Reading roundup
51. Sue Townsend, The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4
50. Sue Townsend, The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole
52. Sue Townsend, Adrian Mole: the Lost Years
I read the second book first, and I definitely like it better than the first one. In fact, I'm not entirely sure I would've continued with the series if I'd started at the beginning. Fifteen-year-old Adrian is still rather unbelievably immature and amusingly self-absorbed and pretensious to an extent that straddles the line between amusing and annoying. Thirteen (and 3/4) year old Adrian is similar in many respects, but the relative lack of pretensiousness (he's just decided to become an intellectual, rather than being entrenched in his own view as one) makes him a good deal less interesting, at least to an adult reader. Well, to me, anyway.
Based on the cover blurb I expected the books to be funnier. They're amusing, but not hilarious. What I didn't expect, and was pleasantly surprised by, was the poignancy in the books, that I was actually moved by them (again, mostly talking about the second one here). Under all those neuroses and pretention, Adrian is actually a very decent kid, where it counts: in his relationship with his parents, whom he tries to take care of in misguided but well-meaning ways, in between being embarrassed by and for them, the old folks he helps out, and his new baby sister. The second book also took Adrian's mother, who was not very interesting and largely absent in the first book and turned her into a character I really rather liked. I can't say any of the other characters, other than Adrian himself, are sufficiently well realized to be likable, but Adrian's Grandma Mole, Bert Baxter (the old guy Adrian helps take care of), and Pandora were all interesting enough to read about.
I was surprised by the number of gay/lesbian references in a YA book published in 1982. Adrian's mother's lover's wife left him for a woman, and, although Adrian doesn't realize it, it's pretty clear that his Aunt Susan comes by with her (female) lover, and his best friend Nigel at least thinks he is gay. None of these are made a big deal of, they're just there.
I have to say that I liked the third book a lot less. It's composed of three Books, actually, the first of which ("True Confessions of Adrian Albert Mole") is pretty different from the others as it consists not of diary entries (as all the rest do, including the earlier ones) but of letters and essays and things. This works a lot less well, IMO, because it's Adrian being "on" and therefore pretentious all of the time, while in the diary entries some of the underlying sweetness
manages to come through. Not here, really. The only part of this section I rather liked was "Mole's Prizewinning Essay", staffed by a very believable Mary-Sue and Gary-Stu. The rest, as far as I was concerned, served just to fill in some plot points before the diaries started again. Oh, wait, I did also enjoy the reference to Adrian being interruted as he is composing his new opus: "I was interrupted once when a visitor called from Matlock, but I declined the encyclopaedias he was selling and returned to my desk." There is also a somewhat amusing interlude in Moscow with Pandora's father, but Adrian visits Russia again much more colourfully in the third section, so it was mostly the proto-idea of that.
The second section is called "Adrian Mole and the Small Amphibians", which puzzled me for a while until it became clear that he got a job with the Department of the Environment (or something like that), protecting and promoting the well-being of newts. This and the third section, "Adrian Mole: The Wilderness Years", flow into each other, so it doesn't make much sense to separate them in talking about them. We return to the diary format, which makes the book more readable, but still not nearly as enjoyable as the earlier two titles. Because while Adrian was already somewhat immature at 13 3/4 and 15, he hasn't actually matured any by the time he is 24. If anything, his poetry is actually worse now, because his earlier political and personal poems had at least shown some instance of feeling, and his current opus, The Restless Tadpole (which he wants to be adapted as a play, Tadpole!, with the part of the Tadpole played by Madonna and the part of the tadpole's father played by Stephen Fry)... does not. The excerpts from his "experimental novel" Lo! the Flat Hills of My Homeland (it starts out without vowels, but then he goes and puts the vowels back in) are amusingly awful, but also don't reveal nearly as much as his early poems do, even though the quoted chunks and the overall thrust are autobiographic (but it is amusing to watch Adrian live out his fantasies of burglary, murder, and suicide via his self-insert Gary-Stu). So it all feels more pointless. In general, all of the things that had made Adrian the least bit sympathetic -- his feelings towards his parents, grandmother, Bert Baxter, other people in general, disappear from the narrative, and he is actually so self-absorbed as to be deeply boring and rather repellent for most of The Lost Years.
The only thing that still worked for me as a beacon, a connection to the old Adrian was his love for Pandora, who was fairly entertaining to read about on her own. She gets married to a aristocratic bi/homo-sexual to get the first marriage out of the way, takes up with a muscle gym millionaire, starts an affair with the rakish linguistics professor. After she finally kicks Adrian out of her flat, he is wooed by another girl (Bianca), and that's where the story sort of picks up again, because there is once more an emotional center. I liked the Bianca affair, and even teared up slightly at the grandmother's funeral and Adrian's parents coming back together. Adrian's scenes with his father are awkward and rather touching.
I'm rather ambivalent about the last interlude, where Adrian finally finds a place to belong (the restaurant where he works), strikes up a normal, non-self-absorbed and relatively non-neurotic relationship with Jo Jo (a first for him), and even may have a shot at a writing career. On the one hand, it's nice to see Adrian finally grow up a bit, and by this point, after the Bianca and grandmother interlude, I don't mind seeing him happy. But... I dunno, the transformation feels too sudden, and also... I kind of really wanted to see him end up with Pandora, after both of them matured a bit. The first two books both ended with Adrian finding solace with Pandora; the third ends with him running towards Jo Jo. Yes, it's more realistic that he and his childhood crush/girlfriend drift apart, but the trajectory of Adrian's parents' relationship is not exactly realistic, and if he is not with Pandora in the end it feels rather like that whole arc has been wasted. Not that I'm waxing all serious about shipping in a YA humour book.
There is an amusing interlude when Adrian takes a holiday in Russia, gets his bananas stolen, and inadvertently participates in the August coup. I also enjoyed the progressive success of Adrian's schoolyard nemesis / sorta friend, Barry Kent, "The Skinhead Poet". The recursive nature of Lo! did get to be quite neat -- his Gary-Stu protagonist starts writing a novel, also autobiographical-to-Adrian, but set in prehistoric times, and then the protagonist of that prehistoric novel *also* starts writing a book, even though words haven't been invented yet.
