Reading roundup, including The Neon Court
21. Jonathan Kellerman, Killer -- so this totally did the job of hooking me instantly and getting me to finish it within 24 hours of having picked it up t the library, like these books normally do. It was interesting / rather different from most Delaware books in that ( spoilers, including the whodunit )
re: "so many dead women". Well, so long as it’s not about feminism...
I can definitely understand why the death toll could be a problem - it’s not like I don’t miss the characters or don’t wish they were alive. I could come up with a few explanations why Griffin chose to walk down that particular path, if we assume there’s an idea behind it and not, you know, “the book wrote itself and that’s how it flowed”. When I was reading the books, I was sad over so many great characters dying, but accepted it without consciously criticizing the author, so I guess it was a little different for me. Alternatively, in Magicals Anonymous series she hardly kills off anyone, but I don’t think it has any impact on my opinion on the series, either positive or negative.
Oh, I see the connection to the poem, definitely, and I see why you like it, too; I think it’s a good one.
Take your time! :) For us confused-by-two-magical-Londons people the breaks might be an actual necessity lol.
Reply
I'm glad I'm not just imagining the similarities. ("Aubade" has been my favorite poem for the last, oh, probably almost 20 years, and every time I reread it, I get the same chill from so many lines...)
I could come up with a few explanations why Griffin chose to walk down that particular path, if we assume there’s an idea behind it and not, you know, “the book wrote itself and that’s how it flowed”.
If such speculation is interesting to you, I would love to hear those ideas!
(And that's reassuring to hear that the characters don't die nearly as much in the other series.)
For us confused-by-two-magical-Londons people the breaks might be an actual necessity lol.
Haha, you could well be right!
Reply
I never really thought my ideas through, I guess, but it goes something like this. So many dead characters would first and foremost indicate that the book is srs bzns rather than a happily-ever-after cute story, which, admittedly, doesn't explain why Griffin had to kill off quite so many to get the idea across. I always took that fact coupled with the fact that Matthew is involved in those character deaths to some degree to mean that the angels are dangerous whether they intend to or not, and even trying their best, with Matthew's consciousness there as the ultimate leash, they still are a deity (a deity fetus, whatever) roaming the human world, and as such are bound to cause death and destruction. It also highlights the contrast between what Matthew is now and what he used to be. As you very aptly put it, Matthew is fairly low-key on his own; we know that prior to this whole Shadow debacle he used to live a fairly normal life -- had a house, paid his taxes and had friends whom he didn't inadvertently lead to their untimely demise on a regular basis. What he is now is not normal and is not human, so he lives in abnormal circumstances, which include an insane number of casualties among other incomprehensible crap.
That'd be my view of the issue in a nutshell, and I guess if I think more on it I'm not very likely to come up with anything absolutely different, only flesh it out, maybe.
Reply
I like your explanation. It belonging to the angels rather than Matthew does make sense, and makes the tableau a bit more palatable for me personally. Though I would still obviously rather have Dees and Oda and everyone there :((
Reply
Leave a comment