cahn | Entries tagged with books:2007

I realized something while reading TSK, which is that I don't like the way Bujold does romance when she's consciously thinking about romance.

What really draws me in, with romance, is-- part of falling in love, really getting love right, is seeing oneself differently. Realizing one might have to be a different person for the beloved. Learning to live with the faults of the beloved, and changing yourself to be the person that can live with your beloved.

The romances I love are all like that. Pride and Prejudice. Perilous Gard. Gaudy Night/Busman's Honeymoon. A Civil Campaign, except for the part where Miles' romance gets short-circuited at the end (which kind of irks me, but whatever). Possession (well, many styles of love are explored... one major one of which is an exploration of what happens when change/compromise does not occur).

The romance in TSK, in contrast, is relatively a bunch of infatuated sighs of "oh, isn't X wonderful?" Which is fine, and certainly a necessary part of romance, but if I want to see that I can just, you know, walk down the hallway and find someone who is engaged. Or read my journal entries about D :) Or, in fact, my journal entries about all my ex-boyfriends, all of whom have many fine and worthy qualities, though not enough-- and not well enough matched to mine, or at least we were unwilling to match them-- to keep us for a lifetime, or even for more than a couple of years. And that's the kicker: just reading about infatuation is rather unconvincing to me. If the author has not sufficiently shown us how the characters are doing the work-- and it can be work, albeit fun work-- of matching themselves together, well, I don't see any reason that I should expect the romance to last any longer than, you know, those of the growing number of people I know who are starting to get divorces.

Now, I'm not saying I don't enjoy the part of romance where the lovers are finding out all sorts of new and lovely things about each other. I really do like that, and I had great fun reading TSK-- and, because Bujold really is a consummate craftsman, it's not quite as cut-and-dried as I've implied here. But... I don't keep going back to it, the way I do to the deeper treatment of the books mentioned above.

I didn't feel like doing anything last week. So I read a lot.

-Privilege of the Sword (Kushner) - I wanted to like this book. Some bits I liked a great deal-- I did like Katherine (the main character). I thought it was a nice touch that she liked petticoats. I loved the soap-opera book/play, and loved all the scenes between Katherine and her teachers, especially the Master. And I did like Artemisia. And I was SO afraid that Katherine would turn out to be a Mary Sue Master Swordswoman, but Kushner sidestepped that trap neatly.

However... I thought the plot left a bit to be desired. I guess it's a bit my fault, as I've been rereading a lot of Brust and Bujold lately, and they are the masters of well-crafted, superbly-engineered plots that tidy up the loose ends and tie everything together in an elaborate and elegant bow. This was more... like a hairball. None of the subplots seemed to connect to anything, and the main plot seemed just kind of stupid. Perhaps it would help if I read the preceding books? (Which I tried to do, but my Annoying Library seems to have a mission statement never to have the first books of series.) I'd read a couple of short stories set in the same universe, so at least I was vaguely familiar with the names.

( The plot from my point of view (spoilers, though to my mind the plot was thin enough that there isn't really much to spoil): )

Also, this is a really dumb point, but all the characters kept saying, "Oh my god!" And every time they said it I would think, "Wait! What is the religion here? Lessee... looks like Dumas-era France what with the swords and all, so maybe some sort of degenerate Catholicsm? Or perhaps the lowercase indicates they're all Deists? I guess it can't be polytheism... hmm... So, like, how exactly does the economy of Riverside sustain itself, anyway?" See, when you hit a discordant note like that it just breaks the spell of suspension-of-disbelief. And it makes me sad, because Kushner writes too well to lose me due to a stupid detail like that.

-Josephine Tey, Brat Farrar and Daughter of Time. All

mistful's fault. Why did I not know about her before now? Daughter of Time won my heart with its description of the bestsellers Grant has by his bed, as well as its characterization of Mary Queen of Scots as "silly." (Well, she was!) However, I do kinda wish I'd read it before reading the Weir. Because Grant would say, "Clearly x means Richard didn't kill the Princes," and I'd be all, "But what about Y?"