I wish there had been more Adrian's home life before he left home -- I find his parents, especially his mother, entertaining, and there was probably quite a bit of possibility for comedy with a new baby sister. But, alas. That part is skipped over and only briefly alluded to in "True Confessions", though there are some glimpses of Rosie as an older (school age) child.
According to Wikipedia, there are two more books about Adrian Mole: AM: The Cappuccino Years and AM and the Weapons of Mass Destruction. I'll try to find them, I guess.
53. Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites -- this was interesting to read for a couple of reasons, even though I can't say I enjoyed it as much as I normally enjoy Discworld books. It was neat to see the first incarnation of Granny Weatherwax, though Granny-as-midwife cooing at a baby is not something I find easy to visualize having seen how she acts in subsequent books. Also, it's cemented my realization that while Magrat detracts from my enjoyment of the Witches books if she is in them too much, Nanny Ogg definitely adds to it -- I think part of the reason I didn't enjoy Equal Rites as much is that Nanny wasn't in it. It's not that she is a favorite character of mine or anything -- it's more that she provides a wonderful foil for Granny. It was also interesting to read this one because you can really see that it's an intermediate sort of book -- between the reader-focused, meta-winking early books (which I don't like nearly as much) and proper, world-focused Discworld books which start, I guess, with Mort. Equal Rites starts off with that little bit about Gandalf never marrying and things like that, and to me that just detracts from the whole-ness of Discworld.
I don't think Equal Rites is as strong or as interesting as most of the "mature" Discworld books, and I think that mostly has to do with being a lot closer to the material it's parodying. Fantasy is fantasy, and as gifted a satirist as Pratchett is, he is just not far enough from the source to have a terribly effective level with which to flip the subject on its head. Or something.
Anyway, I liked Esk OK, though I had a hard time reminding myself how old she was supposed to be once she got in possession of the staff. I greatly enjoyed Granny and the Archchancellor Cutangle's relationship, from the duel onwards, the boat (Granny lighting his cigarette!), the broomstick ride and the "date", and their having grown up together. (I also now really want to see Granny's interaction with Ridcully, which takes place in Lords and Ladies I guess?) I'm not a big fan of Things from the Dungeon Dimensions, and found that whole part of the book pretty boring, frankly. Because, it's not like the world's going to end, right? So it's hard to sustain apprehension. I did like Esk moving atoms around, though - that was neat. Also the shockwave of light after the octiron explosion.
I liked/was entertained by, randomly: the wizard tree fantasizing about bees (only Pterry, dude!), the extended simile about Hilta Goatfounder being dressed so that "a mere movement of her arms sounded like a percussion section falling off a cliff," Paps of Scilla ("there were eight of them; Gander often wondered who Scilla had been, and whether he would have liked her"); "it would have never occurred to him that children were important enough to be unkind to"; the "good fences make good neighbors" pun (groan!) and the "sheer joy of momentum and getting their rocks off" pun about continents (GROAN!) and all subsequent rock/sediment-based puns.
54. Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad -- this one was more fun (Magrat's presence nonwithstanding), although it felt less... cohesive, somehow, than other Discworld books. I think maybe it has to do with the long build-up while the Witches are getting to Genua, because while a whole lot of fun, it's not like those initial parts are really advancing the main plot. I got a huge kick out of their experiences with foreign cuisine, Nanny's postcards (re: Granny: "I think she thinks they're bein forein just to Spite her"), and watching Granny play Cripple Mr Onion -- during the build-up to that scene I felt almost like the moment in Jingo where Vetinari is about to commence juggling -- you know it's going to be incredibly kick-ass because of who is doing the action, but it's hard to imagine just in what way. Also, my love for Greebo keeps growing with every Witches book featuring humaniform!Greebo. This is a little bit creepy.
The most powerful bit of the book for me, and in a profoundly terribly way, was the encounter with the wolf who was no longer an animal and could not be human and wanted simply to end his wretched existence. That really got to me. And I was also affected by the final confrontation between Granny and Lily, wherein Granny says: "And not because you was that bad one. Not because you meddled with stories. Everyone has a path they got to tread. But because, and I wants you to understand this prop'ly, after you went I had to be the good one. You had all the fun." and "You mean you didn't even have fun? If I'd been as bad as you, I'd have been a whole lot worse, etc." And I wonder if Pterry is ever going to have a book where Granny does come close to tipping over to the dark side, what Thud! was for Vimes. That would be pretty interesting (and scary) to read.
My first encounter with Witches Abroad was actually via discworld wank (another one of those very rare events), when someone posted therein and complained that this book was "anti-story" and confessed that she nearly cried when Magrat destroyed Ella's ball gown. So I was reading the book partly looking for the alleged "anti-story" elements, and... um, I couldn't find any. The *power* of the story is definitely acknowledged -- it's very difficult to escape -- and as for their good/badness, I think it's made pretty clear that the bad things that happen are not because of stories themselves but because of *forcing* people into a particular story. So... no idea what that person was ranting about. They're mad.
It was also fairly interesting to read this book somewhat in parallel with one of Mercedes Lackey's "Five Hundred Kingdoms" books (the ones about fairy tale Tradition and all of the things it causes). A very different thematic take on the same basic idea, and, no surprise, I think Pratchett's is a good deal more interesting, if somewhat less open to sugary happy endings.
I liked/was entertained by randomly: the Gollum cameo; the witches' airline plans ("Three Witches Airborne", etc.); the Yen Buddhists, who "hold that the accumulation of money is a great evil and burden to the soul. They, therefore, regardless of personal hazard, see it as their unpleasant duty to acquire as much as possible in order to reduce the risk to innocent people"; and Mrs Gogol's hut on duck feet.
But I'm getting rather tired of everything in Pratchett having gone straight through X and out into Y on the other side of it, like: madness/santiy; drunkenness/sobriety; not talking to one another, etc. etc. It went from being an interesting idea to somewhat amusing when encountered to just kind of annoying now that I've been reading Pratchett pretty much continuously.
