Metamorphoses, Silence, Three Kingdoms, Queen and Country

I'm having a tough time mustering the interest to push through Three Kingdoms. A lot of the warring is very repetitive, and there isn't that much else there. It's not really fair to bring Aristotelian aesthetics to a discussion of a Chinese novel, but it's hard not to think of his discussion of the Greek poets who think that all you need to do to write an epic is to take the whole life story of some hero and throw it onto the page. No, says Aristotle, you need to trim it down, and focus on the story you want to tell. Three Kingdoms just wanders all over the place, which would make more sense if it were historically accurate, but apparently the author took liberties on that front as well.

I also read Thomas Perry's Silence this weekend. I think he's really jumped the shark -- the early Jane Whitefield novels are brilliant, but here he's just going through the motions. He's got a thing for a person who goes into hiding and completely changes his/her identity. But he's really struggling to come up with a motivation for it by now. Why would a woman go into hiding for 6 years, throwing away her whole life, instead of going to the police? Perry never really answers that question. The ending of the book suggests that he thought of it, but it was too late to change the novel, and so he gives a totally throw-away answer.

Saving the best for last, I also read more of the Metamorphoses this weekend, finishing up the story of Phaethon. There's not much to say about it, except that Ovid's word-play dazzles. I think he's my favorite Latin poet -- Catullus probably has my favorite individual lines, but I enjoy reading Ovid more on the whole.

I almost forgot Red Panda, the last (for a while) of the Queen and Country comics. Compared to the first Q & C book (which is reviewed somewhere in this blog), it was wonderful to see Tara's return to comics. The comic form really suits Rucka's talents, where you can have long stretches with no dialogue. Sometimes, three panels of two protagonists sitting near each other, saying nothing, can be incredibly eloquent. I'm still hoping that Patriot Games, the 2nd Q & C book is as good as the comics. Hope springs eternal, as they say...