The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare, reviewed by N. Vivian on March 9,2009
The Winter's Tale is one of Shakespeare's lesser-known plays; though still popular, it isn't one the Big Comedies, Tragedies, or Histories. The Winter's Tale is one of his romances, a genre that appeared much later in his career. The most famous of these is The Tempest (which, y'know, I'm just not really all that fond of), but it also includes Pericles, Prince of Tyre; Cymbeline, and occasionally The Two Noble Kinsmen. While romance does have a role in these plays (most of them ending in engagement or a wedding, as proper comedies ought), they focus more around familial relationships that romantic ones. Prevalent are themes of reunion and redemption/forgiveness, brought about, oddly enough, by the existence of a daughter (Miranda in The Tempest, Perdita in The Winter's Tale, Marina in Pericles, Prince of Tyre). These were all written around the time Shakespeare married off his elder daughter Susanna, so there may be a bit of sentimentality in there for being absent so often during his children's childhoods. For the record, this is me speculating wildly--though if there's any relevent scholarship out there, feel free to point me to it.
Anyway, the romances have a few other themes in common. First of all, they all involve magic and fantastic elements which results in a big old deus ex machina at the end. Second, they also introduce the idea of tragicomedy. These aren't bright, happy romances where everything is wonderful, unicorns shoot rainbows from their horns, and the only strife is who beat who in the hugging contest (though, for the record, not even the happiest of Shakespeare's comedies are like that). Even when bad things happen in comedies, you know that it's all going to work out in the end. You don't ever forget you're reading a comedy. In the beginning of these plays, it's really easy to assume that you're reading a tragedy. These romances feature deaths, injustices, and have plotlines that even the happy marriages at the end cannot entirely wipe away. He raises some dark and profound issues--in the end of The Winter's Tale, for example, sure everyone's happy and reunited, but you can't forget that sixteen long years of separation have gone by, that Mamillius and Antigonus are still dead and Hermione's too old to bear children again.
The Winter's Tale does have the best stage direction EVAR: 'Exit, pursued by a bear'
The play starts in Sicilia, at the court of King Leontes and Queen Hermione. King Polixenes, childhood friend of Leontes, has been visiting for the past nine months. Missing his son and his kingdom, Polixenes plans to leave Sicilia the next day. Leontes isn't able to convince him to stay, so he sends Hermione to try instead. She's successful, and suddenly Leontes is struck by this horrible, jealous, insane certainty that Polixenes and Hermione are sleeping together and the child Hermione's carrying is actually Polixenes's bastard. He sends Camillo to poison Polixenes, but Camillo confesses to Polixenes instead, and he and Polixenes flee Sicilia.
His insanity increasing, Leontes assumes that there's actually a plot against his life, and arrests Hermione, since he cannot get his hands on Polixenes or Camillo. He throws her into the dungeons with a few of her ladies, and refuses to let their older son, Mamillius, anywhere near her. He's fairly certain that Mamillius is his, and he doesn't want his son contamintaed by Hermione's perfidity. All of his councilors tell him he's wrong, that Hermione's never been anything but good and virtuous, but Leontes remains convinced, even though he has no real, solid proof. Hermione gives birth to a daughter, and Leontes orders Antigonus to dispose of the infant, after Antigonus's wife, Paulina, tries to use the baby as evidence of Hermione's faithfulness. Soon after the birth, he drags Hermione to trial, and the Oracle at Delphos pronounces her innocent. Even that's not enough for Leontes; he announces that even the gods in heaven are liars. He no sooner says that then he is shown what happens when mortals sass the gods: he immediately receives word that Mamillius is dead, Hermione swoons, is rushed offstaged, and pronounced dead as well, and he is told that he'll have no other heirs until the lost baby girl is found. Surrounded by the death of everyone he has ever loved, Leontes gecomes sane again, swears that he'll grieve for his dead wife and son every day for the rest of his life.
Antigonus is dropped off on the seacoast of Bohemia (Polixenes's country), where he is to abandon the princess. He leaves gold, some of Hermione's jewels, a note about the baby's identity, and names her Perdita, after Hermione comes to him in a dream. The wrath of the gods fall on him and the ship, too. He's eaten by a bear, the ship he sailed on sinks, and the baby is found by an old shepherd and his son, who assume Perdita's a changeling.
In the next Act, Time enters and announces that sixteen years have gone by. Leontes has spent that time mourning his stupid, Perdita has grown up to be a beautiful young girl, and Florizel, prince of Bohemia, has fallen in love with her. Polixenes and Camillo notice Florizel's been acting weird, so they disguise themselves and follow him to see what he's been up to recently. They attend a sheep-shearing festival held by the old Shepherd, ands discover that Florizel's about to marry this little nobody. Since neither the shepherd nor his son could read, no one knows that Perdita is anything other than what she seems. Polixenes threatens to disenherit Flroizel, and threatens to burn Perdita as a witch and then kill shepherd and his son if they go through with the match. Camillo, who is homesick for Sicilia, sends Florizel and Perdita to Sicilia to visit Leontes, and then runs home and tells Polixenes that they've gone to Sicilia, so he can legitimately go home again. The shepherd and his son don't want to be killed, so they rush home, collect the remainder of the gold and jewels and all the paperwork that they found with Perdita, to prove that they aren't actually related to her and should be spared the king's wrath. Unfortunately, they get violently seasick on the way to Sicilia, and are too busy throwing up to prove anything to anyone until after they dock. Eventually, Polixenes catches up with Florizel and Perdita in Leontes's court, Perdita's true identity is revealed and she reunites with her father. Her royal heritage makes everything better, Polixenes is thrilled to marry his son off to the daughter of his bat-shit best friend, and they all troop down to Paulina's house, to see the statue of Hermione, recently carved by some famous sculptor. There, once Leontes talks about how he was a douche and would give anything to get Hermione back and Perdita is presented as their daughter, the statue comes to life and Hermione is returned to the land of the living. The end.
Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of this play is the language. Now, all Shakespeare language is tough if you haven't practiced for awhile. It's close enough to our own where it feels as if it should be obvious, but the slang, the grammar, the spelling...it's just far enough off to make it hard to dive right into. In The Winter's Tale, however, language is even more obtuse and abused. The language in the first two or three Acts is tough, occasionally reading is more akin to slogging. The footnotes in my version are full of explanations like: "We think it means this, these other scholars say it prolly means that, one guy said it means this other thing, but he's wrong..." Rather than taking away from my understanding of the play, I felt as if the language actually heightened it. True, I didn't grasp every meaning, but the first few Acts are all about a mental disorder to the point of insanity. The language reflects that--it's gets more and more twisted as Leontes's mind does the same. I thought it makes for a great illustration of the disorder of his brain. Then, as his court spirals deeper into craziness, their speeches follow the same pattern. Awesome.
As for characters, the only one I really liked was Paulina. She's this crazy old bat of a courtier, and she's the only one really willing to stand up to Leontes and call him a nutjob. She takes him to task for his behavior over and over again, first when he impugns hermione's honor, then when he denies his daughter's paternity, and again when he orders Perdita to be exposed. She also accuses his other courtiers (including her own husband) or cowardice for not standing up to a tyrant. Even later, after he's repented, she still rides him about it, keeping that grief and regret alive and well. She's also the one who brings Hermione back to life once Perdita comes home. I love ballsy and sassy women. Everone else in the play is either insane (Leontes), or ill-defined. We don't meet our heo and heroine till Act Four, and they barely speak in Act Five. The other big character, Autolycus, is named for Odysseus's grandfather (a reknowned thief), and does his best to live up to the reputation. He swindles the shepherd and his son not once, not twice, but three times. He's pretty cool, but also very much a stock character, showing some signs of wit, but not enough to keep him interesting. I kind of viewed him as an interruption to the play--I wanted to see how the main plot would resolve, not watch him steal yokels blind.
So this is the play I intend to turn into a Gothic novel. It's got almost all the requisite elements in there already--which is why it's so entertaining. Even those that it doesn't have will be easy enough to slip in. I'm very much looking forward to writing it. As for the play, it's difficult to read, which is probably why it isn't more popular, but it's funny and interesting. It doesn't develop the same emotional attachment that the Tragedies do, but it easily stands toe-to-toe with any of the Comedies.
4.5 stars
Showing posts with label n. vivian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label n. vivian. Show all posts
Monday, March 9, 2009
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Review #1 of the make-up posts
Beasts by Joyce Carol Oates, reviewed by N. Vivian on March 7, 2009
Words are like bullets.
In writing, I have serious flaws that I'm working on fixing. Specifically, I write too much--this is why drabbles are so good for me. Saying everything I want to say in 100 words...I can rarely contain myself to 100 words exactly, but I do (generally) try to keep them below 1000. It is hard to write a story in 1000 words or less--at least for me. You read my reviews, you know how verbose I can be; I make a three hour tale out of a limerick. I give the set-up, then the punchline, and then go out on to explain the joke. It's not that I don't trust my audience--it's more that I don't trust myself to have told it properly. It's for that same reason that I abuse italics and adverbs. This way I know everyone will understand what I mean.
I am convinced this is one of the reasons I'm not good at poetry.
If words are like bullets, then my words are like buck shot--lots at once, that scatter so when they hit, they don't do much damage or penetrate very deeply.
Joyce Carol Oates, on the other hand, her words are jacketed hollow-tipped bullets shot from a high-powered sniper rifle. Not only does she not bother explaining the joke, half the time she'll give you maybe half the punchline (or none at all), and demand that you figure it out your own damn self. I almost felt as if the book were a race, and I had to run to keep up with her--her prose is so quick and fast that you have to pay attention or it slips right by you. Much the main character, Gillian, I felt lost and disoriented while reading, as if there was so much more going on, hovering at the edges of my senses.
I'm not saying that the book was incomprehensible. Far from it--the narrative is clear, with enough short, declarative sentences to make Hemingway proud. Though the book itself isn't completely linear, but it is symmetrical. It starts in 2001, goes to January of 1976, then to September of '75 up through Jan of '76 again, before ending back in 2001. Jaunts in time aside, it's still very easy to follow, thematically. the "lost and disoriented" feeling comes from the denseness of the text. It's not dense like Judith Butler (her prose is a mortar, nigh-overwhelming when you're hit with it), in fact, it's dense in an opposite kinda way. Butler uses big words and long sentences to get her words out point across; her text is dense because she is describing a complicated theory in a very complicated way. Neither Oates's words nor her meaning are very complicated; however, she uses few words to get that point across. Butler exercises your brain trying to figure out what she means by deciphering what she says. Oates exercises your brain by making it work to put in all the meaning that is implied by her words that she doesn't come out and say. I'm not saying she leaves stuff out, but...reading novels, we're used to having all the information we need spoon-fed to us. There's tons of description and dialogue and interaction and we have more than we actually need to know. I'm not saying that's a bad thing--I'm all over lush descriptions and the like. But it takes a mental shift to go from all that to Beasts, where we're given exactly what we need and no more. My brain had to work to give me everything she wasn't saying.
I'm tempted to give a few more analogies (one about painting, the other about food), but I won't. Either you understand me or you don't. Either way, you should read the book.
Anyway, Beasts primarily takes place on a small college campus in the Berkshires during the Fall semester of 1975. We only get brief sketches of the characters (most only described with a single aspect), but they still feel alive and vibrant. Gillian is the girl we all know--the one who does well at school to please the frigid and demanding parents at home; uptight, nervous, and repressed. Dominique is sultry, Marisa has ash-blond hair, Cassie is emotionally fragile. The main triangle of characters is Gillian, Andre, and Dorcas, so they get the most description, but even with only a few words and bits of dialogue, we know enough about them.
Gillian, a junior, is madly in love with her poetry professor Andre Harrow, just like every other student on campus. He and his scultpress wife, Dorcas, have this whole 1960's bohemian mystique about them. Her sculptures are weird and engrossing and scary and bizarre. His writing workshops can make people cry, but a single word of praise can make a semester of pain vanish in a blink. According to rumor, they occasionally take a student to be one of Dorcas's 'interns' for a bit, and that girl is swept up in their lavish and exciting lifestyle. But no one ever says for sure what happens there, or who's a part of it.
Unsurprisingly, it's a world of sex, drugs, and power. I half-expected this book to contain a supernatural element; that Andre and Dorcas use these girls to fuel crazy-ass blood rituals and call forth demons or something. I'm more disturbed that it doesn't--Andre and Dorcas just seem to enjoy using, manipulating, and exploiting young women. They probably don't even see it that way--even as they dope the young woman and take pictures of them, and send those pictures to various X-rated magazines. These girls are trauma victims and don't even know it--no, instead they go back ask for more until they spiral out of control. They're abused, emotionally kicked and petted, until they can't tell which way is up. Attention, any attention is good. I almost felt claustrophobic while reading it--there's so little but it means so much, and everything is just so...fraught.
Reading this book is like watching the heroine (the smart one, the one you don't hate) go down the basement stairs in a horror movie. You're screaming "Don't do it!" but the pull is inexorable.
I will never write like Joyce Carol Oates. She's a master artist, and the closest I could come would be weak imitation. I don't really want to write like her (I am a lush description kinda girl myself), but it's humbling to read her work anyway. She polishes each word till it gleams and then uses them to cut. It's beautiful, the way really good poetry is beautiful. This book is profoundly disturbing, and only gets moreso the more you think on it. She writes like an iceberg, and only after you put the book down and have time for reflection can you get to most of what's hidden beneath.
5 stars
In books I trust,
N. Vivian
Words are like bullets.