55. Claire B. Dunkle, In the Coils of the Snake (Book III of the Hollow Kingdom trilogy; books 1 and 2 are here and here) -- I rather enjoyed reading this book, but through much of it I kept wishing that Dunkle were a better writer. Or maybe that's not fair, but in any case, that she had been able to/had chosen to write this book in a different way. Less tell, more show. More room for characters to grow and interact, as things went by and love / trust / tolerance blossomed a little too quick. Hollow Kingdom focused on two characters (Marak the goblin king and Kate the human bride), and I think it did that quite well. Close Kin followed three (Emily the human girl, Seylin the elf-like goblin, and Sable the elf), and I think it did a poorer job, at least with the more subtle characters. Coils takes on four, more or less: Miranda the human girl with the goblin guardian, Catspaw the new goblin king, Nir the elf lord, and Arianna the elf girl who becomes Catspaw's bride. That's a lot of people to introduce and explore and marry off in the course of a 230-page book.
I wasn't particularly impressed by Catspaw, I must say. The thing I loved best about Marak his father was his sense of humour -- something which Catspaw seems almost entirely to lack. Not quite a fair comparison, as he is newly bereaved of his father (even though that's not supposed to be a big deal) and taking on the duties of King, so he's got reasons to be serious and underslept and irritable -- but that doesn't make him any pleasant to read about. I kept rooting for Arianna to give him the slip and for Nir/Miranda/Seylin/anyone at all to kick his ass. I thought it was pretty telling, for instance, that in the scene with Miranda, where he gets her to come along with him to the goblin kingdom, in a mirror of the scene in Book 1 where Kate says she'll come to Marak if he restores her sister, that in the case of Marak and Kate the girl really was coming to him of her own volition and Marak turned out to be a better person than she'd expected, whereas Catspaw is dictating the terms and using emotional blackmail. He does grow up a bit at the end, but too little too late for me to actually care about him at all.
I never got much of a coherent feel for Miranda as a character. She's had a tragic childhood and is (in a weirdly badfic turn) a cutter. This is actually explained in the text in a way that makes sense, but it still took me aback -- it just seems so divorced from the rest of the genteel Victorian setting. She had a terrible mother (and I was rather disappointed to see that Til never got any depth to her and remained a shallow, tantrum-prone petty villain), and she's afraid of the dark, and she likes to put on a brave/happy face because that's what she was taught -- but I didn't get much of a character core from any of that. Even when she falls in love with Nir it might as well be an elven glamour spell -- he captivates her with his beauty (and what she gradually accepts is kindness) but there doesn't seem to be much *feeling* behind it. Kate and Emily had sparks that made them interesting, though not as interesting as Marak. With Miranda, I don't really see that.
I did find Nir to be an intriguing character, if a bit on the emo side. But he does have that light-hearted and wry humour in him, a hint of the flightiness he would exhibit much more if the entire fate of his people were not resting on his shoulders, and that makes it a lot better. He is passionate, and stubborn, and sympathetic (I was quite touched by the line about his childhood "These two things echoed through hi life from the earliest childhood: a human woman crying bitterly and his own voice begging her to stop"), and I wish we spent more time inside his head and watching him interact with the other elves. I would've loved some chapters of him gathering the elves together, especially the band that we met in Close Kin, as at least one member of it (Willow) seems to be part of Nir's elves now. The stuff about "his magic made him do it" feels very deus ex machin-y -- I understand it's critical to how the plot unfolds, but maybe it would've worked better if it had been show, not tell. What does it feel like, really, to be compelled by one's magic to do something, to *know* it must be done? What does it feel like to try to disobey? Seeing some kind of internal magical struggle would've made this whole premise feel less like a cop-out to me. I did very much like the glimpses of what his magic could do -- reducing Kate to tears with longing, for instance -- and how pretty and flowery Elven magic is compared to the goblin magic of metal and blood. I though the King's Wife binding spells in particular were very well done as far as distinguishing them from each other.
I did kind of like Miranda's relationship with Nir, but, again, would've liked to see more time with them. I liked the beginning of it, Nir's casual coolness and mostly-benevolent superiority:
"Where are we going?" [Miranda] demanded breathlessly.
"I'm taking you back to my camp so that I can work the spell on you," he answered.
"What will the spell do to me?" she asked.
"I don't intend to tell you," he said.
and Miranda finding herself reluctantly enchanted -- in the basic magical sense -- by his beauty ("She wished that he weren't so handsome. He made it hard for her to think.") And I loved Miranda and Nir's weird, backwards un-proposal:
"But [Catspaw] wouldn't give me the one thing I wanted, and neither will you."
"You can't be sure of that," he replied. "Tell me what you want. I'll give you anything that's in my power to give. [...]
"Very well," she said with bitter fatalism. "If you really want to know, I want you." A lump rose in her throat at the pitiful hopelessness of it all.
"You want me?" said the elf lord softly. "That's good. That's in my power to give." [...]
"But," she began, "But-- you can't, you know. Elves don't marry human women."
"This elf does," replied Nir with a smile.
"But you don't want to marry me," she insisted helplessly.
The elf lord looked puzzled. "Maybe humans think backwards," he remarked thoughtfully. "You're telling me things that you couldn't possibly know without asking questions about them first. Telling me I can't marry you. Telling me I don't want to marry you. How do you know that, Sika? Have you asked?"
She stared at him. "Do you want to marry me?" she whispered.
"Of course I do," said Nir. "why do you tink we're always together?"
Possibly this is some kind of standard trope of the romance genre, but I don't read romance in general and I thought it was pretty funny.
