Book-It 'o15! Book #1
The Fifty Books Challenge, year six! ( 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014) This was a library request.
Title: A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
Details: Copyright 2011, Penguin Books
Synopsis (By Way of Front Flap):
"Deep in the heart of Oxford's Bodleian Library, scholar Diana Bishop requests a manuscript called Ashmole 782 in the course of her research. Coming from an old and distinguished lineage of witches, Diana senses that the ancient book might be bound up with magic- but she herself wants nothing to do with sorcery; and after making a few notes on its curious images, she banishes it quickly back to the stacks. But what she doesn't know is that the old alchemical text has been lost for centuries, and its sudden appearance has set a fantastical underworld stirring. Soon, a distracting horde of daemons, witches, and vampires descends upon the Bodleian's reading rooms. One of these creatures is Matthew Clairmont, an enigmatic and eminent geneticist, practitioner of yoga, and wine connoisseur- and also a vampire with a keen interest in Ashmole 782.
Equal parts history and magic, romance and suspense, A Discovery of Witches is a novel of epic scope, traveling from the cobbled streets of Oxford to the chateaus and mountains of the Auvergne to a small town in upstate New York. It also takes us into a rich-fifteen-hundred-year history that spans Clovis and the Crusades, the Knights Templar, and the American Revolution. As Matthew and Diana's alliance deepens into intimacy, Diana must come to terms with age-old taboos and her own family's conflicted history-- and she must learn where the modern woman she is meets the source of ancient power that is her legacy. With a scholar's depth and the touch of a great storyteller, Deborah Harkness has woven a tale of passion and obsession; the collusion of magic, alchemy, and science; and the closely guarded secrets of an enchanted world."
Why I Wanted to Read It: Last year, having apparently exhausted my search for Pagan fiction, I tried "magical realism" and got some decent books out of it. While searching for magical realism, though, I appeared to stumble across some Pagan fiction.
I first read Deborah Harkness's work last year when I finally got to read the astoundingly disappointing Pagan Anthology of Short Fiction, published in 2008. Her offering in that short story volume was a relatively unremarkable, if moderately readable (particularly in comparison to some of the others) tale of a detective story set in the future, in a world where Pagans are more accepted and respected.
I drew a conclusion that Harkness was a Pagan herself.
When a trilogy of three fat books showed up under the "magical realism" category and I saw the word "Witchcraft" and recognized Harkness's name, my heart soared. Pagan fiction! Reading the description, I thought "Well... not quite."
Which finally brings me to the first point of my review and what's going to be a crucial point that I'm going to examine more than other elements of the book, and for obvious reasons.
How I Liked It: Okay, so at that juncture, me pre-actually-reading-the-book, post-reading-the-description, I was assuming that I was going to read a book about very pretend witches written by an actual Pagan (possibly a Witch).
Let me say, I don't have anything against very pretend witches. Very pretend witches have their roots in real Witches, and often other shamed/hidden elements of society (female empowerment, MOGII, anti-fascism, off the top of my head). And they can just be fun.
But as real Witches have gotten a foothold in the awareness of the mainstream public in the past twenty years or so, fiction-writers that want to write pretend witches have to step up their game/do better, at least when they're writing for an adult audience that presumably knows of real Witchcraft. So I've noticed aforementioned fiction-writers will sprinkle some elements of actual Witchcraft in for "realism", frequently in a way that's far more blatantly offensive than if they'd just gone the completely fictional route. For some reason, some authors feel the need to include mentions of Wicca and/or Paganism as the "not real" Witchcraft (sigh).
So going into this book, I'm assuming I'm reading a book by a Pagan author about a fictional witch (note lowercase w) in a very pretend, fantasy setting.