In writing, I have serious flaws that I'm working on fixing. Specifically, I write too much--this is why drabbles are so good for me. Saying everything I want to say in 100 words...I can rarely contain myself to 100 words exactly, but I do (generally) try to keep them below 1000. It is hard to write a story in 1000 words or less--at least for me. You read my reviews, you know how verbose I can be; I make a three hour tale out of a limerick. I give the set-up, then the punchline, and then go out on to explain the joke. It's not that I don't trust my audience--it's more that I don't trust myself to have told it properly. It's for that same reason that I abuse italics and adverbs. This way I know everyone will understand what I mean.
I am convinced this is one of the reasons I'm not good at poetry.
If words are like bullets, then my words are like buck shot--lots at once, that scatter so when they hit, they don't do much damage or penetrate very deeply.
Joyce Carol Oates, on the other hand, her words are jacketed hollow-tipped bullets shot from a high-powered sniper rifle. Not only does she not bother explaining the joke, half the time she'll give you maybe half the punchline (or none at all), and demand that you figure it out your own damn self. I almost felt as if the book were a race, and I had to run to keep up with her--her prose is so quick and fast that you have to pay attention or it slips right by you. Much the main character, Gillian, I felt lost and disoriented while reading, as if there was so much more going on, hovering at the edges of my senses.
I'm not saying that the book was incomprehensible. Far from it--the narrative is clear, with enough short, declarative sentences to make Hemingway proud. Though the book itself isn't completely linear, but it is symmetrical. It starts in 2001, goes to January of 1976, then to September of '75 up through Jan of '76 again, before ending back in 2001. Jaunts in time aside, it's still very easy to follow, thematically. the "lost and disoriented" feeling comes from the denseness of the text. It's not dense like Judith Butler (her prose is a mortar, nigh-overwhelming when you're hit with it), in fact, it's dense in an opposite kinda way. Butler uses big words and long sentences to get her words out point across; her text is dense because she is describing a complicated theory in a very complicated way. Neither Oates's words nor her meaning are very complicated; however, she uses few words to get that point across. Butler exercises your brain trying to figure out what she means by deciphering what she says. Oates exercises your brain by making it work to put in all the meaning that is implied by her words that she doesn't come out and say. I'm not saying she leaves stuff out, but...reading novels, we're used to having all the information we need spoon-fed to us. There's tons of description and dialogue and interaction and we have more than we actually need to know. I'm not saying that's a bad thing--I'm all over lush descriptions and the like. But it takes a mental shift to go from all that to Beasts, where we're given exactly what we need and no more. My brain had to work to give me everything she wasn't saying.
I'm tempted to give a few more analogies (one about painting, the other about food), but I won't. Either you understand me or you don't. Either way, you should read the book.
Anyway, Beasts primarily takes place on a small college campus in the Berkshires during the Fall semester of 1975. We only get brief sketches of the characters (most only described with a single aspect), but they still feel alive and vibrant. Gillian is the girl we all know--the one who does well at school to please the frigid and demanding parents at home; uptight, nervous, and repressed. Dominique is sultry, Marisa has ash-blond hair, Cassie is emotionally fragile. The main triangle of characters is Gillian, Andre, and Dorcas, so they get the most description, but even with only a few words and bits of dialogue, we know enough about them.
Gillian, a junior, is madly in love with her poetry professor Andre Harrow, just like every other student on campus. He and his scultpress wife, Dorcas, have this whole 1960's bohemian mystique about them. Her sculptures are weird and engrossing and scary and bizarre. His writing workshops can make people cry, but a single word of praise can make a semester of pain vanish in a blink. According to rumor, they occasionally take a student to be one of Dorcas's 'interns' for a bit, and that girl is swept up in their lavish and exciting lifestyle. But no one ever says for sure what happens there, or who's a part of it.
Unsurprisingly, it's a world of sex, drugs, and power. I half-expected this book to contain a supernatural element; that Andre and Dorcas use these girls to fuel crazy-ass blood rituals and call forth demons or something. I'm more disturbed that it doesn't--Andre and Dorcas just seem to enjoy using, manipulating, and exploiting young women. They probably don't even see it that way--even as they dope the young woman and take pictures of them, and send those pictures to various X-rated magazines. These girls are trauma victims and don't even know it--no, instead they go back ask for more until they spiral out of control. They're abused, emotionally kicked and petted, until they can't tell which way is up. Attention, any attention is good. I almost felt claustrophobic while reading it--there's so little but it means so much, and everything is just so...fraught.
Reading this book is like watching the heroine (the smart one, the one you don't hate) go down the basement stairs in a horror movie. You're screaming "Don't do it!" but the pull is inexorable.
I will never write like Joyce Carol Oates. She's a master artist, and the closest I could come would be weak imitation. I don't really want to write like her (I am a lush description kinda girl myself), but it's humbling to read her work anyway. She polishes each word till it gleams and then uses them to cut. It's beautiful, the way really good poetry is beautiful. This book is profoundly disturbing, and only gets moreso the more you think on it. She writes like an iceberg, and only after you put the book down and have time for reflection can you get to most of what's hidden beneath.
5 stars
In books I trust,
N. Vivian
Friday, March 6, 2009
Welcome to N. Vivian Appreciation Month!
Sorry folks for forgetting to update this as I should. I know, I know...your lives just aren't complete without my book reviews. I shall try to do better in the future. To make up for my lack of reviewing here, I'll post a review every day for the next few days.
Since it's on everyone's mind, I'll add my review of Watchmen as well. Warning: some spoilers.
The Watchmen by Alan Moore and David Gibbons, reviewed by N. Vivian on 3/6/2009.
Watchmen is a comic about superheroes, but it isn't a superhero comic. Instead, it is Moore's playing with the genre to the point of awesome. Picture New York City 1980's; a New York where people really did (at one point) dress up in wacky costumes and fight crime. A New York (and a world) where superhero comics don't exist, because who wants to read comics about real life (people read pirate comics instead)? Of all the costumed crimefighters, only one is actually parahuman: Dr. Manhattan. Created by a scientific experiment gone horribly wrong (betcha never heard that origin story before, eh?), Dr. Manhattan exists outside of time, and can change the physical world on an atomic level simply by will and thought alone. America is using him to hold the pinko commie bastards Russia in check ("the superman exists and he is American"), leading America to behave like a spoiled brat who is always threatening to take his ball home if other kids countries don't play by their rules, and who keeps talking about his big brother who'll beat everyone up if they don't do what he says.
Yeah, I know, it's an America that defies belief.
The comic opens with the murder of Edward Blake, the alter ego of the superhero "The Comedian," one of the two superheroes who works with government sanction. The other, is, of course, Dr. Manhattan; the rest were forced into retirement back in '77 after the passing of the "Keene Act" which basically just said no to vigilantism. The one costumed crimefighter (a more accurate term [though I use them pretty much interchangeably] than superhero since none of them have powers save Dr. Manhattan) who did not go gentle into that good night is Rorschach. Rorschach is, by my thinking anyway, the most interesting character in Watchmen. First of all, his moral code is awesome. On the one hand, he truly believes that the ends justify the means; breaking the fingers of a small time crook to get information is completely okay, but at the same time, he freaks out on another character for having an unlicensed gun. Rorschach never compromises; his entire outlook is purely black or white, right or wrong. If something is wrong, it must be persecuted to the fullest extent (and not necessarily by the law). Like his mask, which is a never-ending swirl of black and white, his views never mix into a neutral gray. Much like Dr. Manhattan and Ozymandias, Rorschach never questions his actions or his motives--he is action, pure and simple. In order to find a missing girl, he tortures fifteen people for information; upon finding she has been murdered, dismembered, and fed to dogs, he kills the dogs, handcuffs the kidnapper, sets the house on fire, then hands the man a hacksaw and says, "Shouldn't bother trying to saw through handcuffs. Never make it in time." Brutal, man, but chillingly effective. His response to the Keene Act? To murder a serial rapist and dump his body in front of the police station, with a sign that says "Never!" pinned to the corpse.
Rorschach believes himself to be Rorschach; he refers to his mask as his 'face' and sees his alter-ego (who is not revealed for several chapters, but you can pretty much guess his identity right off) as the not-real him. This psychological break occurs during the the kidnapping scene, though it builds on several decades of fucked-uppedness: "It was Kovacs who said 'mother' then, muffled under Latex. It was Kovacs who closed his eyes. It was Rorschach who opened them again....Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose...It is not God who kills the children. Not Fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It's us. Only us....Was reborn then, free to scrawl own design on this morally blank world. Was Rorschach." Seriously, his psychology is amazing, and that's before we get into the crazy that was his childhood.
The whole comic book is a deconstructionist text (if there's one thing I can honestly say I've learned at Clark, it's lit. theory. Still don't like it, but at least I [sorta] understand it now), looking at the worth and value of superheroes. First, it looks at the kind of people who would become costumed crimefighters in a modern, fairly realistic setting, at the dark psychology behind such a drive and motivation. It's one thing for Superman and Spiderman to do so--they've got special powers that creates within them a special responsibility. Batman, however? Plain, mortal Batman? Screwed up in the head. It warns of the danger of having a weapon that we place all our hopes and power in because when it goes, or becomes obsolete, we have nothing left and our enemies swarm around us and our newfound (or even newly perceived) weakness. Lastly, this is also a cautionary tale; Moore is warning us about putting all our hopes and trust into powerful beings, either political or paranormal. By doing so, we absolve ourselves of all responsibility and agency. First we give them the power to do as they please, and remove from ourselves the power to protest against them, and then we follow them down into moral decay since, freed from any notion of personal responsibility, we feel empowered to do as we please.
Oh, and let me talk about Tales of the Black Freighter for a moment, Watchmen's comic within a comic. The reader gets to read the story "Marooned," during several points of the comic, as the events in that story coincide with the events in the actual story. "Marooned" is about a sailor who washes up on an island (along with the bodies of his dead comrades) after the Black Freighter (the eponymous ship of evil from the comic) attacks his ship. The sailor realizes that the Black Freighter will be sailing towards his undefended home, and will kill everyone in the town, including the sailor's own family. In order to make it home before the ship, the sailor starts doing the most insane things, slowly stripping away him humanity (and sanity!) in the process. He makes a raft out of the gas-bloated corpses of his friends, catches and eats a raw sea gull, kills and eats a shark that has been drawn to the smell of his raft, and then, once he gets home, begins murdering his friends and neighbors who he assumes are collaborating with the pirate...who never came.
This theme of sacrificing everything to achieve victory has a certain central importance in the main-comic, as you can see if you read the comic yourself (I'm pretty sure that if I spoil the ending, I will be placed on the hitlist of the Geek Mafia). It's not exactly like a Pyrrhic victory--it's more of a deliberate setting out to do insane and horrible things, in order to bring about a "happy ending."
Like Watchmen itself, Tales of the Black Freighter are aspects of the theater of the absurd. They illustrate that life is inherently without meaning, parodying reality, or using seeming absurdity to show the real absurdity that is everyday life (like a comic book about superheroes to hold up a mirror to Reagan-era politics, for example...) It's all about the tragicomedy, yo.
This is a very thought-provoking comic. On the one hand, the story is interesting, the characters multi-faceted, and the gimmicks (comic-within-a-comic, the text afterwords from the Watchmen universe, etc) both enrich and illuminate the story. On the other hand, this comic is a veritable treasure-trove of literary criticism. Two of my students last semester are writing their major papers about Watchmen; the first is looking at Watchmen and comparing it to the Theater of the Absurd, and the second is reading this and V for Vendetta and discussing the concept of 'masking.' It's not a surprise that Watchmen is considered a 'literary' graphic novel. You can peel this text apart like an onion.
4.75 stars
Since it's on everyone's mind, I'll add my review of Watchmen as well. Warning: some spoilers.
The Watchmen by Alan Moore and David Gibbons, reviewed by N. Vivian on 3/6/2009.
Watchmen is a comic about superheroes, but it isn't a superhero comic. Instead, it is Moore's playing with the genre to the point of awesome. Picture New York City 1980's; a New York where people really did (at one point) dress up in wacky costumes and fight crime. A New York (and a world) where superhero comics don't exist, because who wants to read comics about real life (people read pirate comics instead)? Of all the costumed crimefighters, only one is actually parahuman: Dr. Manhattan. Created by a scientific experiment gone horribly wrong (betcha never heard that origin story before, eh?), Dr. Manhattan exists outside of time, and can change the physical world on an atomic level simply by will and thought alone. America is using him to hold the pinko commie bastards Russia in check ("the superman exists and he is American"), leading America to behave like a spoiled brat who is always threatening to take his ball home if other kids countries don't play by their rules, and who keeps talking about his big brother who'll beat everyone up if they don't do what he says.
Yeah, I know, it's an America that defies belief.