But I have to say, it was Arianna that I found to be the most intriguing character, and, sadly, the least explored. She is so capable and strong, while also being frightened and fragile and young. I was definitely rooting for her to frustrate Catspaw as much as possible. Again, the *reason* she was so afraid felt a bit contrived -- though it could've worked much better if we'd seen that this belief was rampant in the Elf camp -- but her actions still worked. I loved her horticulture attack, too: "'You are the first King's Wife to practice agriculture in the King's bedroom for the purposes of defense,' [the Snake's Wife's Charm] hissed proudly." I love how specific it needs to get in order to claim uniqueness, too! :)
I liked Hunter, the non-magic-burdened friend of Nir, and Tattoo grew on me with the line, "I'd especially avoid these jam tarts. [...] The cooks always poison them first." I liked seeing Seylin all grown up and generally in control but still a geek. I was, frankly, disappointed that Til (Kate's foster daughter from Book 1, Catspaw's playmate/rival from Book 2, and Miranda's mother) turned into some kind of evil (step)mother in this book, and even Miranda's father, last seen as a cute little kid in Book 2, didn't so much care about his daughter being mistreated as about the wrath of Marak. Unless this is meant to be an indication that humans raised by goblins turn into heartless bastards, I find this a bit difficult to swallow. I really missed Marak in this book, and it was great that his spirit permeated the book even so, in Miranda's flashbacks and Kate talking about him, how his last great scheme informing the whole of the plot.
Predictable and trite as it was, I did actually like the plot. I liked the touchy-feely (literally) elves who are always holding hands and touching each other's hair -- and how weird that is to Victorian Miranda. That's one of the aspects I wish the book had done more with -- the cross-cultural encounters, given that human, goblin, and elf culture, plus goblin-raised "elves" and humans are all represented. The bits of this that appeared were almost my favorite in the book, but there weren't enough of them, IMO. One that was explored in quite a bit of detail was the elven belief that a girl is a child until she turns 18, and the goblin/human opposition to that belief. But that whole thing was rather hampered by the insistence on using "kissing" as a euphemism for sex (especially in Catspaw's thoughts about Arianna). I supose it's all part of the Victorian sensibilities (and Catspaw could even be subject to them, goblin though he is, because Kate had a hand in his upbringing) but it still felt like a cheat.
I would definitely read more books by Dunkle set in this world (but I don't think there are any). The library has an unrelated book by Dunkle that I'm not sure about trying. I enjoy reading her books, while also being frustrated by them to some degree, thus the extra-long write-ups, but most of the upsides about this series had to do with Marak, and I'm not sure I'd sufficiently enjoy something without him in it.
56. Mercedes Lackey, Fortune's Fool -- this is another book in the "Five Hundred Kingdoms" series, the ones dealing with Tradition and Fairy Godmothers and all that, and loosely connected to the previous books. I would've picked it up either way, but I was particularly intrigued because this one is set in a Slavic tradition. Slavic-based fantasy tends to be both amusing and frustrating for me, but definitely not something I'd pass up on. But it took me forever to actually get through it, and I enjoyed it a lot less than the first Godmother book and possibly even less than the second one. I think it has to do with the fact that half the book is set up and character introduction -- and then, when the actual plot starts if, unbelievably, gets even less exciting. The female lead, Katya, is way too competent to be interesting, has a slew of special powers, and thus succeeds in making everything go her way. If Andi in One Good Knight was a self-insert sort of Mary-Sue, Katya is a Sue of the super-special variety. Meanwhile, the male lead, Sasha, is a "Fortunate Fool", which means he's got the Luck of Tradition on his side -- so things go his way, too, at all times. And the two of them, of course, fall instantly in love and everybody is happy for them. How is any of this going to be interesting? In fact, the most exciting scene in the book is probably the battle between the kitsune and the evil sorceress back in the first quarter -- I thought the mage's duel was quite well done. So I mainly read for the setting.
The Russian ambiance stuff: there is the obligatory appearance of the Baba Yaga with her mortar and her hut on chicken legs. The Little Hump-Backed Horse (Konek-Gorbunok) also makes an appearance. There are mentions of Rusalki (Russian mermaids) and snegurochki (snow-maidens) -- it also features a "bereginia" (a "shore-spirit"), which is something I'd never heard of, but that apparently does exist in Slavic mythology, at least according to Wikipedia. Huh. The word doesn't even sound right to me, but, OK... guess I just haven't heard of these gals. A veela, herein called a Wili, is also present, but she doesn't seem to be like the veela I know and love from a collection of Slovak fairytales which was one of my favorite childhood books ("Bratislavskij Kolokol"), being ghostly and forlorn and not alluring and dangerous.
I was most impressed, though, with the appearance of a character that's herein called Queen of the Copper Mountain, though the proper translation would be "Mistress" (Mednoj Gory Hozyajka in the original) -- this is a character from Ural folklore, documented in the stories set down by P.P.Bazhov. I actually thought the old human guy Sasha meets when he is about to leave Copper Mountain is meant to be Bazhov, as he's named Pavel, but the patronymic is different. Still, it's an odd kind of cameo, and I'm not entirely convinced it's *not* meant to be him.
Of course, there are some magical critters that don't seem too Russian folklore to me. I don't think unicorns are particularly Slavic, for example, and I don't think "swan maidens" are, either. And, while "oborotni" (shape-changers) are definitely a part of the tradition, they're not so nearly central as in "Western" fantasy. More disappointing is the lack of other fun creatures from Russian folklore -- where are the domovye (brownie-like creatures), and vodyanye (forest and water spirits), and kikimory? (There's a one-word reference to a leshy, though.)
Russo-picking: The book was actually not too bad in terms of getting right the tricky patronymics and diminutives, but there were still a few mistakes. The king at one point addresses his son as "Sasha Feliks Pavel Pietrovich" -- only there are no middle names in Russian, so the "Feliks Pavel" is totally extraneous, and if he were attempting to use the prince's full name that Sasha would've been Aleksander. The name of the country, "Led Belarus" supposedly means "beautiful white land" -- I'm really not sure where that "beautiful" came from; the only thing "led" makes me think of is ice... but possibly there's some kind of Slavic language wherein itmakes more sense. At one point Sasha calls Katya "belochka" -- which supposedly means "beloved". Uh, no. It means squirrel. Little squirrel, if you want to be precise.
I find myself increasingly losing patience with Lackey's non-Valdemar books. I wonder how much longer I will continue automatically reading them...
