(no subject)
I am pretty positive that I read Lloyd Alexander's Westmark trilogy - Westmark, The Kestrel and The Beggar Queen - when I was small and reading everything Lloyd Alexander that I could get my hands on, but for some reason they stuck with me not at all at the time and I remembered absolutely nothing about them except that they involved war and street children. So it was a moderate surprise to reread them and find the power of the press, political unrest and uncertainty without easy solutions, and hot revolutionaries! Lloyd Alexander clearly subscribes to the 'your revolution will be much more effective if you are very very pretty' policy, with which none of us can argue.
Seriously, though, they're good books, the latter two especially, and very much foreground the ethical uncertainties that arise in politics and war. Good people can vehemently disagree with each other, and a good person is not necessarily a good ruler. Each book ramps up the complexity from the previous one; 'ousting the evil minister' and 'finding the rightful heir' are not enough to solve the problems of a country. There are definite echoes of the French Revolution throughout, but . . . I don't have a problem with this.
Which is not to say that the books are perfect; Theo, the male lead, is not particularly interesting in and of himself - more like a mirror for what's going on around him - and while Mickle, the female lead, is cool in many ways, she often got rewarded for what I at least thought was pretty irresponsible behavior. (Also I am pretty sure it fails the Bechdel Test.) The supporting cast, though, is fantastic - Colonel Witz! Keller! The river rats!
. . . and, on a totally shallow note, while I will not bookpoll this because I am not sure if enough people have read the books to make creating a poll worthwhile, if anyone has read the books I totally want to challenge you to a round of Cliff, Shag or Marry with Keller, Florian and Justin.
Seriously, though, they're good books, the latter two especially, and very much foreground the ethical uncertainties that arise in politics and war. Good people can vehemently disagree with each other, and a good person is not necessarily a good ruler. Each book ramps up the complexity from the previous one; 'ousting the evil minister' and 'finding the rightful heir' are not enough to solve the problems of a country. There are definite echoes of the French Revolution throughout, but . . . I don't have a problem with this.
Which is not to say that the books are perfect; Theo, the male lead, is not particularly interesting in and of himself - more like a mirror for what's going on around him - and while Mickle, the female lead, is cool in many ways, she often got rewarded for what I at least thought was pretty irresponsible behavior. (Also I am pretty sure it fails the Bechdel Test.) The supporting cast, though, is fantastic - Colonel Witz! Keller! The river rats!
. . . and, on a totally shallow note, while I will not bookpoll this because I am not sure if enough people have read the books to make creating a poll worthwhile, if anyone has read the books I totally want to challenge you to a round of Cliff, Shag or Marry with Keller, Florian and Justin.