On the fine art of reading
Mar. 9th, 2008 05:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mllelaurelThe saga of the books Lily's read continues!
Coming off the heady trip that was The Orphan's Tales, I was extremely enthused about books, stories and the general goodness of humanity. The next thing I picked up was Dreamweaver's Dilemma, Lois McMaster Bujold's collection of short stories and essays. Verdict? The short story is screamingly not Bujold's forte. The Sherlock Holmes pastiche was promising, but devolved into an ending-less mess. (Admittedly, this may be because Bujold wrote it in college, never finished it and can't recall how she was planning to end it. This is something she fully admits to, so I'll let it be.) "Dreamweaver's Dilemma" itself, proved supremely unremarkable in a very similar manner, albeit without a similar excuse. Conflict is set up only to peter out. Characters are introduced in a promising light, only to fall flat. Bujold clearly had some good ideas, but ultimately couldn't carry them off. Sandwiched between these larger pieces are a number of stories so forgettable I don't remember what they were about anymore. I think one of them may have contained garbage.
The essays which form the second half of the collection, on the other hand, are warm and entertaining. I got the impression of sitting down for a chat with Bujold, as she talked about her history and her writing. The fact that, as it turns out she started out in Trek zines (i.e. fanfiction) endeared her to me even more.
Sadly, the essay section is much shorter than the short story one.
The remainder of the book consists of infodump materials written by other people about Bujold's worlds, primarily the Vorkosiganverse. Glossary, genealogy and the like. Useful? Sure. Dry? Ayup! Nowadays, you can find all the pertinent info on her website, though this may not have been the case at the time Dreamweaver's Dilemma was published.
Next up, we have Conceiving the Heavens, by Melissa Scott. Those who've known me for a while may know that I'm a sucker for books on writing. So when I heard about this one, I was curious.
Conceiving the Heavens is at its best when talking about science fiction in a specific manner. Why do people read it? Why do people write it? What are the tropes and their subversions? As Scott wonders further away from the specificity and into the more-general world of writing and publication, the book loses steam, but when she sticks to topic, it's an engaging read.
I decided to re-read Gregory Maguire's Wicked when I realized I hadn't read the sequel yet, even though it'd been out for years. I remembered being objectively impressed by Wicked the first time I read it, but this time also carried far too many negative associations. I was about to graduate from high school - laugh all you want, but it's a life changing experience - while getting ready for college and trying to run three clubs. I'd also just run into an ex I wasn't entirely over and was dealing with a (benign, thankfully) stalker. With all the stress, I was thisclose to nervous breakdown.
So what was the book like, without all the nasty associations? As brilliant as everyone says, that's what! In part, that's due to the wonderful protagonist - although Maguire uses multiple narrators and does it well, the book really does belong to Elphaba, the woman who'll come to be known as the Wicked Witch of the West. Elphaba's certainly not a narrator I always agree with, and her logic moves further away from Earth logic as the story rolls on, but she never stops being an engaging protagonist or a sympathetic one, even if it's in an odd sort of way.
The second draw to the book is Maguire's worldbuilding. He takes the fairy tale world of Oz and gives it depth, darkness and reality. The parallels to post-World-War-I Germany are probably not all in my head, but the world stands well on its own even without this connection being made.
...And then, I started Son of a Witch. The book began engagingly enough, but it soon became clear to me that Liir wasn't half the protagonist his mother had been. I mean, sure, it's hard not to seem passive when compared to Elphaba, but he had gone past passive and right into milquetoast. Moreover, somewhere around 200 pages in, he stopped caring about what was supposed to be his main goal - looking for his half-sister, Nor - and joined the army instead. At this point, his behavior and narration lost all of my sympathy and I had to put the book down.
Admittedly, it's clear Maguire isn't sympathetic to Liir's attitudes either. He knows what he's doing. However, unsympathetic and *passive* are a deadly combination. Even when Elphaba went crazy, she still had a charisma about her and you had to keep reading even if you knew she was in for a train wreck. Liir had no such draw to him, and there went my reason to keep reading.
For the record, I haven't finished Son of a Witch yet. I may pick it up again, eventually, when it no longer feels like a gigantic chore.
I hadn't read the two volumes of Bill Willingham's "Jack of Fables" out so far back to back, but I'll review them together here. Short version: the story is intriguing. Willingham gives good mythology. Jack himself, however, is supremely unsympathetic. He's occasionally funny about it, which is his saving grace, but more often than not, he winds up getting on my nerves. In "Fables" he had other characters to balance him out and give him a smack upside the head, but this is his own series, so no dice. This series hasn't made it out of my "Why am I reading this again?" file yet, but I guess a part of me just keeps hoping...
