The Sharing Knife: Beguilement

[charlie_ego]

Okay, Bujold is wonderful and all. Loved her writing style, and the way she changes it to fit the characters, and her humor, and her worldbuilding, and all the other things she does so well... but this book drove me up the wall. Partially because of the half-of-one-book thing (and the resulting lack of folded-up deft plot), but everyone else is

Comments

[janewilliams20]

Found this through your lmbujold post, read on, and it looks like we have a lot in common when it comes to books, only you think about it more, and post about it more. Would you mind if I friended you to keep up on the reviews?

[charlie_ego]

That's lovely, please feel free to friend! :)

[desert_vixen]

I'd like to second that request.

DV

[charlie_ego]

Sure! :)

[aseop_]

Thanks for posting this to the bujold list, I don't see much traffic on it. I always enjoy bujold analysis so thank a lot!

I think you do Fawn a disservice buy comparing her to Ekaterin. I think a lot of us are huge fans of the Vorkosiverse and it's myriad of characters and Ekaterin has had several books to develop her character. We're just starting to learn about Fawn, and she's a very different girl in a different world. Think of how many more options Ekaterin had open to her than Fawn, who has such a closed world-view. In general I think that Fawn is the youngest of Bujold's main female characters, and so I forgive her for not having as much of a backbone as Cordelia or Ekaterin or other strong female characters we've grown to love.

Give her tive, she'll grow on you. Besides, Beguilement is just the first half of the book, hopefully a lot of people's critiques will be addressed in the second half.

[charlie_ego]

Thanks!

I agree that Ekaterin comes in with a huge advantage because she can leverage all that we know about the Vor. But I just wish first that Bujold hadn't made Fawn so similar to a younger, less mature Ekaterin (although maybe in the next books she will diverge, now that we've gotten the family stuff out of the way), and also I really cannot see what Dag sees in her. I mean, I know bright bushy-tailed twenty-year-old guys, but I think "aww, they're so cute" as opposed to "I am tempted to spend my life with this person who is still a rapidly changing adolescent."

[joyeuse13]

I think most of your complaints about Fawn stem from her youth...and I agree with you that that she is too young for Dag to be healthily interested in. I get the feeling that the idea is that, once his life-partner died, he could only be attracted again to someone with suitably childlike qualities that she couldn't threaten his memory of his mature partner.

[charlie_ego]

Huh. That would make me feel a Lot better about the whole thing. Now I'll have to go reread it :)

[filkferengi]

This is discussion that would be delightful on the main Bujold list, especially with _Beguilement_ going into paperback & _Legacy_ coming out so soon.

P. S.

[filkferengi]

The info on joining the main Bujold list is here:
http://lists.herald.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/lois-bujold

Re: P. S.

[charlie_ego]

Thanks! This looks quite interesting actually ...eek, Herself posts there! Um, maybe I should tone it down a little first... the thing is that I love her books so much that it's much easier occasionally to focus on what I *don't* like.

Re: P. S.

[filkferengi]

We've all been there, from time to time. On-topic discussion is always welcome [and an agreeable surprise, given how chatty the group can get ;)], especially well-written and insightful, like yours.