Brat Farrar had no such problems, and I adored it. Tey ... reminds me vaguely of Agatha Christie, in that it's very English and almost cuddly, only stronger and better. Like, I actually care about Tey's characters.

-The Eyre Affair (Fforde), which I've heard is good. I had a really difficult time getting into it, mostly because I feel like it's trying too hard to be witty and flippant and oh-time-travel-isn't-it-cute, and look-the-heroine-is-named-Thursday-Next-isn't-that-cute, and the literary references are often kind of clunky ("Look!! Jane Eyre doesn't marry Rochester in this universe!!") - I'm much more a fan of my literary references being tossed off effortlessly, like Sayers does. Make it look easy! Also, it interfered with my actually caring about the characters-- I was really kind of not very interested in the narrator's tribulations. On the other hand? The Richard-III-recast-as-Rocky-Horror ("When is the winter of our discontent?" "Now is the winter...") was just awesome and made up for a lot.

-The Princes in the Tower, Alison Weir. I've been meaning to read about Richard III since reading The Dragon Waiting, oh, what, fifteen years ago now? I just love Weir's books, probably because I'm just about exactly the right audience-- I have a very passing familiarity, but I don't really know how the pieces fit together. She makes what seems like a pretty convincing case, to me, that Richard III killed the Princes. (Compare this with her solution to Who Killed Amy Dudley? in her book on Elizabeth, which I think is a very clever solution that undoubtedly would've been right if it were a mystery book... but as history... I'm not quite sure.)

It's really interesting to read this along with Dragon Waiting, and see how Ford's world is different. In particular it's fascinating to see the people who seem like they were probably decent enough, in real life, who were twisted diabolically by his alternate history, and those who weren't all that nice, who are twisted into much nicer people. Ford is so cool. Was. Wah.

-Gifts and Voices, LeGuin. I'll read anything she writes, because I love her voice, but these were kind of forgettable to me. Voices in particular had some good bits, but also some kind of dumb bits, I thought, and was forgettable enough that i"m not interested enough to discuss either of them.

I forget: did I make everyone read this in high school? If not, hopefully you've read it by now?

Besides having a totally awesome problem-solving heroine, and being set in Mary/Elizabethan England, which is one of my favorite time periods ever, it has basically the best romance I know of in a fantasy work. (That is, if it is really a fantasy work, which it is probably not... alternate history, or historical fiction, might be a better way of putting it. Which is another very cool point in its favor.) I've been reading a couple of complaints lately (e.g. here) that fantasy has very poor romance, and, well, they've got a point. Tolkien *really* sucked at romance, LeGuin's romance in Earthsea only came with a feminist tract attached, Susan Cooper's kids are too young for romance. Bujold rushes things too much for my taste. Mercedes Lackey, hee-- I actually like her early books in the same way I like Velveeta Cheez, but even when I was, like, 10, I understood that lifebonds were utterly dumb, and what's more, cheating.

The only other half-decent romances I can think of offhand are The Once and Future King, which probably doesn't count, and Aerin and Tor in The Hero and the Crown (though not Aerin and Luthe, which I always thought was both icky and annoying). Though Aerin and Tor have the advantage of being best friends their whole lives.

To me, Kate is believable, has believable flaws and virtues, and so does her love interest. And their relationship develops over the course of the book, and they are totally shown as learning things about each other, sometimes very subtly, and learning how to get along without killing each other. Yes, there's the obligatory misunderstanding, but even that is very believable to me, and something that has been carefully developed in her character. And the last chapter just rocks.

Judith Krantz is an old favorite of mine. Specifically, my mom (for some reason lost in the mists of time) had a copy of Mistral's Daughter hidden in the middle of a stack of romance novels (itself hidden in her bedroom), all of which I plowed through one summer when I had too much time and not enough books on my hands. None of them were worth anything except the Krantz... which was on a higher level (that is, actually rereadable... my other trashy favorite of the time, Sidney Sheldon, I cannot read anymore, period) ...and which I adored and still do. I have no idea whether it's actually any good. My recent experiences with Krantz would suggest... probably not.