The comic opens with the murder of Edward Blake, the alter ego of the superhero "The Comedian," one of the two superheroes who works with government sanction. The other, is, of course, Dr. Manhattan; the rest were forced into retirement back in '77 after the passing of the "Keene Act" which basically just said no to vigilantism. The one costumed crimefighter (a more accurate term [though I use them pretty much interchangeably] than superhero since none of them have powers save Dr. Manhattan) who did not go gentle into that good night is Rorschach. Rorschach is, by my thinking anyway, the most interesting character in Watchmen. First of all, his moral code is awesome. On the one hand, he truly believes that the ends justify the means; breaking the fingers of a small time crook to get information is completely okay, but at the same time, he freaks out on another character for having an unlicensed gun. Rorschach never compromises; his entire outlook is purely black or white, right or wrong. If something is wrong, it must be persecuted to the fullest extent (and not necessarily by the law). Like his mask, which is a never-ending swirl of black and white, his views never mix into a neutral gray. Much like Dr. Manhattan and Ozymandias, Rorschach never questions his actions or his motives--he is action, pure and simple. In order to find a missing girl, he tortures fifteen people for information; upon finding she has been murdered, dismembered, and fed to dogs, he kills the dogs, handcuffs the kidnapper, sets the house on fire, then hands the man a hacksaw and says, "Shouldn't bother trying to saw through handcuffs. Never make it in time." Brutal, man, but chillingly effective. His response to the Keene Act? To murder a serial rapist and dump his body in front of the police station, with a sign that says "Never!" pinned to the corpse.
Rorschach believes himself to be Rorschach; he refers to his mask as his 'face' and sees his alter-ego (who is not revealed for several chapters, but you can pretty much guess his identity right off) as the not-real him. This psychological break occurs during the the kidnapping scene, though it builds on several decades of fucked-uppedness: "It was Kovacs who said 'mother' then, muffled under Latex. It was Kovacs who closed his eyes. It was Rorschach who opened them again....Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose...It is not God who kills the children. Not Fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It's us. Only us....Was reborn then, free to scrawl own design on this morally blank world. Was Rorschach." Seriously, his psychology is amazing, and that's before we get into the crazy that was his childhood.
The whole comic book is a deconstructionist text (if there's one thing I can honestly say I've learned at Clark, it's lit. theory. Still don't like it, but at least I [sorta] understand it now), looking at the worth and value of superheroes. First, it looks at the kind of people who would become costumed crimefighters in a modern, fairly realistic setting, at the dark psychology behind such a drive and motivation. It's one thing for Superman and Spiderman to do so--they've got special powers that creates within them a special responsibility. Batman, however? Plain, mortal Batman? Screwed up in the head. It warns of the danger of having a weapon that we place all our hopes and power in because when it goes, or becomes obsolete, we have nothing left and our enemies swarm around us and our newfound (or even newly perceived) weakness. Lastly, this is also a cautionary tale; Moore is warning us about putting all our hopes and trust into powerful beings, either political or paranormal. By doing so, we absolve ourselves of all responsibility and agency. First we give them the power to do as they please, and remove from ourselves the power to protest against them, and then we follow them down into moral decay since, freed from any notion of personal responsibility, we feel empowered to do as we please.
Oh, and let me talk about Tales of the Black Freighter for a moment, Watchmen's comic within a comic. The reader gets to read the story "Marooned," during several points of the comic, as the events in that story coincide with the events in the actual story. "Marooned" is about a sailor who washes up on an island (along with the bodies of his dead comrades) after the Black Freighter (the eponymous ship of evil from the comic) attacks his ship. The sailor realizes that the Black Freighter will be sailing towards his undefended home, and will kill everyone in the town, including the sailor's own family. In order to make it home before the ship, the sailor starts doing the most insane things, slowly stripping away him humanity (and sanity!) in the process. He makes a raft out of the gas-bloated corpses of his friends, catches and eats a raw sea gull, kills and eats a shark that has been drawn to the smell of his raft, and then, once he gets home, begins murdering his friends and neighbors who he assumes are collaborating with the pirate...who never came.
This theme of sacrificing everything to achieve victory has a certain central importance in the main-comic, as you can see if you read the comic yourself (I'm pretty sure that if I spoil the ending, I will be placed on the hitlist of the Geek Mafia). It's not exactly like a Pyrrhic victory--it's more of a deliberate setting out to do insane and horrible things, in order to bring about a "happy ending."
Like Watchmen itself, Tales of the Black Freighter are aspects of the theater of the absurd. They illustrate that life is inherently without meaning, parodying reality, or using seeming absurdity to show the real absurdity that is everyday life (like a comic book about superheroes to hold up a mirror to Reagan-era politics, for example...) It's all about the tragicomedy, yo.
This is a very thought-provoking comic. On the one hand, the story is interesting, the characters multi-faceted, and the gimmicks (comic-within-a-comic, the text afterwords from the Watchmen universe, etc) both enrich and illuminate the story. On the other hand, this comic is a veritable treasure-trove of literary criticism. Two of my students last semester are writing their major papers about Watchmen; the first is looking at Watchmen and comparing it to the Theater of the Absurd, and the second is reading this and V for Vendetta and discussing the concept of 'masking.' It's not a surprise that Watchmen is considered a 'literary' graphic novel. You can peel this text apart like an onion.
4.75 stars
Friday, January 23, 2009
Once upon a very twisted time,
Grimm, Fantasy Flight Games, reviewed by N. Vivian on January 23, 2009.
The story of how I found this game is pretty cute, so I'll relate it briefly. Around Christmas, I was poking around on a friend's Amazon wishlist, when I noticed that many of his books looked very familiar. The little sneak had trolled my wishlist and added a bunch of my books to his own list. I know--the nerve! So, in retaliation, I trolled his wishlist, saw Grimm and decided that I wanted it bad enough to buy it right there. For me, of course, cause I am greedy like that.
Well, I find it cute.
Anyway, moving on, Grimm is a gaming system wherein the players play children (usually 8-12) who are stuck in the land of Grimm's fairy tales. Only these tales are twisted. Well, okay, most of the Grimm's fairy tales are twisted, but these are extra twisted, with a side of crazy. The lands are ruled over by the Rotten King--Humpty Dumpty, who, after his tragic fall, went bad. Reeeeeeeeeeeally bad--as in, the sulfuric miasma that seeps through the cracks in his shell are bad enough, they melted the former king into a puddle of yellow goo. He is married to Cinderella, who killed her previous prince for getting too grabby (she has issues about being touched by men. Dumpty prudently keeps his hands to himself), and anywhere Cinderella goes, she is preceded by her stepmother and stepsisters, who scrub the floor before she walks on it. Also, she's a crazy dominatrix-wannabe, and she carries a cat-o-nine and forces her stepmom and sisters to wear red-hot iron shoes.
Character creation is easy: the first thing you do is pick your archetype (bully, dreamer, jock, nerd, ordinary kid, outcast, and popular kid) which comes with it's own advantages and disadvantages. Each archetype starts out with its own stats, and you have 8 additional points to spend increasing those stats. Stats are divided into three groups: Core, Playground, and Study. Core attributes are just that--attributes you can't really learn, part of your core persona. These are Cool, Imagination, Luck, Muscle, and Pluck, and cost three points to increase by one level, or, in game parlance, one grade. Playground traits are the easy stuff you pick up, probably by the time you start school: Hide, Scamper, Scrap, Seek, and Throw, which all cost two points to upgrade. Lastly, the Study traits are specialized knowledge skills that are picked up through school and activities; all children are at least 1st grade in each Core and Playground traits, but since Study traits represent skills that kids can choose to learn or not, not every child will have a grade in every study trait. The study traits are 4-H, Book Learning, Boy/Girl Scouts, Country Club, Gaming, Home Ec, Industrial Arts, and Juvie. Study traits cost one point to increase. After all the points are apportioned, players chose a few talents (special abilities), then flesh out the character and work with the narrator to figure out how each kid got into the Grimm Lands. In all, it's very quick and easy; no dice, no advanced math, no list of abilities that spans pages. Once a player knows what archetype she wants to play, character creation can probably be done in a less than ten minutes.
Grimm isn't really held up on rules. Unlike some other RPGs I could mention, there aren't pages of rules for movement or distance or attacks of opportunity. My copy of the game is NOT the d20 version (yay!), so for conflict resolution, the player rolls a d6, measuring the grade of the appropriate stat against a level determined by the GM or another character in the case of contested rolls. 2-5 means the character performed at their stat's grade level. A roll of 1 means the character performs one grade below his level, and rolls again: another 1 is another grade lower and another roll, a 2-6 means the player stops rolling. A roll of 6 means the character performs one grade above his level and rolls again; as with a 1, a roll of 6 means a higher grade level and yet another roll, 1-5 means the player stops rolling. there are ways to adjust the numbers, of course, but that's the basic system in a nutshell. Quick, simple, and easy. I like it--it seems like a good system to introduce newbies to, as it focuses less on mechanics and more on the role-playing aspect. I'm fond of it, since it fits in well with my style of gaming; I'm mostly cinematic, which means I could care less about the system in favor of descriptions and how cool an action is.
Another benefit of having basic mechanics is that it leaves more room in the text to explore the Grimm Lands. Of the 200+ pages of the book, less than half are devoted to rules. For example, the way magic works is explained on pages 73-78. Pages 79-88, however, explain the different magical styles of artificers, enchanters, witches, etc. Fighting is covered on pages 52-54. It's great! The, from page 108 on, it's all descriptions of the people, places, and things you'll run into while exploring the Grimm Lands. Of course, you can make up your own stuff, but they include so much richly detailed and intricately textured material, you don't have to if you don't want to.
My favorite tidbit is about Rapunzel. Rapunzel left long ago, living with her husband and children. The tower she lived in missed her very much and was very lonely, so when a colony of spiders moved in, it was happy to see them. Their webs remind the tower of her hair, and they're company at least. One day, however, Rapunzel came back to thank the tower for taking care of her for all those years. The tower was napping when she went in, and so there was no protection for her against the thousands of spiders who attacked her, killed her, and ate her tasty insides. Soon after their meal, the Mama Spider realized just who they'd eaten, and to keep the tower from finding out, she has hundreds of her children climb into Rapunzel's skin, and walk around, pretending to be her. That's right, in Grimm, you can run into a spider-filled Rapunzel skin-puppet. I did say this game was twisted, yes?
Of course, Rapunzel is barely scratching the surface. Grimm contains a bunch of locales and people for the players to be traumatized by. It's not very kid-friendly, either. The game isn't necessarily lethal for the players (though I have no doubt it could be), but it's just one mind-bending, heart-shattering experience after another. In fact, there's a mechanic for Despair in the game, because that can be a real problem for characters in long-term campaigns.
Now, I must be honest and admit I have not played the game, so there may be flaws inherent to the system that I have not yet found. But the book itself is beautiful (lots of lovely and eerie illustrations), the text is funny even as it explains stuff like rules as stats and whatnot (it references the famous card game Sorcery: The Assemblage, for example), and the book itself is packed with details. A lot of thought and creativity went into the creation of this world and it shows. The text is very evocative; it really captures the spirit and feeling of the old fairy tales; this isn't a good place for children and it shows.
4 stars. (I may come back and edit this for playability once I've had a chance to play in (or run) a game.)
As for other books I've read thus far this year, as requested by Steve:
Mistress of Mellyn, Victoria Holt (reviewed)
Grimm, Fantasy Flight Games (reviewed)
Wizards: Magical Tales from the Masters of Modern Fantasy, a collection of short stories edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois
How to Ditch Your Fairy, Justine Larbalestier
Zofloya, or The Moor, Charlotte Dacre
Austenland, Shannon Hale
Nobilis: The Game of Sovereign Powers, R. Sean Borgstrom
The story of how I found this game is pretty cute, so I'll relate it briefly. Around Christmas, I was poking around on a friend's Amazon wishlist, when I noticed that many of his books looked very familiar. The little sneak had trolled my wishlist and added a bunch of my books to his own list. I know--the nerve! So, in retaliation, I trolled his wishlist, saw Grimm and decided that I wanted it bad enough to buy it right there. For me, of course, cause I am greedy like that.
Well, I find it cute.
Anyway, moving on, Grimm is a gaming system wherein the players play children (usually 8-12) who are stuck in the land of Grimm's fairy tales. Only these tales are twisted. Well, okay, most of the Grimm's fairy tales are twisted, but these are extra twisted, with a side of crazy. The lands are ruled over by the Rotten King--Humpty Dumpty, who, after his tragic fall, went bad. Reeeeeeeeeeeally bad--as in, the sulfuric miasma that seeps through the cracks in his shell are bad enough, they melted the former king into a puddle of yellow goo. He is married to Cinderella, who killed her previous prince for getting too grabby (she has issues about being touched by men. Dumpty prudently keeps his hands to himself), and anywhere Cinderella goes, she is preceded by her stepmother and stepsisters, who scrub the floor before she walks on it. Also, she's a crazy dominatrix-wannabe, and she carries a cat-o-nine and forces her stepmom and sisters to wear red-hot iron shoes.
Character creation is easy: the first thing you do is pick your archetype (bully, dreamer, jock, nerd, ordinary kid, outcast, and popular kid) which comes with it's own advantages and disadvantages. Each archetype starts out with its own stats, and you have 8 additional points to spend increasing those stats. Stats are divided into three groups: Core, Playground, and Study. Core attributes are just that--attributes you can't really learn, part of your core persona. These are Cool, Imagination, Luck, Muscle, and Pluck, and cost three points to increase by one level, or, in game parlance, one grade. Playground traits are the easy stuff you pick up, probably by the time you start school: Hide, Scamper, Scrap, Seek, and Throw, which all cost two points to upgrade. Lastly, the Study traits are specialized knowledge skills that are picked up through school and activities; all children are at least 1st grade in each Core and Playground traits, but since Study traits represent skills that kids can choose to learn or not, not every child will have a grade in every study trait. The study traits are 4-H, Book Learning, Boy/Girl Scouts, Country Club, Gaming, Home Ec, Industrial Arts, and Juvie. Study traits cost one point to increase. After all the points are apportioned, players chose a few talents (special abilities), then flesh out the character and work with the narrator to figure out how each kid got into the Grimm Lands. In all, it's very quick and easy; no dice, no advanced math, no list of abilities that spans pages. Once a player knows what archetype she wants to play, character creation can probably be done in a less than ten minutes.