50. Sue Townsend, The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole
52. Sue Townsend, Adrian Mole: the Lost Years
I read the second book first, and I definitely like it better than the first one. In fact, I'm not entirely sure I would've continued with the series if I'd started at the beginning. Fifteen-year-old Adrian is still rather unbelievably immature and amusingly self-absorbed and pretensious to an extent that straddles the line between amusing and annoying. Thirteen (and 3/4) year old Adrian is similar in many respects, but the relative lack of pretensiousness (he's just decided to become an intellectual, rather than being entrenched in his own view as one) makes him a good deal less interesting, at least to an adult reader. Well, to me, anyway.
Based on the cover blurb I expected the books to be funnier. They're amusing, but not hilarious. What I didn't expect, and was pleasantly surprised by, was the poignancy in the books, that I was actually moved by them (again, mostly talking about the second one here). Under all those neuroses and pretention, Adrian is actually a very decent kid, where it counts: in his relationship with his parents, whom he tries to take care of in misguided but well-meaning ways, in between being embarrassed by and for them, the old folks he helps out, and his new baby sister. The second book also took Adrian's mother, who was not very interesting and largely absent in the first book and turned her into a character I really rather liked. I can't say any of the other characters, other than Adrian himself, are sufficiently well realized to be likable, but Adrian's Grandma Mole, Bert Baxter (the old guy Adrian helps take care of), and Pandora were all interesting enough to read about.
I was surprised by the number of gay/lesbian references in a YA book published in 1982. Adrian's mother's lover's wife left him for a woman, and, although Adrian doesn't realize it, it's pretty clear that his Aunt Susan comes by with her (female) lover, and his best friend Nigel at least thinks he is gay. None of these are made a big deal of, they're just there.
I have to say that I liked the third book a lot less. It's composed of three Books, actually, the first of which ("True Confessions of Adrian Albert Mole") is pretty different from the others as it consists not of diary entries (as all the rest do, including the earlier ones) but of letters and essays and things. This works a lot less well, IMO, because it's Adrian being "on" and therefore pretentious all of the time, while in the diary entries some of the underlying sweetness
manages to come through. Not here, really. The only part of this section I rather liked was "Mole's Prizewinning Essay", staffed by a very believable Mary-Sue and Gary-Stu. The rest, as far as I was concerned, served just to fill in some plot points before the diaries started again. Oh, wait, I did also enjoy the reference to Adrian being interruted as he is composing his new opus: "I was interrupted once when a visitor called from Matlock, but I declined the encyclopaedias he was selling and returned to my desk." There is also a somewhat amusing interlude in Moscow with Pandora's father, but Adrian visits Russia again much more colourfully in the third section, so it was mostly the proto-idea of that.
The second section is called "Adrian Mole and the Small Amphibians", which puzzled me for a while until it became clear that he got a job with the Department of the Environment (or something like that), protecting and promoting the well-being of newts. This and the third section, "Adrian Mole: The Wilderness Years", flow into each other, so it doesn't make much sense to separate them in talking about them. We return to the diary format, which makes the book more readable, but still not nearly as enjoyable as the earlier two titles. Because while Adrian was already somewhat immature at 13 3/4 and 15, he hasn't actually matured any by the time he is 24. If anything, his poetry is actually worse now, because his earlier political and personal poems had at least shown some instance of feeling, and his current opus, The Restless Tadpole (which he wants to be adapted as a play, Tadpole!, with the part of the Tadpole played by Madonna and the part of the tadpole's father played by Stephen Fry)... does not. The excerpts from his "experimental novel" Lo! the Flat Hills of My Homeland (it starts out without vowels, but then he goes and puts the vowels back in) are amusingly awful, but also don't reveal nearly as much as his early poems do, even though the quoted chunks and the overall thrust are autobiographic (but it is amusing to watch Adrian live out his fantasies of burglary, murder, and suicide via his self-insert Gary-Stu). So it all feels more pointless. In general, all of the things that had made Adrian the least bit sympathetic -- his feelings towards his parents, grandmother, Bert Baxter, other people in general, disappear from the narrative, and he is actually so self-absorbed as to be deeply boring and rather repellent for most of The Lost Years.
The only thing that still worked for me as a beacon, a connection to the old Adrian was his love for Pandora, who was fairly entertaining to read about on her own. She gets married to a aristocratic bi/homo-sexual to get the first marriage out of the way, takes up with a muscle gym millionaire, starts an affair with the rakish linguistics professor. After she finally kicks Adrian out of her flat, he is wooed by another girl (Bianca), and that's where the story sort of picks up again, because there is once more an emotional center. I liked the Bianca affair, and even teared up slightly at the grandmother's funeral and Adrian's parents coming back together. Adrian's scenes with his father are awkward and rather touching.
I'm rather ambivalent about the last interlude, where Adrian finally finds a place to belong (the restaurant where he works), strikes up a normal, non-self-absorbed and relatively non-neurotic relationship with Jo Jo (a first for him), and even may have a shot at a writing career. On the one hand, it's nice to see Adrian finally grow up a bit, and by this point, after the Bianca and grandmother interlude, I don't mind seeing him happy. But... I dunno, the transformation feels too sudden, and also... I kind of really wanted to see him end up with Pandora, after both of them matured a bit. The first two books both ended with Adrian finding solace with Pandora; the third ends with him running towards Jo Jo. Yes, it's more realistic that he and his childhood crush/girlfriend drift apart, but the trajectory of Adrian's parents' relationship is not exactly realistic, and if he is not with Pandora in the end it feels rather like that whole arc has been wasted. Not that I'm waxing all serious about shipping in a YA humour book.
There is an amusing interlude when Adrian takes a holiday in Russia, gets his bananas stolen, and inadvertently participates in the August coup. I also enjoyed the progressive success of Adrian's schoolyard nemesis / sorta friend, Barry Kent, "The Skinhead Poet". The recursive nature of Lo! did get to be quite neat -- his Gary-Stu protagonist starts writing a novel, also autobiographical-to-Adrian, but set in prehistoric times, and then the protagonist of that prehistoric novel *also* starts writing a book, even though words haven't been invented yet.