While I didn't really need to re-read Swordspoint in order to understand its sequel, The Fall of the Kings, I decided to do so, to remind myself that, yes, Ellen Kushner could write. I'd originally read Swordspoint back in high school, and the fact that it had gay protagonists without being a Big Gay Novel about Big Gay Issues was enough to put it on my classics list. Nowadays, it's not as breathtaking as I remembered, but Richard and Alec are still vivid, fascinating protagonists - the real reasons to read this book - and the world is fun to poke around it.
The first time I'd picked up The Fall of the Kings, I got bored and put it down about five chapters in. Years later, I decided it couldn't hurt to go back and try again. My fondness of Swordspoint was, after all, justified, and even if Privilege of the Sword was a mess in many ways, it was an engaging mess I read in one sitting. So you'd think...
Nope. Same story second time round. I pick up The Fall of the Kings, read a few pages, and can't get into it at all. It's not like there's something palpably wrong. It just leaves me cold.
I picked up Christopher Moore's Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal for a re-read because I was in an "Interpretations of Christianity" sort of mood, thanks in large part to the theme of Intercon H in general and "The Last Seder" in particular. (Lest anyone think I've 'found religion' and panic, consider that this mood consisted of my reading the rather irreverent Lamb and watching Dogma, Life of Brian, and the 2000 recording of Jesus Christ Superstar, where Jesus and the apostles all look ready to hit a gay bar.)
I love it when a book is just as good on re-read, if not better! Lamb was still a laugh-out-loud funny and startlingly warm book. I'd highly recommend it to anyone who's not a religious fundamentalist or a rabid anti-Christian (or anti-Semite) - both categories of people I'd comfortably lock in a closet together and let them take one another out in a grand Battle Royale.
(I've known far too many atheists and pagans with a persecution complex and a hate-on for more commonly-practiced religions. And frankly? That kind of behavior doesn't make me less sick from one side than it does from another. As far as I can tell, this is not a rant which applies to anyone on my friendslist. Me, I'm a humanist agnostic. I believe in not treating people like shit - and that applies to all people.)
Whee, tangent rant! Shows my attention span is starting to wane. There's a reason I don't usually do long posts. Thankfully, I've covered everything I meant to cover and can go have dinner now.
Coming off the heady trip that was The Orphan's Tales, I was extremely enthused about books, stories and the general goodness of humanity. The next thing I picked up was Dreamweaver's Dilemma, Lois McMaster Bujold's collection of short stories and essays. Verdict? The short story is screamingly not Bujold's forte. The Sherlock Holmes pastiche was promising, but devolved into an ending-less mess. (Admittedly, this may be because Bujold wrote it in college, never finished it and can't recall how she was planning to end it. This is something she fully admits to, so I'll let it be.) "Dreamweaver's Dilemma" itself, proved supremely unremarkable in a very similar manner, albeit without a similar excuse. Conflict is set up only to peter out. Characters are introduced in a promising light, only to fall flat. Bujold clearly had some good ideas, but ultimately couldn't carry them off. Sandwiched between these larger pieces are a number of stories so forgettable I don't remember what they were about anymore. I think one of them may have contained garbage.
The essays which form the second half of the collection, on the other hand, are warm and entertaining. I got the impression of sitting down for a chat with Bujold, as she talked about her history and her writing. The fact that, as it turns out she started out in Trek zines (i.e. fanfiction) endeared her to me even more.
Sadly, the essay section is much shorter than the short story one.
The remainder of the book consists of infodump materials written by other people about Bujold's worlds, primarily the Vorkosiganverse. Glossary, genealogy and the like. Useful? Sure. Dry? Ayup! Nowadays, you can find all the pertinent info on her website, though this may not have been the case at the time Dreamweaver's Dilemma was published.
Next up, we have Conceiving the Heavens, by Melissa Scott. Those who've known me for a while may know that I'm a sucker for books on writing. So when I heard about this one, I was curious.
Conceiving the Heavens is at its best when talking about science fiction in a specific manner. Why do people read it? Why do people write it? What are the tropes and their subversions? As Scott wonders further away from the specificity and into the more-general world of writing and publication, the book loses steam, but when she sticks to topic, it's an engaging read.
I decided to re-read Gregory Maguire's Wicked when I realized I hadn't read the sequel yet, even though it'd been out for years. I remembered being objectively impressed by Wicked the first time I read it, but this time also carried far too many negative associations. I was about to graduate from high school - laugh all you want, but it's a life changing experience - while getting ready for college and trying to run three clubs. I'd also just run into an ex I wasn't entirely over and was dealing with a (benign, thankfully) stalker. With all the stress, I was thisclose to nervous breakdown.