Grimm isn't really held up on rules. Unlike some other RPGs I could mention, there aren't pages of rules for movement or distance or attacks of opportunity. My copy of the game is NOT the d20 version (yay!), so for conflict resolution, the player rolls a d6, measuring the grade of the appropriate stat against a level determined by the GM or another character in the case of contested rolls. 2-5 means the character performed at their stat's grade level. A roll of 1 means the character performs one grade below his level, and rolls again: another 1 is another grade lower and another roll, a 2-6 means the player stops rolling. A roll of 6 means the character performs one grade above his level and rolls again; as with a 1, a roll of 6 means a higher grade level and yet another roll, 1-5 means the player stops rolling. there are ways to adjust the numbers, of course, but that's the basic system in a nutshell. Quick, simple, and easy. I like it--it seems like a good system to introduce newbies to, as it focuses less on mechanics and more on the role-playing aspect. I'm fond of it, since it fits in well with my style of gaming; I'm mostly cinematic, which means I could care less about the system in favor of descriptions and how cool an action is.
Another benefit of having basic mechanics is that it leaves more room in the text to explore the Grimm Lands. Of the 200+ pages of the book, less than half are devoted to rules. For example, the way magic works is explained on pages 73-78. Pages 79-88, however, explain the different magical styles of artificers, enchanters, witches, etc. Fighting is covered on pages 52-54. It's great! The, from page 108 on, it's all descriptions of the people, places, and things you'll run into while exploring the Grimm Lands. Of course, you can make up your own stuff, but they include so much richly detailed and intricately textured material, you don't have to if you don't want to.
My favorite tidbit is about Rapunzel. Rapunzel left long ago, living with her husband and children. The tower she lived in missed her very much and was very lonely, so when a colony of spiders moved in, it was happy to see them. Their webs remind the tower of her hair, and they're company at least. One day, however, Rapunzel came back to thank the tower for taking care of her for all those years. The tower was napping when she went in, and so there was no protection for her against the thousands of spiders who attacked her, killed her, and ate her tasty insides. Soon after their meal, the Mama Spider realized just who they'd eaten, and to keep the tower from finding out, she has hundreds of her children climb into Rapunzel's skin, and walk around, pretending to be her. That's right, in Grimm, you can run into a spider-filled Rapunzel skin-puppet. I did say this game was twisted, yes?
Of course, Rapunzel is barely scratching the surface. Grimm contains a bunch of locales and people for the players to be traumatized by. It's not very kid-friendly, either. The game isn't necessarily lethal for the players (though I have no doubt it could be), but it's just one mind-bending, heart-shattering experience after another. In fact, there's a mechanic for Despair in the game, because that can be a real problem for characters in long-term campaigns.
Now, I must be honest and admit I have not played the game, so there may be flaws inherent to the system that I have not yet found. But the book itself is beautiful (lots of lovely and eerie illustrations), the text is funny even as it explains stuff like rules as stats and whatnot (it references the famous card game Sorcery: The Assemblage, for example), and the book itself is packed with details. A lot of thought and creativity went into the creation of this world and it shows. The text is very evocative; it really captures the spirit and feeling of the old fairy tales; this isn't a good place for children and it shows.
4 stars. (I may come back and edit this for playability once I've had a chance to play in (or run) a game.)
As for other books I've read thus far this year, as requested by Steve:
Mistress of Mellyn, Victoria Holt (reviewed)
Grimm, Fantasy Flight Games (reviewed)
Wizards: Magical Tales from the Masters of Modern Fantasy, a collection of short stories edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois
How to Ditch Your Fairy, Justine Larbalestier
Zofloya, or The Moor, Charlotte Dacre
Austenland, Shannon Hale
Nobilis: The Game of Sovereign Powers, R. Sean Borgstrom
Monday, January 5, 2009
Happy New Year!
Welcome to 2009 people. Change is already on the way, like Galadriel, I feel it in the earth. It does help knowing that we only have 15 more days until the inauguration. I am inexpressably happy about this.
Anyway, on to the first review of the year, yes?
Mistress of Mellyn by Victoria Holt, reviewed by N. Vivian on January 5th.
Mistress of Mellyn is a modern Gothic romance, which means it had a ton of the traditional Gothic tropes, but focused more on the romance aspect, and lost most of the horror/terror aspect. For example, there's nothing particularly scary in the book; no black veils shrouding worm-covered "corpses," no keening voices, no blood-stained clothing, not even a lustful monk. There's a manor on top of a hill overlooking the sea, but the house itself is in perfectly good condition, kept neat and spotless, with nary a cobweb or scuttling rat in sight. The heroine hears odd voices that almost sound like people calling for the previous mistress's name, but she's informed (without any prompting) that it's just the sound of the sea. The master is brooding, but not menacing, the servants aren't stand-offish--they're only too willing to gossip; no dark and dangerous secrets in this house. Hell, the protagonist doesn't even end up lost in the woods, or the moors, or in the sea caves! To be fair, she never visited the sea caves, sea caves weren't even mentioned in the movel, but she COULD HAVE. And the protagonist, the gentlewoman in poverty who chooses to become a governess? Does she swoon even once? No!
The problem is, I don't know enough about Victoria Holt as an author to see if she's serious, or just messing around. If it's parody, then it's more subtle than Northanger Abbey, (which, to be fair, was as subtle as a brick to the face. Austen was having a lot of fun making fun of the genre). The book is well-written enough for me to assume that Holt knew the tropes and was deliberately subverting them, but there is always the possibility that she knew the bare bones of the genre, and added just enough window-dressing to get the novel called 'Gothic.'
Regardless, I really enjoyed this book. It was predictable in the way that most formulaic genres are, but I don't mind that. In fact, I really enjoy those; if the plot is a formula, then the author has to spend more time making the characters real. Well, the good authors do, anyway. Martha Leigh, is a genteelly impoverished woman. She has two options: marry or become a governess. The marriage option didn't really pan out, so it was off to Mellyn to teach. She doesn't really like this option; not because she'd prefer to be married, but because she's prickly and prideful. I can get behind that.
The Master of Mellyn is a widower, of course, his wife had run away with their philandering neighbor, but they had died in a horrible train wreck. The neighbor's body was identified, but the wife was burned too badly for recognition, the neighbor's sister was only able to identify her by the brooch she was wearing. It seems a bitter end to a troubled, stormy, loveless marriage, leaving the not-so-grieving widower free to look elsewhere for love--and all the village gossips about his (probable) mistress, the wealthy, beautiful, and ambitious Lady Treslyn. Could there possibly be something more to his wife's death than meets the eye?
There were some aspects of the book that I really liked. First of all, while Martha does become a little creepily obsessed with finding out what happened to Alice, the first wife, she never lets herself get stupid about it. Sure, there's a time when she thinks she hears Alice speaking (in a dream, conveniently telling her that she should do what exactly the thing that she wants to do), but other than that, Martha stays pretty sensible. She doesn't believe that Alice is trying to contact her from beyond the grave, she doesn't think Alice is haunting the manor house, and she never lets her imagination run away from her (I'm looking at you, Catherine Morland, and you too, Emily St. Aubert). I like to see a practical, no-nonsense woman, especially after the dingbats of the eighteenth century. This may have been more impressive had there been more suggestions of supernatural spookiness, but I still liked it. I also liked how that practicality carried over to her interactions with her employer and their flirtatious neighbor (younger brother of philandering neighbor)--she pretty much remembers her dignity through the entire thing. There are times when she uses her station as a weapon, which disconcerted them highly.
I liked that the villain was a female. Often, at least in the older Gothics, if there was a woman involved, she was two-dimensional. At best, she's a side-kick/helping hand, assisting the villain because she's desperately in love with him and is either willing to give him the heroine so he'll be happy, or working to remove the rival. Either way, she's of secondary importance: acting as a jailer, or delivering a tray of poisoned food. In this book, it's all her, beginning to end. I knew who it was immediately, but I will admit, I misread her motive entirely. That impressed me a lot. The murderess wasn't particularly bright (once she tried to kill the heroine by shoving a boulder down a hill) or amazingly creative, but she was a pretty convincing actress; the protagonists have no idea that she's a killer, and it's not because they are stupid or suffering from the "blind-to-the-obvious-because-the-plot-demands-it" syndrome.
What impressed me the most was the few moments of indecision I had towards the end of the book. There's all sorts of drama and impending doom which may implicate the employer in something shady, and, out of no where, he proposes to Martha, offering her his undying love. I honestly debated for a few minutes whether he was being genuine, or if he was using their to engagement to deflect attention away from him and his activities. Part of my uncertainty came from a lack of visible signs of growing attachment on his behalf. Well, they were there, but, again, it was very blatant: "LOOK HERE IS THE HERO FALLING IN LOVE WITH THE GOVERNESS! HE TOUCHED HER HAND, IT'S SIGNIFICANT!" There was nothing unique about his falling in love, might be the best way to describe it, and their 'courtship' was very bare-bones. Still, to give credit where credit is due, the rest of the uncertainty comes from Holt's setting up that expectation; she deliberately handed out two common tropes and said: "C'mon, guess which one I picked."
As for flaws, I have only two real ones. The first is the ending--the heroine is rescued from the obligatory horrible experience, and then the story stops. Not ends, just sorta...stops. The last real chapter ends with her rescue as she's delirious from shock and fear. What comes next is an afterword, where she relates the details (sparingly) from the future, when she is a great-grandmother. We don't even get to see the lovers' reunion, she's just like, "Yup, I was rescued, villain was punished, I married guy, we lived happily ever after. Wanna hear how many children I had?" I don't see the reason for that. I wanted to see it, not have it related almost second-hand. If I wanted that, I'd've asked a friend how the book ended. Bad form, Victoria, bad form.
My other critique is more pervasive in the novel, but didn't bother me as much. I felt as if the narration was a bit, well, bare-boned, like the courtship. Characters were somewhere between two-dimensional and decently developed, there were descriptions of her surroundings, but I still don't have a real idea of what things looked like, and since it was a first person novel, there was a conflict between showing versus telling sometimes. Holt occupies a very odd space: her books are Gothic (but not), her characters are developed (but not), her narration is descriptive (but not). It almost reads like a very detailed outline--but not. This would possibly be less irritating if I didn't have higher expectations of her--but I've READ Jean Plaidy (both nom de plumes for Eleanor Hibbert) and so I expect lush detail and rich narration.
Of course, this was originally published in 1960, so this might just be an example of her very early work, before she hit her stride. Or, she might just have spent more time and attention on her histories, as they are in a more respected genre.
So, the bottom line? I had a lot of fun with this book. It was interesting and engaging, I like the characters, I never had a moment when I was tempted to fling the book into a wall, and only rarely had to yell at the characters because they were being stupid. True the suspense-to-romance ratio was very low, but I think that's just a characteristic of the 'new' Gothic novel. I know I spent a lot of time pointing out flaws of the novel, but only because it was a good read, and so there were things that jumped out at me that would make it better. If I didn't really like it, I'd have less to say other than, "Well, this was crap. Nothing specific to critique because it was all one uniform lump of suck." Fun book, would read again--I'll probably add another few books of hers to my shelf; books I actually have to spend money on.
Anyway, on to the first review of the year, yes?
Mistress of Mellyn by Victoria Holt, reviewed by N. Vivian on January 5th.
Mistress of Mellyn is a modern Gothic romance, which means it had a ton of the traditional Gothic tropes, but focused more on the romance aspect, and lost most of the horror/terror aspect. For example, there's nothing particularly scary in the book; no black veils shrouding worm-covered "corpses," no keening voices, no blood-stained clothing, not even a lustful monk. There's a manor on top of a hill overlooking the sea, but the house itself is in perfectly good condition, kept neat and spotless, with nary a cobweb or scuttling rat in sight. The heroine hears odd voices that almost sound like people calling for the previous mistress's name, but she's informed (without any prompting) that it's just the sound of the sea. The master is brooding, but not menacing, the servants aren't stand-offish--they're only too willing to gossip; no dark and dangerous secrets in this house. Hell, the protagonist doesn't even end up lost in the woods, or the moors, or in the sea caves! To be fair, she never visited the sea caves, sea caves weren't even mentioned in the movel, but she COULD HAVE. And the protagonist, the gentlewoman in poverty who chooses to become a governess? Does she swoon even once? No!
The problem is, I don't know enough about Victoria Holt as an author to see if she's serious, or just messing around. If it's parody, then it's more subtle than Northanger Abbey, (which, to be fair, was as subtle as a brick to the face. Austen was having a lot of fun making fun of the genre). The book is well-written enough for me to assume that Holt knew the tropes and was deliberately subverting them, but there is always the possibility that she knew the bare bones of the genre, and added just enough window-dressing to get the novel called 'Gothic.'
Regardless, I really enjoyed this book. It was predictable in the way that most formulaic genres are, but I don't mind that. In fact, I really enjoy those; if the plot is a formula, then the author has to spend more time making the characters real. Well, the good authors do, anyway. Martha Leigh, is a genteelly impoverished woman. She has two options: marry or become a governess. The marriage option didn't really pan out, so it was off to Mellyn to teach. She doesn't really like this option; not because she'd prefer to be married, but because she's prickly and prideful. I can get behind that.