And... I have to say as far as Pagan representation? I'm really disappointed. The author (who I was under the impression was Pagan) is going for the fiction-writer trope that I just mentioned of incorporating, well, Witchcraft with witchcraft. Not okay. The author names some of our festivals and holy days, some of our concepts take prominence, some of our Gods make an appearance, and the main characters aunts who are also witches? They have Pagan bumper stickers all over their car. Not "witch", deliberately Pagan (and some specifically Wiccan, by name).
When you're creating a universe wherein witches are seen as not human (not the same species, and often referred to as "creatures"), it would seem to be far more responsible to keep the witches from seeming like actual Witches, particularly since the myth that we aren't really human is something perpetuated by years of propaganda that led to genocide and discrimination (the similar "not quite human" route was also used for Jewish people). Add to that that the author is doubling down and making the main character a direct descendent of one of the real, actual victims of the Salem Witch Trials (none of whom, by the way, were actually Witches or Pagans) and their family a prominent witch family (the Bishops), and it's pretty hard to believe this person is a Pagan and would be that ridiculous.
A little sniffing around, and the author claims she got the idea by looking at all the vampire and witch fiction and wondering what those people did for a living. Therefore, the author's appearance in the Pagan fiction collection was not because she herself was a Pagan writing about Pagan themes, it was that she got the idea and it yielded some fruit (three chunky novels worth) and in the meantime, she saw an opening for Pagan short stories, and I'm sure there were other collections/publications for which the author also applied. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that, but somehow reading a book for adults that borrows so much from actual Witchcraft written by a non-Witch rubs me the wrong way, particularly since I'm fairly certain the author would dismiss any claims of legitimacy in the witchcraft she portrays (therefore, it's okay to have it look a lot like the real thing).
But wait, you say. How was the actual book itself, representation aside? How was it as just a story?
As Fiction: As a story, the book reads fairly clearly as a first novel. It needs an editor in several parts, as the author is fond of telling rather than showing. She runs across just about every trope in the genre of supernatural/fantasy fiction and... uses them. As such, the novel frequently resembles plenty of other things, and it's not to the story's advantage. Elements of The Da Vinci Code (long-lost occult knowledge pieced together in clues by dueling historians), Harry Potter (initiation into a very established supernatural order), Twilight (not just the vampires, the relationship dynamics between the main character and the vampire love interest), flutter and clutter amongst others.
I knew going into this that the book was going to be a trilogy, and I have three parts available to me beforehand (which is how I like to do it). While this book finishes and pretty much launches into prepping for the sequel for about maybe the last sixth or so, this could (and probably should) easily make two books. Cut down on the author's filler (she has a tendency of flatly describing minutia that doesn't need describing and that adds nothing to the plot) and tune up the plot(s). Fine-tune work is needed on the main characters as well (and probably even on the background characters, but the main character/love interest relationship is the most annoying to me) where the author again has a way of telling rather than showing. We are told over and over again how independent the main character is and how stubborn, which the author apparently deems as enough character study to excuse the fact the main character acts fairly anything but. Tropes and stale ones are at play and they grate, especially at over five hundred pages.
So we have rote characterization, rote (and at times offensive) tropes, and a clear need for an editor at certain sections. Did the author get anything right?
Actually, yes. Although the plot is muddled, the prose bloated, and the characters rife with rote trite, there's suggestions of an engaging story in there and an author that truly might come into her own. Certain settings and tertiary characters, including her aunts' enchanted house (complete with ancestral ghosts and an opinionated mind of its own along with the ability to create new rooms in anticipation of guests) suggest a glimmer of the talent that might truly come to full gleam, given polish.
Obviously since at the first and second books bleed into one another so strongly, it's hard to complete a review for just the first (when I'm only half-way through the second), as it's clearly so much a part of the second (and probably the third). But keeping in mind that readers of the original weren't given the new book for another year, it's meant to stand alone, which given the unfinished quality (you really get the feeling that the author was forced at the last minute to break up the book into a slightly smaller volume) has to have been maddening. Even sequential books have to stand alone and this book doesn't really do that.
