Recent Reading: Master and Commander, Earthsea
These are not so much reviews as my ramblings about narrative spawned by the books in questions. No spoilers.
Master and Commander is a book that presents a lot of challenges for the reader, the most evident being the plot's reliance upon naval jargon. But that's the hurdle everyone always talks about with this book (at least as far as I've seen). The major issue for me was actually the point of view.
I can't actually remember the last piece of writing I read that used a truly omniscient POV. O'Brian makes it work, but my post-structuralist self has trouble accepting that. "No," my brain says, "a text isn't interesting unless it's filtered through one person's perceptions and preconceptions! You can have multiple POVs throughout a book, but scenes should be limited to one, so we can balance one person's thoughts against another's! This omniscience implies an absolute truth with the author as its arbiter! I decry you, text!" The POV does work for the sweeping sort of story he is telling, and he uses it more effectively than many writers. Still, when we jump from one character's thoughts to another's in the same scene, it's a little jarring, no mistake.
That said, I fell in love with Stephen Maturin in the first ten pages, and that alone would be enough to keep me reading.
A major reason why naval fiction is so popular, to my mind at least, is the way the ship serves to isolate the characters, forcing diverse and often conflicting personalities to interact. Add in the strict system of rank, of people taking orders with which they disagree from people who they don't necessarily respect, and the story is elevated from The Real World to an exploration of duty, honor and other time-honored military traditions.
O'Brian really excels at creating multi-faceted, compelling characters. Jack Aubrey is a good sailor, but he lacks the common sense to not sleep with his direct superior's wife. He prides himself on being able to intuit the emotions of others, but he doesn't notice that his navigator is in love with him. He desires power and rank, but is unprepared for the loneliness of this position. This makes it worth reading, even though I do wish I could keep the royals and the topgallants straight.
In these first three Earthsea novels, LeGuin manages to take two fantasy tropes I'm not fond of and combines them in a way that works for me. The first is the super-boy phenomenon, the poor young boy who journeys and learns and discovers his special innate abilities that set him above the rest of humanity until he is the most powerful man in the world (I use male pronouns only because I have never read this with a female character - I doubt I would like it any better were it a girl).
I grow tired of reading this story continually, because it sets itself up as the embodiment of the American Dream (no matter the universe in which the story takes place). This is the person who can achieve success from the most humble origins, telling us that we can be anything we want to be. But really these characters are reliant upon innate abilities that few people possess, and it's false to suggest that not toiling away in obscurity is dependent entirely upon our will. The difference between a goatherd and a sorceror is not just desire and hard work. The problem isn't that I necessarily seek truth in my fiction, it's that where these stories feel like they are supposed to be inspirational, I find them depressing and a little demeaning.
But this isn't one of those stories. LeGuin uses another technique I loathe, heavy foreshadowing (for my thoughts on this, see my discussion of omniscient POV above) to alter the structure of the story. We know from the beginning that we are reading the story of Ged, who will grow up to be the most powerful mage in the world (he even has an epic ballad!). This shifts the perspective of the narrative so that it's less a novel and more a biography.
While this shift helps the book in a lot of ways, it does serve to separate us from Ged. I don't identify with him - his power and destiny make him too remote to be entirely understandable. This is why The Tombs of Atuan and The Farthest Shore work better for me than A Wizard of Earthsea for me. Wizard of Earthsea is from Ged's point of view, which is a difficult place for me to inhabit. The other two books are from the perspective of young people who, while they have great destinies, are more accessible than Ged. I actually feel like I have a better grasp of who he is after seeing him through their filters than when he was the main character.
Tombs of Atuan, the second book, is by far my favorite. I think the reasons for this are threefold:
1. I am horribly biased toward female main characters, and I like Tenar a lot. She has been raised isolated, the sole priestess for gods that terrify her people, and whose worship has died out.
2. This is my favorite portrayal of Ged. In the first book, he is too proud and brash (typical of young male protagonists with great destinies). In the third book, he has become the Archmage, and he is too wise and remote. Here, he is wise and skilled, but he's still an idealistic adventurer. He makes mistakes, and his head is turned by a pretty young lady.
3. It's a smaller story. I don't mean in length, though it is shorter, but it's more restricted in setting and cast. The other two books are journeys from island to island, and journey stories often leave me frustrated. Inevitably there are places and peoples with which I'm bored, and I wish the story focused more on the other places in which I was interested and I didn't feel like they got enough time and development. I feel like I know Tenar and her people and their customs petty fully throughout the course of the book. Her struggles really resonate with me, and I love the focus of the story on her relationship with Ged and the growth it brings her.
There's a lot more that can be said about these books, particularly when viewing them in terms of anthropology and philosophy (Taoism being necessary for any full discussion), but I've gone on for far too long.