So recently I felt in the need of some trashy books and read three of hers (Till We Meet Again, Princess Daisy, and I'll Take Manhattan). They all feature beautiful, glamorous, sexy, yet vulnerable heroines, engaged in some extremely glamorous profession (magazine publishing, movie-making, etc.), searching for love. Mary Sue at her finest-- and I'm actually not being sarcastic; it's actually entertaining (though I don't think I'll be rereading any of them again). Also, they all have an amoral wicked villain with no redeeming features, so it's nice to see the villain get his (or her) comeuppance. Okay, you've got the plot now.

But I still think... biased though I almost certainly am... that Mistral's Daughter had something... more... Mistral is, though I never saw his appeal to all the women in the story, a larger-than-life character in both his virtues and his faults, something I haven't seen in any of her other books. Maggie ages totally gracefully from a young beautiful hero to an old beautiful hero without giving up her place in the story (as opposed to, e.g., Eve in Till We Meet Again, who basically fades away once her kids are born). And I looooved the villains. Instead of getting the "oh, he is a wicked guy, and that's the end of it," we got a couple of people whose worldviews were more-or-less understandable (I'm sorry, but mad destructive love for your half-sister (in Princess Daisy) is NOT understandable to me) and actually kind of neat, the sort of people I could see myself being, deliciously, if I had no moral sense. I think the parts from the villains' points-of-view are actually my favorites of the book. And one of the villains got a really satisfying comeuppance.

But yeah, although I may reread Mistral's Daughter (again), I don't think I'll be reading any more of her books anytime soon.

-Alison Weir writes cool books. I read a little of her Henry VIII stuff and then devoured her biography of Elizabeth I. Basically, Elizabeth I rocks. I knew that already, but I didn't know HOW much she rocked. Also, she was a character. Also, the drama! Lord Dudley, Mary Queen of Scots... awesome stuff.

-Sir Thomas More (Peter Ackroyd) - In the middle of this, which I am really liking. Watched Man for All Seasons (Bolt) recently, which may rank as one of my favorite movies of all time, and was the impetus for reading this...Bolt's More is a little more humanist, perhaps, than the real thing, but really not that far off. More is really a very interesting person who really did give his life (and power, riches, family, etc.) for a principle that I agree with and a religion I do not particularly agree with (interestingly enough, Bolt isn't really religious), but you can't help admiring him anyway. Ackroyd also argues that obedience and order (that is, order in the medieval sense, where everyone and everything had its place) were the twin pillars of More's life, which is something that does kind of resonate with me (though it's not really an American sentiment). And it was amazing how much of Bolt's stuff was just directly lifted from More himself. A great man. Not one I'd want to marry, probably, but one I'd definitely have a crush on, if I knew him.

-Confessions of St Augustine - almost finished with this. The autobiographical stuff was awesome, but the post-autobiography theological stuff is a little harder to read. (D would say that my reaction is because in the theological section he argues against enjoying one's food... sigh!) Augustine is a neat guy, and really bares his soul in the Confessions in a way that's really kind of inspiring. His demolishing of astrology is especially fun to read.

-Ben Hur. Kid made us watch this over Christmas so then of course I had to read the book! It was okay. I love how all the Jews in the story, including Mary, have blond hair and blue eyes. I do have to say that the motivations of characters were a little better expressed in the book than in the movie, but I'll cut them some slack for having to keep it to 4 hours or so :)

-The King Must Die, Mary Renault. This book is awesome cool. When we had late Christmas with D's family, the house we rented in CO had this book, which I picked up because i thought I'd heard of it before. It's the story of Theseus, told in a way that tries to make sense of the myth. That is, there is very little in the way of supernatural events, and mythic elements are explained in a more-or-less naturalistic way -- although obviously the main characters believe that events are caused by the gods, etc. For example, the Minotaur is not a supernatural bull-man from a god/woman mating, but rather refers to a bull mask worn in a ritualistic setting. At the same time, the mindset is weird and cool -- very much concerned with fate and the responsibility of kings (in particular, their responsibility to sacrifice themselves for their people). Really, really enjoyed this.