The Master of Mellyn is a widower, of course, his wife had run away with their philandering neighbor, but they had died in a horrible train wreck. The neighbor's body was identified, but the wife was burned too badly for recognition, the neighbor's sister was only able to identify her by the brooch she was wearing. It seems a bitter end to a troubled, stormy, loveless marriage, leaving the not-so-grieving widower free to look elsewhere for love--and all the village gossips about his (probable) mistress, the wealthy, beautiful, and ambitious Lady Treslyn. Could there possibly be something more to his wife's death than meets the eye?
There were some aspects of the book that I really liked. First of all, while Martha does become a little creepily obsessed with finding out what happened to Alice, the first wife, she never lets herself get stupid about it. Sure, there's a time when she thinks she hears Alice speaking (in a dream, conveniently telling her that she should do what exactly the thing that she wants to do), but other than that, Martha stays pretty sensible. She doesn't believe that Alice is trying to contact her from beyond the grave, she doesn't think Alice is haunting the manor house, and she never lets her imagination run away from her (I'm looking at you, Catherine Morland, and you too, Emily St. Aubert). I like to see a practical, no-nonsense woman, especially after the dingbats of the eighteenth century. This may have been more impressive had there been more suggestions of supernatural spookiness, but I still liked it. I also liked how that practicality carried over to her interactions with her employer and their flirtatious neighbor (younger brother of philandering neighbor)--she pretty much remembers her dignity through the entire thing. There are times when she uses her station as a weapon, which disconcerted them highly.
I liked that the villain was a female. Often, at least in the older Gothics, if there was a woman involved, she was two-dimensional. At best, she's a side-kick/helping hand, assisting the villain because she's desperately in love with him and is either willing to give him the heroine so he'll be happy, or working to remove the rival. Either way, she's of secondary importance: acting as a jailer, or delivering a tray of poisoned food. In this book, it's all her, beginning to end. I knew who it was immediately, but I will admit, I misread her motive entirely. That impressed me a lot. The murderess wasn't particularly bright (once she tried to kill the heroine by shoving a boulder down a hill) or amazingly creative, but she was a pretty convincing actress; the protagonists have no idea that she's a killer, and it's not because they are stupid or suffering from the "blind-to-the-obvious-because-the-plot-demands-it" syndrome.
What impressed me the most was the few moments of indecision I had towards the end of the book. There's all sorts of drama and impending doom which may implicate the employer in something shady, and, out of no where, he proposes to Martha, offering her his undying love. I honestly debated for a few minutes whether he was being genuine, or if he was using their to engagement to deflect attention away from him and his activities. Part of my uncertainty came from a lack of visible signs of growing attachment on his behalf. Well, they were there, but, again, it was very blatant: "LOOK HERE IS THE HERO FALLING IN LOVE WITH THE GOVERNESS! HE TOUCHED HER HAND, IT'S SIGNIFICANT!" There was nothing unique about his falling in love, might be the best way to describe it, and their 'courtship' was very bare-bones. Still, to give credit where credit is due, the rest of the uncertainty comes from Holt's setting up that expectation; she deliberately handed out two common tropes and said: "C'mon, guess which one I picked."
As for flaws, I have only two real ones. The first is the ending--the heroine is rescued from the obligatory horrible experience, and then the story stops. Not ends, just sorta...stops. The last real chapter ends with her rescue as she's delirious from shock and fear. What comes next is an afterword, where she relates the details (sparingly) from the future, when she is a great-grandmother. We don't even get to see the lovers' reunion, she's just like, "Yup, I was rescued, villain was punished, I married guy, we lived happily ever after. Wanna hear how many children I had?" I don't see the reason for that. I wanted to see it, not have it related almost second-hand. If I wanted that, I'd've asked a friend how the book ended. Bad form, Victoria, bad form.
My other critique is more pervasive in the novel, but didn't bother me as much. I felt as if the narration was a bit, well, bare-boned, like the courtship. Characters were somewhere between two-dimensional and decently developed, there were descriptions of her surroundings, but I still don't have a real idea of what things looked like, and since it was a first person novel, there was a conflict between showing versus telling sometimes. Holt occupies a very odd space: her books are Gothic (but not), her characters are developed (but not), her narration is descriptive (but not). It almost reads like a very detailed outline--but not. This would possibly be less irritating if I didn't have higher expectations of her--but I've READ Jean Plaidy (both nom de plumes for Eleanor Hibbert) and so I expect lush detail and rich narration.
Of course, this was originally published in 1960, so this might just be an example of her very early work, before she hit her stride. Or, she might just have spent more time and attention on her histories, as they are in a more respected genre.
So, the bottom line? I had a lot of fun with this book. It was interesting and engaging, I like the characters, I never had a moment when I was tempted to fling the book into a wall, and only rarely had to yell at the characters because they were being stupid. True the suspense-to-romance ratio was very low, but I think that's just a characteristic of the 'new' Gothic novel. I know I spent a lot of time pointing out flaws of the novel, but only because it was a good read, and so there were things that jumped out at me that would make it better. If I didn't really like it, I'd have less to say other than, "Well, this was crap. Nothing specific to critique because it was all one uniform lump of suck." Fun book, would read again--I'll probably add another few books of hers to my shelf; books I actually have to spend money on.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Let me tell you a story about a priest...
Sorry about not updating as often as I should. As Steve said, the end of the semester is approaching with the speed (and metaphorical mass) of a freight train. Still, I'd hate for it to be said that I was too busy with schoolwork to blog--I know that you all wait breathlessly to read my posts. So, without further ado:
The Monk by Matthew Lewis, reviewed by N. Vivian on December 11, 2008
So, I read this for my thesis--which, by the way, may just possibly be the coolest thesis ever. Anyway...The Monk. This is the grandaddy of all (masculine) Gothic novels (the grandmommy of the feminine ones is Anne Radcliffe's The Mystery of Udolpho which I have not read but it's on my to-read list). It's incredibly melodramatic, with rape, murder, and incest; the language is overblown, with random capitalizations everywhere; and it really showcases England's hate-on for the Continent, particularly the Catholic church. That being said, it is a wonderful book, even (in the words of a good friend of mine) if all the problems could be solved by masturbation--although, technically, Ambrosio does masturbate in the beginning--to a picture of the Virgin, no less! Of course, that is heavily encoded in the text, since to come right out and say it would have been oh! so scandalous. (Cause the rest of the text wasn't, y'know?)
So The Monk focuses on a man named Ambrosio (guess his profession!) who is famed for his holiness. Except his holiness comes from growing up in the monastery, where he is free from temptation, (*gasp* Abandoned there by Persons Unknown! Could this possibly be plot relevant?! Indeed it Can!) and his pride in his reputation--though, Lewis does go out of his way to point out Ambrosio would have been a hero if he hadn't been raised Catholic and had the monks suppress all his virtues (intellectual curiosity and bravery being the two most important) and highlight all his flaws (pride, again). Anyway, he's got this weird subtextually-homoerotic relationship with a young novice names Rosario who turns out to be a woman, Matilda, who's been masquerading as a young man to get close to Ambrosio. She loves him, but it is a pure, intellectual love. She reveals herself to him, he demands she leave the monastery, she cries, but agrees, only begging him to give her a flower before she goes. He complies, but is Bitten by a Serpent in the Garden rosebush (here there be symbolism, yo) and falls ill. Later, he recovers to find out that 'Rosario' has healed him, somehow, but now lies dying by the same venom. He goes to 'Rosario's' room, and finds out that Matilda can heal herself, but won't since she is a danger to him. She has Discovered, during her illness, that her Love is not Pure, but indeed is Carnal, and she wishes to Die so as not to tempt him into Sin. Cause, if she were to survive, she'd want to have the mad sexings. Caught between guilt, gratitude, and raging hormones, Ambrosio agrees, and his downfall is basically sealed. He spirals down the path of destruction, leading to said rape, murder, and incest.
There are several other subplots, including a nun who has been walled up and is found clutching the rotting remains of her Dead Babe, but I can't tell you everything. You should all go read it yourselves anyway.
This reading through, I was focusing on Matilda's aspect of the Vice figure. Y'see, she is not actually a woman. She is an instrument of Satan's, who, upon seeing that Ambrosio's holiness is based solely in his pride and not in any real virtue, decides that he will claim Ambrosio's soul for his own. So he sends Matilda, and it is her hand that guides Ambrosio ever-down the path of damnation. She introduces him to sex, she convinces him that raping Antonia is okay (at first, Ambrosio respects Antonia's innocence and refuses to harm her, but he gets over that pretty damn quickly), and, in the end, she is the one who leads to him selling his soul to Lucifer. She's one industrious girl! It's really funny to read the book and watch her play him over and over and over again. Also, Lewis does a good job of showing how, though Matilda provides him the temptations and the methods, it is Ambrosio's will which guides each footfall down the dark path. Matilda is also one of the few female Vices we ever see, and, unsurprisingly, the most potent weapon in her arsenal is sex. man, I kinda can't wait to write my thesis!
Anyway, the ending of the book is awesome. I'm gonna tell it now cause it's just too great. After murdering Antonia's mother, Ambrosio gives Antonia the same poison Juliet takes (there must be an apothecary that specializes in giving this drug to random men of the cloth), and she 'dies.' He has her body brought to the sepulcher, and waits for her to wake up. When she does, he rapes her, and, due to other events, ends up killing her. He and Matilda are caught, turned over to the Inquisition, and are going to be burned in the auto-de-fe. However, the night before their burning, Matilda breaks into his room, gowned and coiffed to the nines, and is all like, "I'm outta here. See ya, sucka!" He demands to know how she's escaping and she says, "I've sold my soul to Satan--and you can, too!" and tosses him the Idiot's Guide to Selling Your Soul and leaves. Ambrosio hems and haws, but when he hears the Inquisition coming down the hall to his room, he summons Satan, who swears that, in exchange for Ambrosio's soul, he'll get him out of the cell. Ambrosio agrees as the doorknob to his room rattles, and he and Satan are whisked away. Ambrosio's kind of waiting for the wealth and luxury Matilda had received, but he and Satan arrive on the side of this cliff, where Satan then says "Ha ha! The Inquisition was actually on their way to pardon you! I got your soul cause you're dumb! Now you're mine forever!" He reveals a few other choice secrets, then throws Ambrosio off the cliff, where he lives in broken misery for a few days, and then drowns in a flood.
The End.
Seriously, this may be one of the best books ever. It caused quite a scandal in its time, and, even by today's standards, is still a bit racy. The sex is 'explicit' not the same way sex is explicit in books nowadays, where every thrust is cataloged, but it does take place on-screen, just in euphemism. Still, I think even people who aren't 19th century literature buffs will enjoy it. The language is modern, save for some odd spellings and the Bizarre Capitalization, and there's more melodrama than an entire afternoon of soap operas. An absolute must for anyone who likes laughing at other people.
5 stars
The Monk by Matthew Lewis, reviewed by N. Vivian on December 11, 2008
So, I read this for my thesis--which, by the way, may just possibly be the coolest thesis ever. Anyway...The Monk. This is the grandaddy of all (masculine) Gothic novels (the grandmommy of the feminine ones is Anne Radcliffe's The Mystery of Udolpho which I have not read but it's on my to-read list). It's incredibly melodramatic, with rape, murder, and incest; the language is overblown, with random capitalizations everywhere; and it really showcases England's hate-on for the Continent, particularly the Catholic church. That being said, it is a wonderful book, even (in the words of a good friend of mine) if all the problems could be solved by masturbation--although, technically, Ambrosio does masturbate in the beginning--to a picture of the Virgin, no less! Of course, that is heavily encoded in the text, since to come right out and say it would have been oh! so scandalous. (Cause the rest of the text wasn't, y'know?)
So The Monk focuses on a man named Ambrosio (guess his profession!) who is famed for his holiness. Except his holiness comes from growing up in the monastery, where he is free from temptation, (*gasp* Abandoned there by Persons Unknown! Could this possibly be plot relevant?! Indeed it Can!) and his pride in his reputation--though, Lewis does go out of his way to point out Ambrosio would have been a hero if he hadn't been raised Catholic and had the monks suppress all his virtues (intellectual curiosity and bravery being the two most important) and highlight all his flaws (pride, again). Anyway, he's got this weird subtextually-homoerotic relationship with a young novice names Rosario who turns out to be a woman, Matilda, who's been masquerading as a young man to get close to Ambrosio. She loves him, but it is a pure, intellectual love. She reveals herself to him, he demands she leave the monastery, she cries, but agrees, only begging him to give her a flower before she goes. He complies, but is Bitten by a Serpent in the Garden rosebush (here there be symbolism, yo) and falls ill. Later, he recovers to find out that 'Rosario' has healed him, somehow, but now lies dying by the same venom. He goes to 'Rosario's' room, and finds out that Matilda can heal herself, but won't since she is a danger to him. She has Discovered, during her illness, that her Love is not Pure, but indeed is Carnal, and she wishes to Die so as not to tempt him into Sin. Cause, if she were to survive, she'd want to have the mad sexings. Caught between guilt, gratitude, and raging hormones, Ambrosio agrees, and his downfall is basically sealed. He spirals down the path of destruction, leading to said rape, murder, and incest.
There are several other subplots, including a nun who has been walled up and is found clutching the rotting remains of her Dead Babe, but I can't tell you everything. You should all go read it yourselves anyway.