Master and Commander is a book that presents a lot of challenges for the reader, the most evident being the plot's reliance upon naval jargon. But that's the hurdle everyone always talks about with this book (at least as far as I've seen). The major issue for me was actually the point of view.
I can't actually remember the last piece of writing I read that used a truly omniscient POV. O'Brian makes it work, but my post-structuralist self has trouble accepting that. "No," my brain says, "a text isn't interesting unless it's filtered through one person's perceptions and preconceptions! You can have multiple POVs throughout a book, but scenes should be limited to one, so we can balance one person's thoughts against another's! This omniscience implies an absolute truth with the author as its arbiter! I decry you, text!" The POV does work for the sweeping sort of story he is telling, and he uses it more effectively than many writers. Still, when we jump from one character's thoughts to another's in the same scene, it's a little jarring, no mistake.
That said, I fell in love with Stephen Maturin in the first ten pages, and that alone would be enough to keep me reading.
A major reason why naval fiction is so popular, to my mind at least, is the way the ship serves to isolate the characters, forcing diverse and often conflicting personalities to interact. Add in the strict system of rank, of people taking orders with which they disagree from people who they don't necessarily respect, and the story is elevated from The Real World to an exploration of duty, honor and other time-honored military traditions.
O'Brian really excels at creating multi-faceted, compelling characters. Jack Aubrey is a good sailor, but he lacks the common sense to not sleep with his direct superior's wife. He prides himself on being able to intuit the emotions of others, but he doesn't notice that his navigator is in love with him. He desires power and rank, but is unprepared for the loneliness of this position. This makes it worth reading, even though I do wish I could keep the royals and the topgallants straight.
In these first three Earthsea novels, LeGuin manages to take two fantasy tropes I'm not fond of and combines them in a way that works for me. The first is the super-boy phenomenon, the poor young boy who journeys and learns and discovers his special innate abilities that set him above the rest of humanity until he is the most powerful man in the world (I use male pronouns only because I have never read this with a female character - I doubt I would like it any better were it a girl).
I grow tired of reading this story continually, because it sets itself up as the embodiment of the American Dream (no matter the universe in which the story takes place). This is the person who can achieve success from the most humble origins, telling us that we can be anything we want to be. But really these characters are reliant upon innate abilities that few people possess, and it's false to suggest that not toiling away in obscurity is dependent entirely upon our will. The difference between a goatherd and a sorceror is not just desire and hard work. The problem isn't that I necessarily seek truth in my fiction, it's that where these stories feel like they are supposed to be inspirational, I find them depressing and a little demeaning.
But this isn't one of those stories. LeGuin uses another technique I loathe, heavy foreshadowing (for my thoughts on this, see my discussion of omniscient POV above) to alter the structure of the story. We know from the beginning that we are reading the story of Ged, who will grow up to be the most powerful mage in the world (he even has an epic ballad!). This shifts the perspective of the narrative so that it's less a novel and more a biography.
While this shift helps the book in a lot of ways, it does serve to separate us from Ged. I don't identify with him - his power and destiny make him too remote to be entirely understandable. This is why The Tombs of Atuan and The Farthest Shore work better for me than A Wizard of Earthsea for me. Wizard of Earthsea is from Ged's point of view, which is a difficult place for me to inhabit. The other two books are from the perspective of young people who, while they have great destinies, are more accessible than Ged. I actually feel like I have a better grasp of who he is after seeing him through their filters than when he was the main character.
Tombs of Atuan, the second book, is by far my favorite. I think the reasons for this are threefold:
1. I am horribly biased toward female main characters, and I like Tenar a lot. She has been raised isolated, the sole priestess for gods that terrify her people, and whose worship has died out.
2. This is my favorite portrayal of Ged. In the first book, he is too proud and brash (typical of young male protagonists with great destinies). In the third book, he has become the Archmage, and he is too wise and remote. Here, he is wise and skilled, but he's still an idealistic adventurer. He makes mistakes, and his head is turned by a pretty young lady.
3. It's a smaller story. I don't mean in length, though it is shorter, but it's more restricted in setting and cast. The other two books are journeys from island to island, and journey stories often leave me frustrated. Inevitably there are places and peoples with which I'm bored, and I wish the story focused more on the other places in which I was interested and I didn't feel like they got enough time and development. I feel like I know Tenar and her people and their customs petty fully throughout the course of the book. Her struggles really resonate with me, and I love the focus of the story on her relationship with Ged and the growth it brings her.
There's a lot more that can be said about these books, particularly when viewing them in terms of anthropology and philosophy (Taoism being necessary for any full discussion), but I've gone on for far too long.