Just got the sequel from the library. I'm not sure if she really meant to write a sequel at the time she wrote the first book... well, we'll see how good it is. I suspect it won't be nearly as good, though.

-Honor Harrington (David Weber) - So while I was feeling really tired, I needed some mindless candy to read, and this is it. The first time I started these, a couple of years ago, I could not deal with them at all, because they were touted as something a Vorkosigan-lover would like. Well, they're not in the Slightest like Bujold, unless you mean "set in space," which is I guess what they did mean. Two-dimensional paper-flat characters, and the main character (who is beautiful-in-an-unconventional-way and smart and talented and etc.) has a sentient animal sidekick, which cracks me up every time I think about it -- but the plots are kind of fun, and the two-dimensionality means that you never have to worry about whom to root for.

Oops, gotta go to lunch. Stay tuned for theological-ish books (Confessions of St Augustine, What St Paul Said About Women, and What St Paul Really Said, all of which I recommend highly!)

So when I went home I got much of my Ford (not his Trek books, I'm not sure how they got missed, and Scholars of Night, which is I-don't-know-where, and Fugue State, which I have given up hope of understanding) and brought them back with me and had me a nice little orgy of rereading. The Dragon Waiting I have in CA and have thus already reread.

-The Last Hot Time: I've only read this twice or three times now, so I'm still at the stage where there are whole plot elements that I'm still discovering. (This is part of why I love Ford -- each book contains at least three rereads worth of plot!) I like it a lot better than I did on first reading, possibly as a result of now understanding (most of) what is going on.

-Growing Up Weightless: I like this less than I did when I first read it... I know all the other Ford fans like this a lot, but I guess that I have a couple of problems: first, Matt's character is apparently supposed to be super cool, and I definitely got that super-cool sense about Ruby or Stringjack, but he just seemed like a more-or-less normal teenager, maybe one who was slightly better-acting under pressure. Second,... oh, ( cut this for spoilers ) Third, some of the revealed interactions between characters (here I am particularly thinking about Rubylaser) had no buildup from the rest of the book, as far as I could tell. Maybe it was a little too subtle for me. Maybe I'll read it in ten years and it will all make sense. But right now this is my least favorite of his books, though it is still a good coming-of-age book.

-Princes of the Air - This and Web I love, partially because I absolutely adore his far-future crazy imaginings. And I love Obeck, that insecure self-hating but still talented and dedicated diplomat (oh, that word!) - he's possibly my favorite Ford character, along with his crazy cool bigger-than-life friends. I identify with Obeck-- I know what it's like to have friends who know what they're doing, and while loving them feel insecure about what you're doing-- and to attain what looks like success while feeling hollow inside-- and not to be able to explain something to a friend because the friend is too good a person to actually understand the thing. This may be my favorite.

-Web of Angels- I saved this one for last because it's always been my absolute favorite Ford, though not one I usually give to people to try to hook them... and on rereading I remembered why. It's in WAY far future, and is very, very heavily allusive and poetical and whimsical and fantastical... Mr. Aristide speaks in a very mannered way that actually turned me off this reading until I remembered that that was just the way he was. (I think when I first read this book he reminded me of a certain physics teacher we had... which may be part of the reason I like this book.) The main character, Grailer, also kind of is annoying to me; as three times my age (due to the miracle of Lifespan) he acts like he's still a teenager. But I love the heavy religious (though it is not by any means a religious book) and poetic and literary allusions... some of which I am still getting on subsequent rereadings... I think this is the first time I've reread since my Dante kick, so I'm finally getting all the Dante references... and the scope of his weird universe is a lot of fun. And my gosh, his Webspinning, written before the internet was a force to be reckoned with, does seem rather prescient now.