So what was the book like, without all the nasty associations? As brilliant as everyone says, that's what! In part, that's due to the wonderful protagonist - although Maguire uses multiple narrators and does it well, the book really does belong to Elphaba, the woman who'll come to be known as the Wicked Witch of the West. Elphaba's certainly not a narrator I always agree with, and her logic moves further away from Earth logic as the story rolls on, but she never stops being an engaging protagonist or a sympathetic one, even if it's in an odd sort of way.
The second draw to the book is Maguire's worldbuilding. He takes the fairy tale world of Oz and gives it depth, darkness and reality. The parallels to post-World-War-I Germany are probably not all in my head, but the world stands well on its own even without this connection being made.
...And then, I started Son of a Witch. The book began engagingly enough, but it soon became clear to me that Liir wasn't half the protagonist his mother had been. I mean, sure, it's hard not to seem passive when compared to Elphaba, but he had gone past passive and right into milquetoast. Moreover, somewhere around 200 pages in, he stopped caring about what was supposed to be his main goal - looking for his half-sister, Nor - and joined the army instead. At this point, his behavior and narration lost all of my sympathy and I had to put the book down.
Admittedly, it's clear Maguire isn't sympathetic to Liir's attitudes either. He knows what he's doing. However, unsympathetic and *passive* are a deadly combination. Even when Elphaba went crazy, she still had a charisma about her and you had to keep reading even if you knew she was in for a train wreck. Liir had no such draw to him, and there went my reason to keep reading.
For the record, I haven't finished Son of a Witch yet. I may pick it up again, eventually, when it no longer feels like a gigantic chore.
I hadn't read the two volumes of Bill Willingham's "Jack of Fables" out so far back to back, but I'll review them together here. Short version: the story is intriguing. Willingham gives good mythology. Jack himself, however, is supremely unsympathetic. He's occasionally funny about it, which is his saving grace, but more often than not, he winds up getting on my nerves. In "Fables" he had other characters to balance him out and give him a smack upside the head, but this is his own series, so no dice. This series hasn't made it out of my "Why am I reading this again?" file yet, but I guess a part of me just keeps hoping...
While I didn't really need to re-read Swordspoint in order to understand its sequel, The Fall of the Kings, I decided to do so, to remind myself that, yes, Ellen Kushner could write. I'd originally read Swordspoint back in high school, and the fact that it had gay protagonists without being a Big Gay Novel about Big Gay Issues was enough to put it on my classics list. Nowadays, it's not as breathtaking as I remembered, but Richard and Alec are still vivid, fascinating protagonists - the real reasons to read this book - and the world is fun to poke around it.
The first time I'd picked up The Fall of the Kings, I got bored and put it down about five chapters in. Years later, I decided it couldn't hurt to go back and try again. My fondness of Swordspoint was, after all, justified, and even if Privilege of the Sword was a mess in many ways, it was an engaging mess I read in one sitting. So you'd think...
Nope. Same story second time round. I pick up The Fall of the Kings, read a few pages, and can't get into it at all. It's not like there's something palpably wrong. It just leaves me cold.
I picked up Christopher Moore's Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal for a re-read because I was in an "Interpretations of Christianity" sort of mood, thanks in large part to the theme of Intercon H in general and "The Last Seder" in particular. (Lest anyone think I've 'found religion' and panic, consider that this mood consisted of my reading the rather irreverent Lamb and watching Dogma, Life of Brian, and the 2000 recording of Jesus Christ Superstar, where Jesus and the apostles all look ready to hit a gay bar.)
I love it when a book is just as good on re-read, if not better! Lamb was still a laugh-out-loud funny and startlingly warm book. I'd highly recommend it to anyone who's not a religious fundamentalist or a rabid anti-Christian (or anti-Semite) - both categories of people I'd comfortably lock in a closet together and let them take one another out in a grand Battle Royale.
(I've known far too many atheists and pagans with a persecution complex and a hate-on for more commonly-practiced religions. And frankly? That kind of behavior doesn't make me less sick from one side than it does from another. As far as I can tell, this is not a rant which applies to anyone on my friendslist. Me, I'm a humanist agnostic. I believe in not treating people like shit - and that applies to all people.)
Whee, tangent rant! Shows my attention span is starting to wane. There's a reason I don't usually do long posts. Thankfully, I've covered everything I meant to cover and can go have dinner now.
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Date: 2008-03-10 01:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-10 01:23 am (UTC)