I wish there had been more Adrian's home life before he left home -- I find his parents, especially his mother, entertaining, and there was probably quite a bit of possibility for comedy with a new baby sister. But, alas. That part is skipped over and only briefly alluded to in "True Confessions", though there are some glimpses of Rosie as an older (school age) child.
According to Wikipedia, there are two more books about Adrian Mole: AM: The Cappuccino Years and AM and the Weapons of Mass Destruction. I'll try to find them, I guess.
53. Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites -- this was interesting to read for a couple of reasons, even though I can't say I enjoyed it as much as I normally enjoy Discworld books. It was neat to see the first incarnation of Granny Weatherwax, though Granny-as-midwife cooing at a baby is not something I find easy to visualize having seen how she acts in subsequent books. Also, it's cemented my realization that while Magrat detracts from my enjoyment of the Witches books if she is in them too much, Nanny Ogg definitely adds to it -- I think part of the reason I didn't enjoy Equal Rites as much is that Nanny wasn't in it. It's not that she is a favorite character of mine or anything -- it's more that she provides a wonderful foil for Granny. It was also interesting to read this one because you can really see that it's an intermediate sort of book -- between the reader-focused, meta-winking early books (which I don't like nearly as much) and proper, world-focused Discworld books which start, I guess, with Mort. Equal Rites starts off with that little bit about Gandalf never marrying and things like that, and to me that just detracts from the whole-ness of Discworld.
I don't think Equal Rites is as strong or as interesting as most of the "mature" Discworld books, and I think that mostly has to do with being a lot closer to the material it's parodying. Fantasy is fantasy, and as gifted a satirist as Pratchett is, he is just not far enough from the source to have a terribly effective level with which to flip the subject on its head. Or something.
Anyway, I liked Esk OK, though I had a hard time reminding myself how old she was supposed to be once she got in possession of the staff. I greatly enjoyed Granny and the Archchancellor Cutangle's relationship, from the duel onwards, the boat (Granny lighting his cigarette!), the broomstick ride and the "date", and their having grown up together. (I also now really want to see Granny's interaction with Ridcully, which takes place in Lords and Ladies I guess?) I'm not a big fan of Things from the Dungeon Dimensions, and found that whole part of the book pretty boring, frankly. Because, it's not like the world's going to end, right? So it's hard to sustain apprehension. I did like Esk moving atoms around, though - that was neat. Also the shockwave of light after the octiron explosion.
I liked/was entertained by, randomly: the wizard tree fantasizing about bees (only Pterry, dude!), the extended simile about Hilta Goatfounder being dressed so that "a mere movement of her arms sounded like a percussion section falling off a cliff," Paps of Scilla ("there were eight of them; Gander often wondered who Scilla had been, and whether he would have liked her"); "it would have never occurred to him that children were important enough to be unkind to"; the "good fences make good neighbors" pun (groan!) and the "sheer joy of momentum and getting their rocks off" pun about continents (GROAN!) and all subsequent rock/sediment-based puns.
54. Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad -- this one was more fun (Magrat's presence nonwithstanding), although it felt less... cohesive, somehow, than other Discworld books. I think maybe it has to do with the long build-up while the Witches are getting to Genua, because while a whole lot of fun, it's not like those initial parts are really advancing the main plot. I got a huge kick out of their experiences with foreign cuisine, Nanny's postcards (re: Granny: "I think she thinks they're bein forein just to Spite her"), and watching Granny play Cripple Mr Onion -- during the build-up to that scene I felt almost like the moment in Jingo where Vetinari is about to commence juggling -- you know it's going to be incredibly kick-ass because of who is doing the action, but it's hard to imagine just in what way. Also, my love for Greebo keeps growing with every Witches book featuring humaniform!Greebo. This is a little bit creepy.
The most powerful bit of the book for me, and in a profoundly terribly way, was the encounter with the wolf who was no longer an animal and could not be human and wanted simply to end his wretched existence. That really got to me. And I was also affected by the final confrontation between Granny and Lily, wherein Granny says: "And not because you was that bad one. Not because you meddled with stories. Everyone has a path they got to tread. But because, and I wants you to understand this prop'ly, after you went I had to be the good one. You had all the fun." and "You mean you didn't even have fun? If I'd been as bad as you, I'd have been a whole lot worse, etc." And I wonder if Pterry is ever going to have a book where Granny does come close to tipping over to the dark side, what Thud! was for Vimes. That would be pretty interesting (and scary) to read.
My first encounter with Witches Abroad was actually via discworld wank (another one of those very rare events), when someone posted therein and complained that this book was "anti-story" and confessed that she nearly cried when Magrat destroyed Ella's ball gown. So I was reading the book partly looking for the alleged "anti-story" elements, and... um, I couldn't find any. The *power* of the story is definitely acknowledged -- it's very difficult to escape -- and as for their good/badness, I think it's made pretty clear that the bad things that happen are not because of stories themselves but because of *forcing* people into a particular story. So... no idea what that person was ranting about. They're mad.
It was also fairly interesting to read this book somewhat in parallel with one of Mercedes Lackey's "Five Hundred Kingdoms" books (the ones about fairy tale Tradition and all of the things it causes). A very different thematic take on the same basic idea, and, no surprise, I think Pratchett's is a good deal more interesting, if somewhat less open to sugary happy endings.
I liked/was entertained by randomly: the Gollum cameo; the witches' airline plans ("Three Witches Airborne", etc.); the Yen Buddhists, who "hold that the accumulation of money is a great evil and burden to the soul. They, therefore, regardless of personal hazard, see it as their unpleasant duty to acquire as much as possible in order to reduce the risk to innocent people"; and Mrs Gogol's hut on duck feet.
But I'm getting rather tired of everything in Pratchett having gone straight through X and out into Y on the other side of it, like: madness/santiy; drunkenness/sobriety; not talking to one another, etc. etc. It went from being an interesting idea to somewhat amusing when encountered to just kind of annoying now that I've been reading Pratchett pretty much continuously.