An engaging if deeply flawed start, although greater issues hinder any further progress.
Title: A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
Details: Copyright 2011, Penguin Books
Synopsis (By Way of Front Flap):
"Deep in the heart of Oxford's Bodleian Library, scholar Diana Bishop requests a manuscript called Ashmole 782 in the course of her research. Coming from an old and distinguished lineage of witches, Diana senses that the ancient book might be bound up with magic- but she herself wants nothing to do with sorcery; and after making a few notes on its curious images, she banishes it quickly back to the stacks. But what she doesn't know is that the old alchemical text has been lost for centuries, and its sudden appearance has set a fantastical underworld stirring. Soon, a distracting horde of daemons, witches, and vampires descends upon the Bodleian's reading rooms. One of these creatures is Matthew Clairmont, an enigmatic and eminent geneticist, practitioner of yoga, and wine connoisseur- and also a vampire with a keen interest in Ashmole 782.
Equal parts history and magic, romance and suspense, A Discovery of Witches is a novel of epic scope, traveling from the cobbled streets of Oxford to the chateaus and mountains of the Auvergne to a small town in upstate New York. It also takes us into a rich-fifteen-hundred-year history that spans Clovis and the Crusades, the Knights Templar, and the American Revolution. As Matthew and Diana's alliance deepens into intimacy, Diana must come to terms with age-old taboos and her own family's conflicted history-- and she must learn where the modern woman she is meets the source of ancient power that is her legacy. With a scholar's depth and the touch of a great storyteller, Deborah Harkness has woven a tale of passion and obsession; the collusion of magic, alchemy, and science; and the closely guarded secrets of an enchanted world."
Why I Wanted to Read It: Last year, having apparently exhausted my search for Pagan fiction, I tried "magical realism" and got some decent books out of it. While searching for magical realism, though, I appeared to stumble across some Pagan fiction.
I first read Deborah Harkness's work last year when I finally got to read the astoundingly disappointing Pagan Anthology of Short Fiction, published in 2008. Her offering in that short story volume was a relatively unremarkable, if moderately readable (particularly in comparison to some of the others) tale of a detective story set in the future, in a world where Pagans are more accepted and respected.
I drew a conclusion that Harkness was a Pagan herself.
When a trilogy of three fat books showed up under the "magical realism" category and I saw the word "Witchcraft" and recognized Harkness's name, my heart soared. Pagan fiction! Reading the description, I thought "Well... not quite."
Which finally brings me to the first point of my review and what's going to be a crucial point that I'm going to examine more than other elements of the book, and for obvious reasons.
How I Liked It: Okay, so at that juncture, me pre-actually-reading-the-book, post-reading-the-description, I was assuming that I was going to read a book about very pretend witches written by an actual Pagan (possibly a Witch).
Let me say, I don't have anything against very pretend witches. Very pretend witches have their roots in real Witches, and often other shamed/hidden elements of society (female empowerment, MOGII, anti-fascism, off the top of my head). And they can just be fun.
But as real Witches have gotten a foothold in the awareness of the mainstream public in the past twenty years or so, fiction-writers that want to write pretend witches have to step up their game/do better, at least when they're writing for an adult audience that presumably knows of real Witchcraft. So I've noticed aforementioned fiction-writers will sprinkle some elements of actual Witchcraft in for "realism", frequently in a way that's far more blatantly offensive than if they'd just gone the completely fictional route. For some reason, some authors feel the need to include mentions of Wicca and/or Paganism as the "not real" Witchcraft (sigh).
So going into this book, I'm assuming I'm reading a book by a Pagan author about a fictional witch (note lowercase w) in a very pretend, fantasy setting.
And... I have to say as far as Pagan representation? I'm really disappointed. The author (who I was under the impression was Pagan) is going for the fiction-writer trope that I just mentioned of incorporating, well, Witchcraft with witchcraft. Not okay. The author names some of our festivals and holy days, some of our concepts take prominence, some of our Gods make an appearance, and the main characters aunts who are also witches? They have Pagan bumper stickers all over their car. Not "witch", deliberately Pagan (and some specifically Wiccan, by name).
