The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Boat of her own Making started life as a web fiction where Cathrynne Valente would publish episodes periodically, and the finished novel bears some of the marks of this genesis. In particular, I felt like it took her a while to find the voice she was using for this story.
At first, the novel struck me as too arch for its own good, not really sure if it's aimed at children or adults. There's a joke about the Wyverary's parentage that is not hugely appropriate for a children's book, or, more importantly, for the kind of children's book narrator that Valente is channeling here. (The narrator feels like she'd be at home in an early-20th-century British fairy tale, say, the Narnia stories. Not that Valente is aping Lewis, just that there's a feel to the voice.)
Fortunately, the style settles down about a third of the way in, and from there on out, I really enjoyed the novel. It's whimsical without being grating, which is a hard balance to pull off.
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Dissolution
I've felt for a long time that one thing that mysteries do well is provide structure to a novel, giving the author a skeleton for hanging characters, setting, etc on. C. J. Sansom provides yet another example with his novel Dissolution, set in the Tudor period at the height of Cromwell's power, a period I wouldn't normally be particularly interested in.
Sansom manages to work in a fair bit of the politics and history of the time without turning the novel into a history lesson. More interesting to me, though, was his central character, Matthew Shardlake. Shardlake is a reformer, somewhat liberal by the standards of the time, but Sansom resists the urge to put a 21st century person into the reign of Henry VIII. Shardlake's attitudes toward class and religion are pretty regressive, and he's also willfully blind to Cromwell's abuses. One could easily imagine a version of this novel with Shardlake as the villain of the piece.
My one quibble with the novel is one I have with many historical novels -- Sansom ends up dragging in extraneous historical characters (other than Cromwell, who is important to the novel), where it feels they don't necessarily belong. But it's hard to run down this novel for a pretty frequent failing in the genre.
Sansom manages to work in a fair bit of the politics and history of the time without turning the novel into a history lesson. More interesting to me, though, was his central character, Matthew Shardlake. Shardlake is a reformer, somewhat liberal by the standards of the time, but Sansom resists the urge to put a 21st century person into the reign of Henry VIII. Shardlake's attitudes toward class and religion are pretty regressive, and he's also willfully blind to Cromwell's abuses. One could easily imagine a version of this novel with Shardlake as the villain of the piece.
My one quibble with the novel is one I have with many historical novels -- Sansom ends up dragging in extraneous historical characters (other than Cromwell, who is important to the novel), where it feels they don't necessarily belong. But it's hard to run down this novel for a pretty frequent failing in the genre.
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Aeneid
I'm doggedly making my way through book IV of the Aeneid. Dido has succumbed to a madness that sees Aeneas as an enemy because he's ready to leave her, though she considers the two of them married. She tells her sister Anna to call Aeneas back, and I thought that these lines are very effective. They read very directly and powerfully, and one can see why this story more than the rest of the Aeneid has captured the imagination of later writers.
Also, Vergil's playing with the ictus against the meter works really well here -- it's never really stood out for me as a technique as much up till now.
Also, Vergil's playing with the ictus against the meter works really well here -- it's never really stood out for me as a technique as much up till now.
Ragnarok
A. S. Byatt's Ragnarok is, as the title implies, her retelling of the Norse story of Ragnarok, the final battle at the end of the world. In order to give a complete story, she starts with Yggdrasil and the creation of the world, moves through the story of the Midgard Serpent and Fenris Wolf, and ends up at the Final Battle.
This is a somewhat idiosyncratic rendering (Thor, for example, shows up for three pages), filtered through Byatt's concerns. Byatt takes the idea that the gods knew Ragnarok was coming, but couldn't bring themselves to take the steps necessary to avoid it, and uses it as a stand-in for our knowledge that our environmental depredation is bad, but can't really bring ourselves to lessen it. (She makes all this clear in a didactic afterword).
I enjoyed this book, but it's fairly minor as Byatt's books go. It would be hard to recommend as an introduction to Norse mythology; the telling is too idiosyncratic. It also plays against Byatt's strengths as a writer, I think. She chooses an intentionally distancing point-of-view, refracting the whole story through the eyes of a girl growing up outside London during WWII. Although Byatt is a very intellectual writer, I think her best writing has an emotional resonance to it, and this sort of distancing effect makes it hard to engage with the material. (Byatt has also chosen not to humanize her gods; in general, I agree with this approach, because gods should be something "other", but, again, it's not a register that she plays well in).
On the other hand, it's hard to be too negative about Ragnarok; even weak Byatt is better than most authors at the peak of their game. Although I'd prefer another Possession to this, Ragnarok is still better than many other books I've read lately.
