. Bullet would have been last because he was smallest. Unless Momma hung back to let him beat her. That was the kind of thing Dicey thought Momma would have done. She wished she could ask Gram if that was the way it happened.

From Runner:

Bullet guessed he didn’t fault Johnny, and he didn’t fault Liza either. His eyes roamed around, watching the stars. He guessed his mother didn’t either, although he knew that she, at least, missed them. Not that she said so, not that she tried to stop Liza from going— but he could read her. And, if he remembered, he remembered how different things used to be, how different she was . . . He could remember seeing her run, her skirt tangling at her legs and himself running to try to catch her and her laughter when she pretended he had— but that was all gone, long gone, faded away, closed off. As far as he could tell, his mother didn’t miss it.

And then, continuing the scene where Millie is remembering the race in Song:

“It surely is a blessing for Ab that you turned up,” Millie said. “I guess no matter what your Momma did, Ab is happy to have you.”

“You think so?” Dicey asked.

“I guess she’s more like her old self these days,” Millie said. Dicey believed what Millie was saying because however stupid Millie might be at reading and numbers she had known Gram all of her life.

So you've got two characters remembering Ab racing with her kids*, two characters wishing she would talk about it, two characters noticing that she'd changed, and Millie observing that Ab has come full circle. Which fits with the theme we've observed of the later generation making right on the earlier generations' mistakes. The helping, healing theme. Dicey and her siblings are Gram's second chance.

* With a common element of pretending for Bullet's sake, although I *think* in Bullet it's his mother, not his sister, he's remembering holding back. The pronouns are a bit ambiguous to me there. Is that how you read it?

[cahn]

So I didn't actually mind Seventeen that much, but much of that might have been rock-bottom expectations -- I went in only remembering the boat-building parts, and was pleasantly surprised that there were any family bits at all (although far too few, of course!). I also didn't mind the boat painting as much as you did -- I think I've internalized that good craftsmanship involves a certain amount of boring repetitive work.

Good travels to you! I won't expect replies anytime soon :) (though yesssss talking Tillerman with you has been SO FUN) And due to my own Life Happening I think now it's been enough time since I read the last three books that I need to reread them before writing them up... :)

With a common element of pretending for Bullet's sake, although I *think* in Bullet it's his mother, not his sister, he's remembering holding back. The pronouns are a bit ambiguous to me there. Is that how you read it?

Yes, that's how I read it too. :( It makes me feel really sad for Gram, though happy that she gets the second chance.