The Raven Tower sync read post

[hamsterwoman]

For me and ikel89 and hopefully cyanshadow and anyone else who wants to join in!

This entry was originally posted at https://hamsterwoman.dreamwidth.org/1104287.html. Comment wherever you prefer (I prefer LJ).

Comments

through 56%

[hamsterwoman]

What is it with books that don't have chapter breaks or number chapters? It makes sync reads across different editions/mediums hard

Re: through 56% -- a little more

[hamsterwoman]

I have a feeling I would like the relationship between Mawat and Eolo more if I were not seeing it at such a remove, because some of the lines are pretty good ("Apparently I do need you to tell me what I said."), and the assumptions people make about Eolo's abilities to manage Mawat's temper. It's the sort of relationship I should normally like, but filtered through second person and an inhuman POV, it comes through only very faintly, which is a pity.

Re: through 56% -- a little more

[ikel89]

Your fealty kink is showing B-)

Re: through 56% -- a little more

[hamsterwoman]

...It might be XP

through 85%

[hamsterwoman]

OK, the plot has finally started rolling downhill! (Actually, I kind of appreciate, like, intellectually, the way the book starts very slow, like getting a ponderous thing in motion, and then keeps gathering momentum as it rolls on. It feels fitting. But at the same time, the beginning WAS very slow, and if I didn't already have a lot of faith built up in Leckie, and/or the external pressure of the sync read, I'm not sure I wouldn't have wandered away for something shinier

Re: through 85%

[hamsterwoman]

An aside on gender:

I had been thinking about Eolo as a trans guy, because the other (human) characters use male pronouns for Eolo (and also at one point says, "I am a farmer's son" or something like that), but cyanshadow passed on a question from her coworkers' discussion: is Eolo a trans guy or a non-binary trans person in a world that does not have vocabulary for concepts like "non-binary", and the more I thought about it, the more I feel like you can't really tell for sure how Eolo feels about it in the book (at least to this point) but I suspect Leckie either intended the non-binary interpretation or specifically to leave it open as a possibility. Eolo is very, very firm on one thing when it comes to gender -- "I am not a woman," Eolo says to Tikaz, and again to Mawat when Mawat is about to storm into the house of the Silent and drag Eolo along (I thought that scene was quite neat, if maybe not seamlessly organic, where Mawat, barging into a space intended for women only, is violating religious/social taboo and doesn't care, but walking

through the end

[hamsterwoman]

OK, I confess I'm kind of underwhelmed by the ending. It's just so... Hamletty. Like, I mean, obviously it was doing Hamlet, but I was thinking it would do SOMETHING with that story -- tweak or subvert or tie it into the rock thread in some clever way, but I didn't feel like it did any of those things -- it just played Hamlet quite straight (or, with less nuance for some characters but happier endings for some others), and I'm just, like, but why? That was totally unsatisfying.

I'm not thrilled with what Mawat turned into in this last section, going from someone flawed who was probably not going to do great in the role of Lease to just plain irrational, a jerk, and kind of an idiot to boot. I do find it interesting that the two characters who die in the play who survive in the book are the Gertrude analogue and Ophelia analogue -- both the women, which I think is not a coincidence. And I liked Tikaz a lot, and Gertrude was my favorite in Hamlet, so I'm hardly complaining, but it feels like a fairly transparent agenda. And then ~

Re: through the end

[ikel89]

Despite my lack of timely comments, I wanted to say thanks for pointing out the parallels I would have otherwise missed in my general meh-state of reading: indeed, mawat's "my father never fled" being akin to god bankruptcy, and rock's and Eolo's similar identity stances: they are all legit there and add to the structural polyphony of the book. It's a pity I don't like three-hour-long opera, to run away with the metaphor :P The turning of the wheel by Lease also didn't occur to me as a theory: I assumed the turning mechanism was enabled by the god's own powers.

PS. 100% with you on Gaspode :DDD

Re: through the end

[hamsterwoman]

PS. 100% with you on Gaspode :DDD

I'm glad I'm not alone in this! XD

the structural polyphony of the book. It's a pity I don't like three-hour-long opera, to run away with the metaphor :P

I really like that structural polyphony metaphor! But yeah, fair point about three hour opera. I'm actually a bit surprised I was able to enjoy this book as much as I did, because it is a decidedly, unapologetically, intentionally odd book.