This is a somewhat idiosyncratic rendering (Thor, for example, shows up for three pages), filtered through Byatt's concerns. Byatt takes the idea that the gods knew Ragnarok was coming, but couldn't bring themselves to take the steps necessary to avoid it, and uses it as a stand-in for our knowledge that our environmental depredation is bad, but can't really bring ourselves to lessen it. (She makes all this clear in a didactic afterword).
I enjoyed this book, but it's fairly minor as Byatt's books go. It would be hard to recommend as an introduction to Norse mythology; the telling is too idiosyncratic. It also plays against Byatt's strengths as a writer, I think. She chooses an intentionally distancing point-of-view, refracting the whole story through the eyes of a girl growing up outside London during WWII. Although Byatt is a very intellectual writer, I think her best writing has an emotional resonance to it, and this sort of distancing effect makes it hard to engage with the material. (Byatt has also chosen not to humanize her gods; in general, I agree with this approach, because gods should be something "other", but, again, it's not a register that she plays well in).
On the other hand, it's hard to be too negative about Ragnarok; even weak Byatt is better than most authors at the peak of their game. Although I'd prefer another Possession to this, Ragnarok is still better than many other books I've read lately.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
The Wreckage, Caterpillar Cop
Two fairly "meh" books. I was particularly disappointed by James McClure's Caterpillar Cop, since I think Gooseberry Fool is a fantastic mystery novel and The Artful Egg has some funny views of South Africa. But Caterpillar Cop is a by-the-novels procedural. Zondi has a bit part, which certainly doesn't help matters; his and Kramer's different approach are part of what makes the series work.
The Wreckage didn't really do anything for me either. It seems to be one of those books that's less than the sum of its parts. Decent characters, decent writing, a good (believable) conspiracy plot, but the whole just didn't cohere for me.
The Wreckage didn't really do anything for me either. It seems to be one of those books that's less than the sum of its parts. Decent characters, decent writing, a good (believable) conspiracy plot, but the whole just didn't cohere for me.
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Polar Star
Martin Cruz Smith's follow up to Gorky Park is the excellent Polar Star. I mostly liked the former novel, but felt like it was aiming for a take on international espionage that it didn't quite pull off. This novel isn't really focused on the espionage angle so much, which is a plus, but, more importantly, Cruz uses the setting of a fishing factory boat to brilliant effect.
As the novel starts, Arkady Renko is hiding out on the eponymous "Polar Star," a huge Soviet factory ship taking in the fish trawled by some American fishing vessels in a joint American/Soviet venture. When one of the fish-cleaners on the ship dies mysteriously, Arkady is briefly rehabilitated so that he can find out who killed her.
The story takes place almost entirely on the titular "Polar Star," a claustrophobic environment that Smith uses to great effect in a few cat-and-mouse sequences. Smith's writing is spare but evocative -- one can almost feel the cold while reading this novel. His cast of villains is various and impressive, from the smug Communist official Volovoi to an old criminal from Arkady's past. It's also a nice touch that, although these various bad guys are sometimes allied, they each have their own agendas and none of them really knows the full story of what's going on.
All in all, I very much enjoyed this novel, and am looking forward to reading the third Renko novel.
As the novel starts, Arkady Renko is hiding out on the eponymous "Polar Star," a huge Soviet factory ship taking in the fish trawled by some American fishing vessels in a joint American/Soviet venture. When one of the fish-cleaners on the ship dies mysteriously, Arkady is briefly rehabilitated so that he can find out who killed her.
The story takes place almost entirely on the titular "Polar Star," a claustrophobic environment that Smith uses to great effect in a few cat-and-mouse sequences. Smith's writing is spare but evocative -- one can almost feel the cold while reading this novel. His cast of villains is various and impressive, from the smug Communist official Volovoi to an old criminal from Arkady's past. It's also a nice touch that, although these various bad guys are sometimes allied, they each have their own agendas and none of them really knows the full story of what's going on.
All in all, I very much enjoyed this novel, and am looking forward to reading the third Renko novel.
Friday, February 15, 2013
Ghost Story
Ghost Story is the 13th Harry Dresden novel, and it shows a striking self-awareness. Up until now, it's been easy to see Harry as a sort of Gary Stu, fighting his way through a lot of bad guys and walloping them with his more-impressive fire-power. But here, Harry confronts the idea that maybe discretion would have been the better course -- he's ended up causing a lot of problems, even as defeats the bad guys. We can see that Harry's hot-headedness has caused a chain of events starting way back (to book 3 or 4, I think), leading to the war against the Red Court, the death of his friends, the crippling of Michael, and so on.
Having said all that, the emphasis on the book is not on soul-searching, it's still on action. So it'll be interesting to see if Butcher has Harry turn over a new more restrained leaf, or whether book 14 goes back to business as usual.
Having said all that, the emphasis on the book is not on soul-searching, it's still on action. So it'll be interesting to see if Butcher has Harry turn over a new more restrained leaf, or whether book 14 goes back to business as usual.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)