This reading through, I was focusing on Matilda's aspect of the Vice figure. Y'see, she is not actually a woman. She is an instrument of Satan's, who, upon seeing that Ambrosio's holiness is based solely in his pride and not in any real virtue, decides that he will claim Ambrosio's soul for his own. So he sends Matilda, and it is her hand that guides Ambrosio ever-down the path of damnation. She introduces him to sex, she convinces him that raping Antonia is okay (at first, Ambrosio respects Antonia's innocence and refuses to harm her, but he gets over that pretty damn quickly), and, in the end, she is the one who leads to him selling his soul to Lucifer. She's one industrious girl! It's really funny to read the book and watch her play him over and over and over again. Also, Lewis does a good job of showing how, though Matilda provides him the temptations and the methods, it is Ambrosio's will which guides each footfall down the dark path. Matilda is also one of the few female Vices we ever see, and, unsurprisingly, the most potent weapon in her arsenal is sex. man, I kinda can't wait to write my thesis!
Anyway, the ending of the book is awesome. I'm gonna tell it now cause it's just too great. After murdering Antonia's mother, Ambrosio gives Antonia the same poison Juliet takes (there must be an apothecary that specializes in giving this drug to random men of the cloth), and she 'dies.' He has her body brought to the sepulcher, and waits for her to wake up. When she does, he rapes her, and, due to other events, ends up killing her. He and Matilda are caught, turned over to the Inquisition, and are going to be burned in the auto-de-fe. However, the night before their burning, Matilda breaks into his room, gowned and coiffed to the nines, and is all like, "I'm outta here. See ya, sucka!" He demands to know how she's escaping and she says, "I've sold my soul to Satan--and you can, too!" and tosses him the Idiot's Guide to Selling Your Soul and leaves. Ambrosio hems and haws, but when he hears the Inquisition coming down the hall to his room, he summons Satan, who swears that, in exchange for Ambrosio's soul, he'll get him out of the cell. Ambrosio agrees as the doorknob to his room rattles, and he and Satan are whisked away. Ambrosio's kind of waiting for the wealth and luxury Matilda had received, but he and Satan arrive on the side of this cliff, where Satan then says "Ha ha! The Inquisition was actually on their way to pardon you! I got your soul cause you're dumb! Now you're mine forever!" He reveals a few other choice secrets, then throws Ambrosio off the cliff, where he lives in broken misery for a few days, and then drowns in a flood.
The End.
Seriously, this may be one of the best books ever. It caused quite a scandal in its time, and, even by today's standards, is still a bit racy. The sex is 'explicit' not the same way sex is explicit in books nowadays, where every thrust is cataloged, but it does take place on-screen, just in euphemism. Still, I think even people who aren't 19th century literature buffs will enjoy it. The language is modern, save for some odd spellings and the Bizarre Capitalization, and there's more melodrama than an entire afternoon of soap operas. An absolute must for anyone who likes laughing at other people.
5 stars
Monday, November 17, 2008
Elves in Elizabethan England
And Less Than Kind, by Mercedes Lackey and Roberta Gellis. Reviewed by N. Vivian on November 17th, 2008.
I have a friend who is obsessed with all things Star Wars. This often brings her heartbreak, as she will fork over money for a movie just to be slapped in the face by George Lucas and his incompetence over and over and over again. It is a very unhealthy relationship, and one I understand completely. You see, I find myself going back to Mercedes Lackey, thinking "Surely--surely this time she means it when she says she's sorry and she loves me." Fortunately, when she collaborates with other authors, she is more inclined to behave herself. I don't know if she doesn't like to hit me in public, or the other person keeps her on her toes, but, for the most part, I can trust that books she's written with others are going to be decent (even fun!) reads.
I was not terribly disappointed by this book. Faint praise, but praise nonetheless.
Kind of a grim way to start, but if you've ever talked to me about her works, you'll see that this often isn't the case. Often, I am quite disappointed, hence the unpolitic comparison to domestic violence above. This is the fourth and last book in the "Elves in Elizabethan England" series. There is the Bright Court and the Dark Court, and both of them are dependent on humans for magic. The Bright Court gets its power from creativity, happiness, and love, while the Dark Court feeds on fear, despair, and hatred. Seers from both courts have been watching the possible futures of England, and they see one girl who will bring in a time of abundance for the Bright, and another who will bring in one for the Dark--Elizabeth and Mary, respectively. The series revolves around a few chosen heroes of the Bright Court who are tasked with protecting Elizabeth as she grows from both the agents of the Dark Court and the dangerous waters of politics. Their goal is to put her on the throne, while the Dark Court is trying to keep her off of it at any cost.
This book starts with Edward's death, and is mostly a chronicle of Mary's reign as queen, while Elizabeth impatiently waits..well, waits for Mary to die. The book talks a lot about how England was quite displeased with Mary's marriage to Philip and the reintroduction of Catholicism; there are many chapters that discuss the history of England interspersed with chapters of Elizabeth visiting Underhill and hanging out with the Sidhe.
The book is about 600 pages long, and yet, nothing happens. The whole plot is pretty much "wait for Mary to die." Elizabeth is a consummate politician and knows that she can't display even the least hint of how much she wants to become queen. She knows that England is failing under Mary's rule, and the populace is becoming more and more bitter as the burnings for heresy increase, but the only place she can discuss that is Underhill. Many, many pages are devoted to Elizabeth being frustrated at her inability to do anything to help England, and a bit torn up about her desire to be queen. She wants it so badly she can taste it, but that means she's really hoping her sister dies. Kind of an awkward place to be, emotionally. Of course, Mary makes it easier by being fairly horrid--although, in her defense (and this is mentioned in the books), the husband she adores barely tolerates her, her childhood was fairly cruel and bleak and much of that was because of Elizabeth's mother, and she truly believes she's doing the right thing for England. But, that aside, much of the book is Elizabeth on Earth marking time till she is queen and trying to elude all the plots against her, and the rest is her Underhill, making love to Denoriel and generally having a good time.
That's not to say the book doesn't have its fair share of darkness, too. There are the burnings of heretics, several murders, an elf who is kidnapping mortal children for slaves, and an "Evil" (always captialized) that attaches itself to Mary's womb and basically has to be aborted by the good guys. That was a pretty interesting narrative choice. Of course, the elf who ended up doing the actual abortion is all broken up about it, but in her defense she loves children and it messed her up to know that an innocent fetus had to be sacrificed to save the world from the Evil. Fortunately, at the end of the book, Oberon waves his hand at her and she gets over it.
For all the there really isn't a plot, I still enjoyed the book. It's one part historical fiction, one part fantasy novel, and one part romance. I like Elizabeth and that time of England's history, so reading about Bess wandering around Hatfield, trying to keep herself untouched by the treason everyone else is determined to drag her into is fun. Add the layer of "said treason is part of a scheme hatched by Dark Sidhe" and it just gets better. It's purely flufftastic; there's no underlying theme or message, nothing to really make someone pause and think. It's just bouncy and happy.
3 stars
In books I trust,
N. Vivian
P.S. Go to Borders either today, 11/17 or tomorrow 11/18 and take advantage of their "Buy one book, get a second book 1/2 off!"
I have a friend who is obsessed with all things Star Wars. This often brings her heartbreak, as she will fork over money for a movie just to be slapped in the face by George Lucas and his incompetence over and over and over again. It is a very unhealthy relationship, and one I understand completely. You see, I find myself going back to Mercedes Lackey, thinking "Surely--surely this time she means it when she says she's sorry and she loves me." Fortunately, when she collaborates with other authors, she is more inclined to behave herself. I don't know if she doesn't like to hit me in public, or the other person keeps her on her toes, but, for the most part, I can trust that books she's written with others are going to be decent (even fun!) reads.
I was not terribly disappointed by this book. Faint praise, but praise nonetheless.
Kind of a grim way to start, but if you've ever talked to me about her works, you'll see that this often isn't the case. Often, I am quite disappointed, hence the unpolitic comparison to domestic violence above. This is the fourth and last book in the "Elves in Elizabethan England" series. There is the Bright Court and the Dark Court, and both of them are dependent on humans for magic. The Bright Court gets its power from creativity, happiness, and love, while the Dark Court feeds on fear, despair, and hatred. Seers from both courts have been watching the possible futures of England, and they see one girl who will bring in a time of abundance for the Bright, and another who will bring in one for the Dark--Elizabeth and Mary, respectively. The series revolves around a few chosen heroes of the Bright Court who are tasked with protecting Elizabeth as she grows from both the agents of the Dark Court and the dangerous waters of politics. Their goal is to put her on the throne, while the Dark Court is trying to keep her off of it at any cost.
This book starts with Edward's death, and is mostly a chronicle of Mary's reign as queen, while Elizabeth impatiently waits..well, waits for Mary to die. The book talks a lot about how England was quite displeased with Mary's marriage to Philip and the reintroduction of Catholicism; there are many chapters that discuss the history of England interspersed with chapters of Elizabeth visiting Underhill and hanging out with the Sidhe.
The book is about 600 pages long, and yet, nothing happens. The whole plot is pretty much "wait for Mary to die." Elizabeth is a consummate politician and knows that she can't display even the least hint of how much she wants to become queen. She knows that England is failing under Mary's rule, and the populace is becoming more and more bitter as the burnings for heresy increase, but the only place she can discuss that is Underhill. Many, many pages are devoted to Elizabeth being frustrated at her inability to do anything to help England, and a bit torn up about her desire to be queen. She wants it so badly she can taste it, but that means she's really hoping her sister dies. Kind of an awkward place to be, emotionally. Of course, Mary makes it easier by being fairly horrid--although, in her defense (and this is mentioned in the books), the husband she adores barely tolerates her, her childhood was fairly cruel and bleak and much of that was because of Elizabeth's mother, and she truly believes she's doing the right thing for England. But, that aside, much of the book is Elizabeth on Earth marking time till she is queen and trying to elude all the plots against her, and the rest is her Underhill, making love to Denoriel and generally having a good time.
That's not to say the book doesn't have its fair share of darkness, too. There are the burnings of heretics, several murders, an elf who is kidnapping mortal children for slaves, and an "Evil" (always captialized) that attaches itself to Mary's womb and basically has to be aborted by the good guys. That was a pretty interesting narrative choice. Of course, the elf who ended up doing the actual abortion is all broken up about it, but in her defense she loves children and it messed her up to know that an innocent fetus had to be sacrificed to save the world from the Evil. Fortunately, at the end of the book, Oberon waves his hand at her and she gets over it.
For all the there really isn't a plot, I still enjoyed the book. It's one part historical fiction, one part fantasy novel, and one part romance. I like Elizabeth and that time of England's history, so reading about Bess wandering around Hatfield, trying to keep herself untouched by the treason everyone else is determined to drag her into is fun. Add the layer of "said treason is part of a scheme hatched by Dark Sidhe" and it just gets better. It's purely flufftastic; there's no underlying theme or message, nothing to really make someone pause and think. It's just bouncy and happy.
3 stars
In books I trust,
N. Vivian
P.S. Go to Borders either today, 11/17 or tomorrow 11/18 and take advantage of their "Buy one book, get a second book 1/2 off!"
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Wizards and demons and London, oh my
The Amulet of Samarkand , by Jonathan Stroud. Reviewed by N. Vivian on October 23rd, 2008.
This is a great book. I picked it up, started laughing, and didn't really stop until I was done. The basic premise of the story is that in magical London, there are two basic social strata: magicians and everyone else. Magicians are The Guys In Charge; they run the government, have all the money, and can bully regular folks at will. They get their power by summoning various ranks of demons (afrits, djinnis, marids, etc), binding them, and them sending them out to do stuff. In his years, Bartimaeus (the djinni that gives his name to the trilogy) has built the walls of Prague, Karnak, and Jericho, the Parthenon, the Stone Bridge, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa (which would have stayed straight if the architects had only listened to him). These demons can do lots of other things, too. They're your basic magical slaves; the greater demon you can summon and bind, the better the stuff you can make him do.
Though the book is about a young Magician's apprentice named Nathaniel, Bartimaeus is the narrator. Thank God, because Nathaniel is completely unlikeable (deliberately so), and Bartimaeus is funny, arrogant, witty, and a delightful braggart. His sections of the book generally have amusing footnotes, where he further explains how awesome he is or makes snide remarks about magicians:
"1 Doubtless, [behind Shields] was where the British magicians were skulking, at a safe distance from the action. My Czech masters were just the same. In war, magicians always like to reserve the most dangerous jobs for themselves, such as fearlessly guarding large quantities of food and drink a few miles behind the lines." (This is actually from the second book, because the first is downstairs and I don't feel like going to get it).
For all that their magic comes from demons, magicians are giant assholes to them. Basically, Bartimaeus and his ilk are their slaves, and the magicians treat them as such: nasty punishments, peremptory demands, general disdain for the demons' thoughts, feelings, or anything else. This is much the same way that they treat the common folk, except they generally don't bother talking to the commoners. After all, other than provide the wizards with food, clothing, service, and all that stuff, the commoners can't actually do anything important for them. Important is defined as magical, by the way.
Magicians are not allowed to have children (leads to dynasties and nasty things like that), so children who are born with magic are taken from their families and given to another magician to raise. Nathaniel is given to Mr. Underwood, an assistant minister of Internal Affairs.. Nathaniel ends up resenting his master for a variety of reasons, and takes to learning advanced magic by himself, up in his room where no one knows what he's doing. Underwood, a mediocre magician himself, is under the impression that Nathaniel's barely passable, which Nathaniel uses to his advantage. Anywho, the book opens with Nathaniel summoning Bartimaeus and sending him to fetch the Amulet of Samarkand from another magician, Simon Lovelace, who humiliated Nathaniel the year before. Simon had received the amulet under highly suspicious circumstances, and Nathaniel wants it so he can claim vengeance on Simon.