When you're creating a universe wherein witches are seen as not human (not the same species, and often referred to as "creatures"), it would seem to be far more responsible to keep the witches from seeming like actual Witches, particularly since the myth that we aren't really human is something perpetuated by years of propaganda that led to genocide and discrimination (the similar "not quite human" route was also used for Jewish people). Add to that that the author is doubling down and making the main character a direct descendent of one of the real, actual victims of the Salem Witch Trials (none of whom, by the way, were actually Witches or Pagans) and their family a prominent witch family (the Bishops), and it's pretty hard to believe this person is a Pagan and would be that ridiculous.
A little sniffing around, and the author claims she got the idea by looking at all the vampire and witch fiction and wondering what those people did for a living. Therefore, the author's appearance in the Pagan fiction collection was not because she herself was a Pagan writing about Pagan themes, it was that she got the idea and it yielded some fruit (three chunky novels worth) and in the meantime, she saw an opening for Pagan short stories, and I'm sure there were other collections/publications for which the author also applied. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that, but somehow reading a book for adults that borrows so much from actual Witchcraft written by a non-Witch rubs me the wrong way, particularly since I'm fairly certain the author would dismiss any claims of legitimacy in the witchcraft she portrays (therefore, it's okay to have it look a lot like the real thing).
But wait, you say. How was the actual book itself, representation aside? How was it as just a story?
As Fiction: As a story, the book reads fairly clearly as a first novel. It needs an editor in several parts, as the author is fond of telling rather than showing. She runs across just about every trope in the genre of supernatural/fantasy fiction and... uses them. As such, the novel frequently resembles plenty of other things, and it's not to the story's advantage. Elements of The Da Vinci Code (long-lost occult knowledge pieced together in clues by dueling historians), Harry Potter (initiation into a very established supernatural order), Twilight (not just the vampires, the relationship dynamics between the main character and the vampire love interest), flutter and clutter amongst others.
I knew going into this that the book was going to be a trilogy, and I have three parts available to me beforehand (which is how I like to do it). While this book finishes and pretty much launches into prepping for the sequel for about maybe the last sixth or so, this could (and probably should) easily make two books. Cut down on the author's filler (she has a tendency of flatly describing minutia that doesn't need describing and that adds nothing to the plot) and tune up the plot(s). Fine-tune work is needed on the main characters as well (and probably even on the background characters, but the main character/love interest relationship is the most annoying to me) where the author again has a way of telling rather than showing. We are told over and over again how independent the main character is and how stubborn, which the author apparently deems as enough character study to excuse the fact the main character acts fairly anything but. Tropes and stale ones are at play and they grate, especially at over five hundred pages.
So we have rote characterization, rote (and at times offensive) tropes, and a clear need for an editor at certain sections. Did the author get anything right?
Actually, yes. Although the plot is muddled, the prose bloated, and the characters rife with rote trite, there's suggestions of an engaging story in there and an author that truly might come into her own. Certain settings and tertiary characters, including her aunts' enchanted house (complete with ancestral ghosts and an opinionated mind of its own along with the ability to create new rooms in anticipation of guests) suggest a glimmer of the talent that might truly come to full gleam, given polish.
Obviously since at the first and second books bleed into one another so strongly, it's hard to complete a review for just the first (when I'm only half-way through the second), as it's clearly so much a part of the second (and probably the third). But keeping in mind that readers of the original weren't given the new book for another year, it's meant to stand alone, which given the unfinished quality (you really get the feeling that the author was forced at the last minute to break up the book into a slightly smaller volume) has to have been maddening. Even sequential books have to stand alone and this book doesn't really do that.
An engaging if deeply flawed start, although greater issues hinder any further progress.