55. Claire B. Dunkle, In the Coils of the Snake (Book III of the Hollow Kingdom trilogy; books 1 and 2 are here and here) -- I rather enjoyed reading this book, but through much of it I kept wishing that Dunkle were a better writer. Or maybe that's not fair, but in any case, that she had been able to/had chosen to write this book in a different way. Less tell, more show. More room for characters to grow and interact, as things went by and love / trust / tolerance blossomed a little too quick. Hollow Kingdom focused on two characters (Marak the goblin king and Kate the human bride), and I think it did that quite well. Close Kin followed three (Emily the human girl, Seylin the elf-like goblin, and Sable the elf), and I think it did a poorer job, at least with the more subtle characters. Coils takes on four, more or less: Miranda the human girl with the goblin guardian, Catspaw the new goblin king, Nir the elf lord, and Arianna the elf girl who becomes Catspaw's bride. That's a lot of people to introduce and explore and marry off in the course of a 230-page book.
I wasn't particularly impressed by Catspaw, I must say. The thing I loved best about Marak his father was his sense of humour -- something which Catspaw seems almost entirely to lack. Not quite a fair comparison, as he is newly bereaved of his father (even though that's not supposed to be a big deal) and taking on the duties of King, so he's got reasons to be serious and underslept and irritable -- but that doesn't make him any pleasant to read about. I kept rooting for Arianna to give him the slip and for Nir/Miranda/Seylin/anyone at all to kick his ass. I thought it was pretty telling, for instance, that in the scene with Miranda, where he gets her to come along with him to the goblin kingdom, in a mirror of the scene in Book 1 where Kate says she'll come to Marak if he restores her sister, that in the case of Marak and Kate the girl really was coming to him of her own volition and Marak turned out to be a better person than she'd expected, whereas Catspaw is dictating the terms and using emotional blackmail. He does grow up a bit at the end, but too little too late for me to actually care about him at all.
I never got much of a coherent feel for Miranda as a character. She's had a tragic childhood and is (in a weirdly badfic turn) a cutter. This is actually explained in the text in a way that makes sense, but it still took me aback -- it just seems so divorced from the rest of the genteel Victorian setting. She had a terrible mother (and I was rather disappointed to see that Til never got any depth to her and remained a shallow, tantrum-prone petty villain), and she's afraid of the dark, and she likes to put on a brave/happy face because that's what she was taught -- but I didn't get much of a character core from any of that. Even when she falls in love with Nir it might as well be an elven glamour spell -- he captivates her with his beauty (and what she gradually accepts is kindness) but there doesn't seem to be much *feeling* behind it. Kate and Emily had sparks that made them interesting, though not as interesting as Marak. With Miranda, I don't really see that.
I did find Nir to be an intriguing character, if a bit on the emo side. But he does have that light-hearted and wry humour in him, a hint of the flightiness he would exhibit much more if the entire fate of his people were not resting on his shoulders, and that makes it a lot better. He is passionate, and stubborn, and sympathetic (I was quite touched by the line about his childhood "These two things echoed through hi life from the earliest childhood: a human woman crying bitterly and his own voice begging her to stop"), and I wish we spent more time inside his head and watching him interact with the other elves. I would've loved some chapters of him gathering the elves together, especially the band that we met in Close Kin, as at least one member of it (Willow) seems to be part of Nir's elves now. The stuff about "his magic made him do it" feels very deus ex machin-y -- I understand it's critical to how the plot unfolds, but maybe it would've worked better if it had been show, not tell. What does it feel like, really, to be compelled by one's magic to do something, to *know* it must be done? What does it feel like to try to disobey? Seeing some kind of internal magical struggle would've made this whole premise feel less like a cop-out to me. I did very much like the glimpses of what his magic could do -- reducing Kate to tears with longing, for instance -- and how pretty and flowery Elven magic is compared to the goblin magic of metal and blood. I though the King's Wife binding spells in particular were very well done as far as distinguishing them from each other.
I did kind of like Miranda's relationship with Nir, but, again, would've liked to see more time with them. I liked the beginning of it, Nir's casual coolness and mostly-benevolent superiority:
"Where are we going?" [Miranda] demanded breathlessly.
"I'm taking you back to my camp so that I can work the spell on you," he answered.
"What will the spell do to me?" she asked.
"I don't intend to tell you," he said.
and Miranda finding herself reluctantly enchanted -- in the basic magical sense -- by his beauty ("She wished that he weren't so handsome. He made it hard for her to think.") And I loved Miranda and Nir's weird, backwards un-proposal:
"But [Catspaw] wouldn't give me the one thing I wanted, and neither will you."
"You can't be sure of that," he replied. "Tell me what you want. I'll give you anything that's in my power to give. [...]
"Very well," she said with bitter fatalism. "If you really want to know, I want you." A lump rose in her throat at the pitiful hopelessness of it all.
"You want me?" said the elf lord softly. "That's good. That's in my power to give." [...]
"But," she began, "But-- you can't, you know. Elves don't marry human women."
"This elf does," replied Nir with a smile.
"But you don't want to marry me," she insisted helplessly.
The elf lord looked puzzled. "Maybe humans think backwards," he remarked thoughtfully. "You're telling me things that you couldn't possibly know without asking questions about them first. Telling me I can't marry you. Telling me I don't want to marry you. How do you know that, Sika? Have you asked?"
She stared at him. "Do you want to marry me?" she whispered.
"Of course I do," said Nir. "why do you tink we're always together?"
Possibly this is some kind of standard trope of the romance genre, but I don't read romance in general and I thought it was pretty funny.