Nathaniel, as I said above, is an unpleasant character. He has absorbed a lot of the traits that the magicians have, including contempt for commoners, contempt for his demons, a tendency to favor the "If I double cross you first, you can't double cross me at all" approach to dealing with Bartimaeus, and all the arrogance that a privileged, genius child develops when he knows he can run rings around his keepers. Balancing that out, he does have a loyal streak, he's brave (and by brave, I pretty much mean foolhardy), and he is really smart. I'm hoping that he's such a jerk in the first book so we can see some real character growth from him down the line. He learns in this book that not all magicians are good guys (the climax of the novel comes when he and Bartimaeus have to stop Lovelace from unleashing some nasty demon-thing that'll eat all the other magicians in Britain), and I'm hoping in the next one, he'll learn that people without magic are really people, too.
So, yes, it was a book I enjoyed immensely. I immediately went out and picked up the second book, which I've barely begun. Bartimaeus is snarky and has a dim view of humanity (and rightly so) that he shares with the reader at every given opportunity. Nathaniel is unlikable and does stupid things, but I can forgive him this because it is clearly setting him up for character growth later. And since he's not the actually narrator for most of the book, I don't get frustrated with his stupidity the way I normally would--it just gave me an extra reason to like Bartimaeus, who also thinks the kid is an asshat.
I'm also really looking forward to the movie release. Religious groups are going to explode. This is a boy who summons demons to get magic. And they thought Harry Potter's mangled Latin was bad...
4.5 stars
In books I trust,
N. Vivian
This is a great book. I picked it up, started laughing, and didn't really stop until I was done. The basic premise of the story is that in magical London, there are two basic social strata: magicians and everyone else. Magicians are The Guys In Charge; they run the government, have all the money, and can bully regular folks at will. They get their power by summoning various ranks of demons (afrits, djinnis, marids, etc), binding them, and them sending them out to do stuff. In his years, Bartimaeus (the djinni that gives his name to the trilogy) has built the walls of Prague, Karnak, and Jericho, the Parthenon, the Stone Bridge, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa (which would have stayed straight if the architects had only listened to him). These demons can do lots of other things, too. They're your basic magical slaves; the greater demon you can summon and bind, the better the stuff you can make him do.
Though the book is about a young Magician's apprentice named Nathaniel, Bartimaeus is the narrator. Thank God, because Nathaniel is completely unlikeable (deliberately so), and Bartimaeus is funny, arrogant, witty, and a delightful braggart. His sections of the book generally have amusing footnotes, where he further explains how awesome he is or makes snide remarks about magicians:
"1 Doubtless, [behind Shields] was where the British magicians were skulking, at a safe distance from the action. My Czech masters were just the same. In war, magicians always like to reserve the most dangerous jobs for themselves, such as fearlessly guarding large quantities of food and drink a few miles behind the lines." (This is actually from the second book, because the first is downstairs and I don't feel like going to get it).
For all that their magic comes from demons, magicians are giant assholes to them. Basically, Bartimaeus and his ilk are their slaves, and the magicians treat them as such: nasty punishments, peremptory demands, general disdain for the demons' thoughts, feelings, or anything else. This is much the same way that they treat the common folk, except they generally don't bother talking to the commoners. After all, other than provide the wizards with food, clothing, service, and all that stuff, the commoners can't actually do anything important for them. Important is defined as magical, by the way.
Magicians are not allowed to have children (leads to dynasties and nasty things like that), so children who are born with magic are taken from their families and given to another magician to raise. Nathaniel is given to Mr. Underwood, an assistant minister of Internal Affairs.. Nathaniel ends up resenting his master for a variety of reasons, and takes to learning advanced magic by himself, up in his room where no one knows what he's doing. Underwood, a mediocre magician himself, is under the impression that Nathaniel's barely passable, which Nathaniel uses to his advantage. Anywho, the book opens with Nathaniel summoning Bartimaeus and sending him to fetch the Amulet of Samarkand from another magician, Simon Lovelace, who humiliated Nathaniel the year before. Simon had received the amulet under highly suspicious circumstances, and Nathaniel wants it so he can claim vengeance on Simon.
Nathaniel, as I said above, is an unpleasant character. He has absorbed a lot of the traits that the magicians have, including contempt for commoners, contempt for his demons, a tendency to favor the "If I double cross you first, you can't double cross me at all" approach to dealing with Bartimaeus, and all the arrogance that a privileged, genius child develops when he knows he can run rings around his keepers. Balancing that out, he does have a loyal streak, he's brave (and by brave, I pretty much mean foolhardy), and he is really smart. I'm hoping that he's such a jerk in the first book so we can see some real character growth from him down the line. He learns in this book that not all magicians are good guys (the climax of the novel comes when he and Bartimaeus have to stop Lovelace from unleashing some nasty demon-thing that'll eat all the other magicians in Britain), and I'm hoping in the next one, he'll learn that people without magic are really people, too.
So, yes, it was a book I enjoyed immensely. I immediately went out and picked up the second book, which I've barely begun. Bartimaeus is snarky and has a dim view of humanity (and rightly so) that he shares with the reader at every given opportunity. Nathaniel is unlikable and does stupid things, but I can forgive him this because it is clearly setting him up for character growth later. And since he's not the actually narrator for most of the book, I don't get frustrated with his stupidity the way I normally would--it just gave me an extra reason to like Bartimaeus, who also thinks the kid is an asshat.
I'm also really looking forward to the movie release. Religious groups are going to explode. This is a boy who summons demons to get magic. And they thought Harry Potter's mangled Latin was bad...
4.5 stars
In books I trust,
N. Vivian
Monday, October 13, 2008
Two reviews for the price of one!
Two books up for review since the first review is so short, and because I missed a review last week.
The Curious Case of the Misplaced Modifier: How To Solve The Mysteries Of Weak Writingby Bonnie Trenga. Reviewed by N. Vivian on October 13th, 2008.
Cute is really the best word for this book. Each chapter opens with a 'case write-up' that uses a ton of whatever grammatical error the chapter itself is covering. They cover the usual suspects (ha ha, I am witty, no?): passive voice, misplaced modifiers, unclear pronoun usage, excessively long sentences, etc etc. The book does a decent job explaining what each error is, and giving some generic ways to fix it. Then the chapter ends with a basic recap, and tell you to go back and read the original write-up to find and fix all of the mistakes. Nothing amazing or particularly insightful, but still pretty useful. What I felt was lacking from the book was an explanation of why someone would make that mistake. I mean,the passive voice is used I use the passive voice a lot. Why? I'm not entirely certain. Giving some insight into the 'why's' of the mistake would mean that I could potentially stop myself from making that mistake by recognizing the danger signs.
2.5 Stars
Aerie by Mercedes Lackey. Reviewed by N. Vivian on October 13th, 2008.
Oy. First, let me tell you, Misty was my favorite author for years. From sixth grade till at least partway through high school, she was heads and shoulders above any other author I could name. It's true that I didn't go to the extreme of buying each book as soon as it was published, but hardcovers are expensive and I was just a kid. Still, the minute one came out in paperback, they were clutched in my hot little hand. Staying up till four in the morning, eating Sweet Tarts, reading the newest Valdemar book, and reveling in the early morning silence of my house...that was the closest approximation to heaven I could fathom for a long time.
That being said, Aerie was a disappointment in a long string of disappointments. It is still better than that fiasco she calls One Good Knight, but that's pretty much the textbook definition of "damning with faint praise". This book actually had the climactic battle scene. It is the last novel in the Jouster series, following the further adventures of Kiron and his fellow Dragon Jousters as they try to integrate themselves into society and keep the newly formed borders of Altia safe from their outside neighbors.
Kiron is having trouble with his girlfriend, who wants girls to have equal rights to dragon eggs as guys do. Kiron is resisting and blah blah blah romantic 'tension' that goes through the first three-quarters of the book. Putting an additional strain on their relationship is this other chick who is falling in love with him. Why does she love him, you ask? Why, only because she's been the loyal friend and companion to Kiron's mother, and his mother has decided that her son's future is best served by marrying her son off to Chick and have them live on the old family farm--once Kiron finds a way to take it back.
Kiron knows none of this, and when he finds out, doesn't really care. He's too busy being friends with the High King and Queen, the leader of the Dragon Jousters and trying to save the world. There's plenty of interpersonal wangst as Kiron deals with his girlfriend, Chick deals with her feelings for Kiron, Kiron deals with his mother, and the elite group of female Dragon Jousters deal with each other. As has been very much a hallmark of Misty's recent books, nothing is really explained or described very deeply. There's no real character growth, motivations are shallow, and even the big scary enemy seems added as an afterthought--we get no real detail about them.
I really miss the days of Magic's Pawn and The Lark and the Wren. Back when characterization, continuity, and craft actually mattered to her.
When all is said and done though, the book itself is fairly fun. It isn't deep, thought-provoking, or narratively complex, but it's still a good way to kill a few hours without really exerting yourself. This is the perfect "break from studying for finals" book. Flufftastic. And there's lots of Egyptian mythology window-dressing, which is always fun to have. Just don't expect to get much in the way of plot development, and brace yourself for the deus ex machina OF DOOM that IS the climax of the book, and you'll be fine.
2.5 stars
In books I trust,
N. Vivian
The Curious Case of the Misplaced Modifier: How To Solve The Mysteries Of Weak Writingby Bonnie Trenga. Reviewed by N. Vivian on October 13th, 2008.
Cute is really the best word for this book. Each chapter opens with a 'case write-up' that uses a ton of whatever grammatical error the chapter itself is covering. They cover the usual suspects (ha ha, I am witty, no?): passive voice, misplaced modifiers, unclear pronoun usage, excessively long sentences, etc etc. The book does a decent job explaining what each error is, and giving some generic ways to fix it. Then the chapter ends with a basic recap, and tell you to go back and read the original write-up to find and fix all of the mistakes. Nothing amazing or particularly insightful, but still pretty useful. What I felt was lacking from the book was an explanation of why someone would make that mistake. I mean,
2.5 Stars
Aerie by Mercedes Lackey. Reviewed by N. Vivian on October 13th, 2008.
Oy. First, let me tell you, Misty was my favorite author for years. From sixth grade till at least partway through high school, she was heads and shoulders above any other author I could name. It's true that I didn't go to the extreme of buying each book as soon as it was published, but hardcovers are expensive and I was just a kid. Still, the minute one came out in paperback, they were clutched in my hot little hand. Staying up till four in the morning, eating Sweet Tarts, reading the newest Valdemar book, and reveling in the early morning silence of my house...that was the closest approximation to heaven I could fathom for a long time.
That being said, Aerie was a disappointment in a long string of disappointments. It is still better than that fiasco she calls One Good Knight, but that's pretty much the textbook definition of "damning with faint praise". This book actually had the climactic battle scene. It is the last novel in the Jouster series, following the further adventures of Kiron and his fellow Dragon Jousters as they try to integrate themselves into society and keep the newly formed borders of Altia safe from their outside neighbors.
Kiron is having trouble with his girlfriend, who wants girls to have equal rights to dragon eggs as guys do. Kiron is resisting and blah blah blah romantic 'tension' that goes through the first three-quarters of the book. Putting an additional strain on their relationship is this other chick who is falling in love with him. Why does she love him, you ask? Why, only because she's been the loyal friend and companion to Kiron's mother, and his mother has decided that her son's future is best served by marrying her son off to Chick and have them live on the old family farm--once Kiron finds a way to take it back.
Kiron knows none of this, and when he finds out, doesn't really care. He's too busy being friends with the High King and Queen, the leader of the Dragon Jousters and trying to save the world. There's plenty of interpersonal wangst as Kiron deals with his girlfriend, Chick deals with her feelings for Kiron, Kiron deals with his mother, and the elite group of female Dragon Jousters deal with each other. As has been very much a hallmark of Misty's recent books, nothing is really explained or described very deeply. There's no real character growth, motivations are shallow, and even the big scary enemy seems added as an afterthought--we get no real detail about them.
I really miss the days of Magic's Pawn and The Lark and the Wren. Back when characterization, continuity, and craft actually mattered to her.
When all is said and done though, the book itself is fairly fun. It isn't deep, thought-provoking, or narratively complex, but it's still a good way to kill a few hours without really exerting yourself. This is the perfect "break from studying for finals" book. Flufftastic. And there's lots of Egyptian mythology window-dressing, which is always fun to have. Just don't expect to get much in the way of plot development, and brace yourself for the deus ex machina OF DOOM that IS the climax of the book, and you'll be fine.
2.5 stars
In books I trust,
N. Vivian
Saturday, October 4, 2008
A Political Post
I hope no one minds this. If it decided that this isn't in keeping with the blog, we can delete it, but since this argument is both well-researched and well-delivered, I think it should reach the widest audience possible.
Dear Gov. Palin,
How DARE you?