But I have to say, it was Arianna that I found to be the most intriguing character, and, sadly, the least explored. She is so capable and strong, while also being frightened and fragile and young. I was definitely rooting for her to frustrate Catspaw as much as possible. Again, the *reason* she was so afraid felt a bit contrived -- though it could've worked much better if we'd seen that this belief was rampant in the Elf camp -- but her actions still worked. I loved her horticulture attack, too: "'You are the first King's Wife to practice agriculture in the King's bedroom for the purposes of defense,' [the Snake's Wife's Charm] hissed proudly." I love how specific it needs to get in order to claim uniqueness, too! :)
I liked Hunter, the non-magic-burdened friend of Nir, and Tattoo grew on me with the line, "I'd especially avoid these jam tarts. [...] The cooks always poison them first." I liked seeing Seylin all grown up and generally in control but still a geek. I was, frankly, disappointed that Til (Kate's foster daughter from Book 1, Catspaw's playmate/rival from Book 2, and Miranda's mother) turned into some kind of evil (step)mother in this book, and even Miranda's father, last seen as a cute little kid in Book 2, didn't so much care about his daughter being mistreated as about the wrath of Marak. Unless this is meant to be an indication that humans raised by goblins turn into heartless bastards, I find this a bit difficult to swallow. I really missed Marak in this book, and it was great that his spirit permeated the book even so, in Miranda's flashbacks and Kate talking about him, how his last great scheme informing the whole of the plot.
Predictable and trite as it was, I did actually like the plot. I liked the touchy-feely (literally) elves who are always holding hands and touching each other's hair -- and how weird that is to Victorian Miranda. That's one of the aspects I wish the book had done more with -- the cross-cultural encounters, given that human, goblin, and elf culture, plus goblin-raised "elves" and humans are all represented. The bits of this that appeared were almost my favorite in the book, but there weren't enough of them, IMO. One that was explored in quite a bit of detail was the elven belief that a girl is a child until she turns 18, and the goblin/human opposition to that belief. But that whole thing was rather hampered by the insistence on using "kissing" as a euphemism for sex (especially in Catspaw's thoughts about Arianna). I supose it's all part of the Victorian sensibilities (and Catspaw could even be subject to them, goblin though he is, because Kate had a hand in his upbringing) but it still felt like a cheat.
I would definitely read more books by Dunkle set in this world (but I don't think there are any). The library has an unrelated book by Dunkle that I'm not sure about trying. I enjoy reading her books, while also being frustrated by them to some degree, thus the extra-long write-ups, but most of the upsides about this series had to do with Marak, and I'm not sure I'd sufficiently enjoy something without him in it.
56. Mercedes Lackey, Fortune's Fool -- this is another book in the "Five Hundred Kingdoms" series, the ones dealing with Tradition and Fairy Godmothers and all that, and loosely connected to the previous books. I would've picked it up either way, but I was particularly intrigued because this one is set in a Slavic tradition. Slavic-based fantasy tends to be both amusing and frustrating for me, but definitely not something I'd pass up on. But it took me forever to actually get through it, and I enjoyed it a lot less than the first Godmother book and possibly even less than the second one. I think it has to do with the fact that half the book is set up and character introduction -- and then, when the actual plot starts if, unbelievably, gets even less exciting. The female lead, Katya, is way too competent to be interesting, has a slew of special powers, and thus succeeds in making everything go her way. If Andi in One Good Knight was a self-insert sort of Mary-Sue, Katya is a Sue of the super-special variety. Meanwhile, the male lead, Sasha, is a "Fortunate Fool", which means he's got the Luck of Tradition on his side -- so things go his way, too, at all times. And the two of them, of course, fall instantly in love and everybody is happy for them. How is any of this going to be interesting? In fact, the most exciting scene in the book is probably the battle between the kitsune and the evil sorceress back in the first quarter -- I thought the mage's duel was quite well done. So I mainly read for the setting.
The Russian ambiance stuff: there is the obligatory appearance of the Baba Yaga with her mortar and her hut on chicken legs. The Little Hump-Backed Horse (Konek-Gorbunok) also makes an appearance. There are mentions of Rusalki (Russian mermaids) and snegurochki (snow-maidens) -- it also features a "bereginia" (a "shore-spirit"), which is something I'd never heard of, but that apparently does exist in Slavic mythology, at least according to Wikipedia. Huh. The word doesn't even sound right to me, but, OK... guess I just haven't heard of these gals. A veela, herein called a Wili, is also present, but she doesn't seem to be like the veela I know and love from a collection of Slovak fairytales which was one of my favorite childhood books ("Bratislavskij Kolokol"), being ghostly and forlorn and not alluring and dangerous.
I was most impressed, though, with the appearance of a character that's herein called Queen of the Copper Mountain, though the proper translation would be "Mistress" (Mednoj Gory Hozyajka in the original) -- this is a character from Ural folklore, documented in the stories set down by P.P.Bazhov. I actually thought the old human guy Sasha meets when he is about to leave Copper Mountain is meant to be Bazhov, as he's named Pavel, but the patronymic is different. Still, it's an odd kind of cameo, and I'm not entirely convinced it's *not* meant to be him.
Of course, there are some magical critters that don't seem too Russian folklore to me. I don't think unicorns are particularly Slavic, for example, and I don't think "swan maidens" are, either. And, while "oborotni" (shape-changers) are definitely a part of the tradition, they're not so nearly central as in "Western" fantasy. More disappointing is the lack of other fun creatures from Russian folklore -- where are the domovye (brownie-like creatures), and vodyanye (forest and water spirits), and kikimory? (There's a one-word reference to a leshy, though.)
Russo-picking: The book was actually not too bad in terms of getting right the tricky patronymics and diminutives, but there were still a few mistakes. The king at one point addresses his son as "Sasha Feliks Pavel Pietrovich" -- only there are no middle names in Russian, so the "Feliks Pavel" is totally extraneous, and if he were attempting to use the prince's full name that Sasha would've been Aleksander. The name of the country, "Led Belarus" supposedly means "beautiful white land" -- I'm really not sure where that "beautiful" came from; the only thing "led" makes me think of is ice... but possibly there's some kind of Slavic language wherein itmakes more sense. At one point Sasha calls Katya "belochka" -- which supposedly means "beloved". Uh, no. It means squirrel. Little squirrel, if you want to be precise.
I find myself increasingly losing patience with Lackey's non-Valdemar books. I wonder how much longer I will continue automatically reading them...