How DARE you stand on that stage, on the shoulders of generations of women who have struggled and sacrificed to allow a woman to achieve what you have, and spit in their faces the way you have done over the past few weeks? For a serious candidate for vice president to turn in such a poor performance in interview after interview that the fact that you managed not to pee on the stage meant that you exceeded many people's expectations is a crying shame. In the month since you were named as candidate for VP, you have embodied every single negative stereotype ever put forward as a 'reason' why women are not fit to lead a nation. You have been shallow, superficial, disorganized, and clearly uninformed on a wide range of issues that the president MUST understand. That is absolutely disgraceful. You are no longer Miss Wasilla - this is not a beauty contest that you can win by chirping "World peace!" into a microphone and waiting for someone to show up with your tiara and sash - it is deadly serious. How do you propose to take over the presidency, should that be necessary, when it takes you weeks of preparation and drilling and rehearsal in seclusion to get through a 90 minute debate? You are so afraid of the press after your three disastrous interviews that you have decided to avoid them completely - don't think that we can't see through your attempt to spin the situation to cast yourself as a victim of the evil, mean, press corps. Do you seriously believe that that would be an option for you, should you ever become president? What will you do then?
The open letter doesn't stop there. Please visit her blog to read the rest. Trust me, it's worth the visit.
Regards,
N. Vivian
Dear Gov. Palin,
How DARE you?
How DARE you stand on that stage, on the shoulders of generations of women who have struggled and sacrificed to allow a woman to achieve what you have, and spit in their faces the way you have done over the past few weeks? For a serious candidate for vice president to turn in such a poor performance in interview after interview that the fact that you managed not to pee on the stage meant that you exceeded many people's expectations is a crying shame. In the month since you were named as candidate for VP, you have embodied every single negative stereotype ever put forward as a 'reason' why women are not fit to lead a nation. You have been shallow, superficial, disorganized, and clearly uninformed on a wide range of issues that the president MUST understand. That is absolutely disgraceful. You are no longer Miss Wasilla - this is not a beauty contest that you can win by chirping "World peace!" into a microphone and waiting for someone to show up with your tiara and sash - it is deadly serious. How do you propose to take over the presidency, should that be necessary, when it takes you weeks of preparation and drilling and rehearsal in seclusion to get through a 90 minute debate? You are so afraid of the press after your three disastrous interviews that you have decided to avoid them completely - don't think that we can't see through your attempt to spin the situation to cast yourself as a victim of the evil, mean, press corps. Do you seriously believe that that would be an option for you, should you ever become president? What will you do then?
The open letter doesn't stop there. Please visit her blog to read the rest. Trust me, it's worth the visit.
Regards,
N. Vivian
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Mr. Spock, MacGuyver, and Sara Connor walk into a bar...
The Complete Writer's Guide to Heroes & Heroines: Sixteen Master Archetypes, Tami D. Cowden, Caro LaFever, and Sue Viders. Reviewed by N. Vivian on October 1st, 2008
Let's kick off the new month with another review, shall we?
My biggest argument with this book is that it is filled with cliches. I'm not referring to the archetypes, of course (anyone who picks up a book about archetypes and expects something new and fancy is an idjit), but the way they used archetypes in their descriptions. The way everything was described, I felt like I was reading a romance novel primer, even though they took examples from all genres. They used a lot of 'cutesy' terminology, which I found tedious. For example, when describing interactions between the BOSS and the BEST FRIEND archetypes they use:
The BEST FRIEND says the BOSS:
* is rude
* a tyrant and (they did not include and 'is' here, so the BOSS a tyrant)
* a captivating dictator
The BOSS says the BEST FRIEND:
* is small potatoes
* weak, and
* true blue
...oookay.
The book is broken down into 4 sections: male archetypes, female archetypes, using the archetypes to create new characters, and interactions between archetypes. Each section is set up much like a textbook, with little notes in the margin. I'd've preferred if the notes in the first two sections contained useful information, instead of reiterating which characters from literature and film embody said archetype, which is also included in the text, but I can live. The first two sections gave the archetype title (BOSS or BEST FRIEND), a brief description, qualities, virtues, flaws, background, possible careers, and two different ways the archetype could develop. The BOSS, for example, could be a princess-type character, or a trailblazer, or something else entirely. Nothing incredibly groundbreaking here, but still interesting information to have.
Section three explains using the archetypes to create characters. There are: core archetypes, where the character is 'just' one archetype (Mr. Spock is the PROFESSOR, Ellen Ripley is a CRUSADER); evolving archetypes, where the character starts at one archetype and evolves into another (Sara Connor goes from being a WAIF to a CRUSADER); and layered archetypes, where a character has a smattering of two or more archetypes (MacGyver is both a WARRIOR and a PROFESSOR). I did have fun using this section to assign archetypes to the characters in all of my role-playing games. The last section described the way the archetypes interacted with one another. The first part described the female archetypes interacting with other females, the second was males with other males, and the last was describing mixed-gender interaction (where I got my BOSS/BEST FRIEND example above.)
One great thing they did in this section was explain how the two clash, mesh, and change. The side notes in this section then give examples of how two characters from media embody these. But they don't only choose examples that go through all three steps: American Beauty's BOSS (Carolyn) interacts with the BEST FRIEND (Lester), and only clash. I appreciated them using a variety of examples, instead of staying within the strict 'Clash-Mesh-Change' pattern. I felt some of their examples were a bit dated, but it did come out in 2000.
Overall, The Complete Writer's Guide to Heroes & Heroines: Sixteen Master Archetypes is fairly useful, if only as a jumping off point. People who feel like they have a good grasp on characterization already will probably find this tiresome in the same way the first few weeks of English class is, while the teacher ascertains that, yes, everyone here can use a period correctly. Still, it's a good jumping off point, and afforded me lots of fun as I figured out other characters from books, movies, and games that aligned with which archetype, though the archetype selection was fairly limited (I've got another book here with 45 archetypes. Fancy, no?) The book might have gotten a higher score, but I hated how they felt they had to completely capitalize every archetype every time they used it. I'm sure it was annoying in the above four paragraphs...now imagine reading the whole book like that.
3 stars
Let's kick off the new month with another review, shall we?
My biggest argument with this book is that it is filled with cliches. I'm not referring to the archetypes, of course (anyone who picks up a book about archetypes and expects something new and fancy is an idjit), but the way they used archetypes in their descriptions. The way everything was described, I felt like I was reading a romance novel primer, even though they took examples from all genres. They used a lot of 'cutesy' terminology, which I found tedious. For example, when describing interactions between the BOSS and the BEST FRIEND archetypes they use:
The BEST FRIEND says the BOSS:
* is rude
* a tyrant and (they did not include and 'is' here, so the BOSS a tyrant)
* a captivating dictator
The BOSS says the BEST FRIEND:
* is small potatoes
* weak, and
* true blue
...oookay.
The book is broken down into 4 sections: male archetypes, female archetypes, using the archetypes to create new characters, and interactions between archetypes. Each section is set up much like a textbook, with little notes in the margin. I'd've preferred if the notes in the first two sections contained useful information, instead of reiterating which characters from literature and film embody said archetype, which is also included in the text, but I can live. The first two sections gave the archetype title (BOSS or BEST FRIEND), a brief description, qualities, virtues, flaws, background, possible careers, and two different ways the archetype could develop. The BOSS, for example, could be a princess-type character, or a trailblazer, or something else entirely. Nothing incredibly groundbreaking here, but still interesting information to have.
Section three explains using the archetypes to create characters. There are: core archetypes, where the character is 'just' one archetype (Mr. Spock is the PROFESSOR, Ellen Ripley is a CRUSADER); evolving archetypes, where the character starts at one archetype and evolves into another (Sara Connor goes from being a WAIF to a CRUSADER); and layered archetypes, where a character has a smattering of two or more archetypes (MacGyver is both a WARRIOR and a PROFESSOR). I did have fun using this section to assign archetypes to the characters in all of my role-playing games. The last section described the way the archetypes interacted with one another. The first part described the female archetypes interacting with other females, the second was males with other males, and the last was describing mixed-gender interaction (where I got my BOSS/BEST FRIEND example above.)
One great thing they did in this section was explain how the two clash, mesh, and change. The side notes in this section then give examples of how two characters from media embody these. But they don't only choose examples that go through all three steps: American Beauty's BOSS (Carolyn) interacts with the BEST FRIEND (Lester), and only clash. I appreciated them using a variety of examples, instead of staying within the strict 'Clash-Mesh-Change' pattern. I felt some of their examples were a bit dated, but it did come out in 2000.
Overall, The Complete Writer's Guide to Heroes & Heroines: Sixteen Master Archetypes is fairly useful, if only as a jumping off point. People who feel like they have a good grasp on characterization already will probably find this tiresome in the same way the first few weeks of English class is, while the teacher ascertains that, yes, everyone here can use a period correctly. Still, it's a good jumping off point, and afforded me lots of fun as I figured out other characters from books, movies, and games that aligned with which archetype, though the archetype selection was fairly limited (I've got another book here with 45 archetypes. Fancy, no?) The book might have gotten a higher score, but I hated how they felt they had to completely capitalize every archetype every time they used it. I'm sure it was annoying in the above four paragraphs...now imagine reading the whole book like that.
3 stars
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Rejected Much?
The First Five Pages: A Writer's Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile by Noah Lukeman. Reviewed by N. Vivian 09/22/08
Received, read, and finished the book within a day. It is excellent; not only is it helpful and informative, I even found it mildly entertaining. It's divided into 19 chapters, and each chapter focuses on problems that catch an agent's or an editor's eye and cause them to toss the manuscript, generally before having read much more than the first five pages. The chapters are arranged in order of likelihood of getting your manuscript rejected, and so, it starts off with very concrete ideas and rules, and as each chapter goes on, the ideas and advice get more theoretical. Chapter One is about presentation; granted, the kind of paper your manuscript on has no bearing on the quality of the work itself, but a lot of editors won't look at it anyway. As Lukeman says, editors (and their overworked assistants) have to plow through thousands of manuscripts, and are just looking for reasons to toss yours out of the window. Refusing to comply with industry standards is a quick and easy way for them to justify it. Also in the first chapter, he mentions the idea of researching the agents and editors you're sending your manuscript to, and sending it only to people who work with titles like yours--sure, you might lose out because the editor just picked up a book similar to yours, but sending a horror manuscript to a horror editor still gives you a higher chance getting accepted than sending a horror novel to a romance editor. Chapter 2 is about the abuse of adjectives and adverbs, 3 about the way your manuscript 'sounds', and on and on until Chapter 19, which discusses progression and pace. If your book hasn't been rejected by any of the reasons outlined in the first 18 chapters, then you're probably golden.
Lukeman gives examples about all the issues he discusses, so you can see exactly what is wrong with the problem under discussion, though he doesn't go very deep into fixing those issues (especially as he gets more metaphysical). Sure, Chapter 1 explains exactly what your margins should be (an easy fix), but it's much harder to give specific advice on appropriate story hooks (Chapter 14) or subtlety (Chapter 15). Still, he points out the problems, making them easy to spot in your manuscript, and he admits up front in his book that this is a "Don't Do" rather than a "How To" book. If you can see that you have a specific problem, you can go out an buy a ton of books related to that issue. He does give exercises to do at the end of each chapter, most of which involve sitting down with your manuscript and going over it with a fine tooth comb. I've tried a few with my Nanowrimo project, and they did seem to help.
In all, a good book. It won't tell you how to write your novel, or give you the magic best-seller formula, or even be able to fix a manuscript that's just hopeless, but it does give you a lot of tools to make it better. I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to get published. I found it so helpful, I went out and bought another one of his "how to get published" books.
5 stars
In books I trust,
Nu
Received, read, and finished the book within a day. It is excellent; not only is it helpful and informative, I even found it mildly entertaining. It's divided into 19 chapters, and each chapter focuses on problems that catch an agent's or an editor's eye and cause them to toss the manuscript, generally before having read much more than the first five pages. The chapters are arranged in order of likelihood of getting your manuscript rejected, and so, it starts off with very concrete ideas and rules, and as each chapter goes on, the ideas and advice get more theoretical. Chapter One is about presentation; granted, the kind of paper your manuscript on has no bearing on the quality of the work itself, but a lot of editors won't look at it anyway. As Lukeman says, editors (and their overworked assistants) have to plow through thousands of manuscripts, and are just looking for reasons to toss yours out of the window. Refusing to comply with industry standards is a quick and easy way for them to justify it. Also in the first chapter, he mentions the idea of researching the agents and editors you're sending your manuscript to, and sending it only to people who work with titles like yours--sure, you might lose out because the editor just picked up a book similar to yours, but sending a horror manuscript to a horror editor still gives you a higher chance getting accepted than sending a horror novel to a romance editor. Chapter 2 is about the abuse of adjectives and adverbs, 3 about the way your manuscript 'sounds', and on and on until Chapter 19, which discusses progression and pace. If your book hasn't been rejected by any of the reasons outlined in the first 18 chapters, then you're probably golden.
Lukeman gives examples about all the issues he discusses, so you can see exactly what is wrong with the problem under discussion, though he doesn't go very deep into fixing those issues (especially as he gets more metaphysical). Sure, Chapter 1 explains exactly what your margins should be (an easy fix), but it's much harder to give specific advice on appropriate story hooks (Chapter 14) or subtlety (Chapter 15). Still, he points out the problems, making them easy to spot in your manuscript, and he admits up front in his book that this is a "Don't Do" rather than a "How To" book. If you can see that you have a specific problem, you can go out an buy a ton of books related to that issue. He does give exercises to do at the end of each chapter, most of which involve sitting down with your manuscript and going over it with a fine tooth comb. I've tried a few with my Nanowrimo project, and they did seem to help.
In all, a good book. It won't tell you how to write your novel, or give you the magic best-seller formula, or even be able to fix a manuscript that's just hopeless, but it does give you a lot of tools to make it better. I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to get published. I found it so helpful, I went out and bought another one of his "how to get published" books.
5 stars
In books I trust,
Nu
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