March Book Review
Well, at least I got this posted in the right month.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien
I know this may shock and alarm you, but this was actually a re-read.
Some blog somewhere (Punkadiddle, maybe?) pointed out something really cool about LotR: its writing style basically goes backwards through LITERARY STYLES OF THE AGES! So you start in FotR with a very 19th-century novel (comedy of manners with the hobbits, oodles and oodles of Romantic sublimity of nature, and maybe even a Gothic/horror with the Black Riders and the Balrog) which in TTT morphs into medieval romance mode (Adventuring! Battles! Random awesome people showing up to help you! And of course, questing!) and then peaks in RotK as a full-blown epic (Hubris! Descent into the underworld! Copious use of the word 'Lo!' EVEN BIGGER BATTLES! And finally, an elegiac denouement that gives Beowulf a run for its money. ) What I find interesting, though, is that every time there's a hobbit on the scene, the style shifts back to the 19th century -- which is a neat touch, considering that LotR is supposed to be adapted from Bilbo's and Frodo's stuff.
Anyways, I theorize that this is why it took ME at least several tries to actually read the whole thing: one thing the 19th century is NOT known for is snappy, fast-paced novels, and it definitely took a lot of practice to appreciate FotR's slow build.
Unrelated: I came across this quote and went "Hmmmmm!" It's the conversation Sam's having with Ted Sandyman at one of the taverns.
'But what about these Tree-Men, these giants, as you might call them? They do say that one bigger than a tree was seen up away beyond the North Moors not long back.'
'Who's they?'
'My cousin Hal for one. He workds for Mr. Boffin at Overhill and goes up to the Northfarthing for the hunting. He saw one.'
'Says he did, perhaps. Your Hal's always saying he's seen things; and maybe he sees things that ain't there.'
'But this one was as big as an elm tree, and walking -- walking seven yards to a stride, if it was an inch.'
'The I bet it wasn't an inch. What he saw was an elm tree, as like as not.'
'But this one was walking, I tell you; and there ain't no elm tree on the North Moors.'
'Then Hal can't have seen one,' said Ted. (43)
So, there aren't any giants in LotR, as far as I know. So what did Hal see? A rogue Ent/Entwive? And why were they there? THE PLOT THICKENS!
In conclusion: this quote made me laugh.
"Fail -- even as he said the word his voice faded into silence." (110)
The Corinthian, by Georgette Heyer
So, I think this has my favorite leading couple of any Georgette Heyer book so far. Pen ("like the Quaker") is the spirited and clever heroine who nevertheless gets most of her plans from the wacky plots of books, which is why we first meet her climbing out her window in the middle of the night dressed as a boy. Sir Richard Wyndham, meanwhile, SEEMS like a sensible guy, but nevertheless decides to help her run away from an unwanted marriage basically for the lulz (his being drunk at the time might have had something to do with it, too) so really he is just as crazy as she is, particularly when it comes to the apotheosis of all neckware. Like when he makes her stop IN THE MIDDLE OF FLEEING PURSUIT so he can re-tie her cravat. Naturally, they proceed to get into all sorts of hilarious mishaps and adventures, all while impeccably dressed.
IMPORTANT NOTE: NO RELATION TO THE CORINTHIAN FROM SANDMAN. Though Pen would probably agree that an eyeball-chomping nightmare would have made things considerably more exciting.
The Black Swan and Firebird, by Mercedes Lackey
I picked The Black Swan up again after finishing Princess Tutu (everyone's favorite ballerina magical girl epic meta anime!) since they both re-mix Swan Lake, and then re-read Firebird because I wanted to see how it compared on the ballet/fairy tale adaptation front. Some observations:
-- I really liked Odile and Odette's friendship in The Black Swan, especially because it sets up so nicely for the subverted ending. However, I really wish we could have had Odette as a POV character (instead of reading so much about Clothilde the evil queen, e.g.) as 1) her take on their friendship would have been cool and 2) it would have made her more three-dimensional. As it was, she still remains kind of an idealized princess figure as BOTH Odile's BFF and Siegfried's love-interest.
-- I DID, however, like that the whole idealized princess thing was TOTALLY SHOT DOWN (IN FLAMES) at the end of Firebird. Heh.
-- Mercedes Lackey seems to have some kind of obsession with her heroes (but not the heroines) having SO MUCH SEX OMG. Seriously, both Siegfried and Ilya spend at least a third of their books respectively contemplating how much tail they've been getting. (Though I did find this kind of hilarious in TBS thanks to Princess Tutu.) However, I was particularly meh about the former resulting in our hero date-raping a random gypsy -- sure, he reforms and becomes a better person, but THE GYPSY LADY IS STILL DEAD WHILE YOU'RE HAVING YOUR HAPPY ENDING, DOUCHE. That subversion, not pulled off so well.
-- Mercedes Lackey spends so much time explaining things. I mean, I appreciate it when writers do their research, but there's only so much exposition about medieval German/Russian culture, the protagonists' plans for the day (WHICH AREN'T EVEN GOING TO HAPPEN BECAUSE OF PLOT), or what EVERY SINGLE PERSON EVER IS WEARING that one can take.
The Book of Heroes, by Miyuki Miyabe
I first found this in the skiffy section of B&N, but eventually got it out of the children's section of the library, and WOW, is it mis-shelved. Conceptually, it's REALLY GRIM for a kid's book (and even for me!).
Japanese grade-schooler Yuriko's older brother, Hiroki, disappears after knifing two of his classmates, and she finds out he's been possessed by the King in the Yellow, the dark side of the Hero. Not a specific hero, but the entire fictional archetype. Because everywhere a heroic protagonist goes, death and destruction follow, and invoking the Hero (as Hiroki has done by reading the titular Book of Heroes) means that the world and beyond will be consumed by war. So Yuri sets off on a quest to find her brother and capture the Hero, with the help of a anthropomorphic spell-dictionary, a monk who is supposed to be a non-entity but isn't, and a fictional character who has escaped from his book series to hunt the Hero.
It's a really cool plot, but not exactly fun because the meta is so DARK. Not only can invoking the Hero (even for good reasons!) end up destroying the entire universe, but there's the whole unpleasant cycle of storytelling to consider: people need stories to live, but because stories are, you know, LIES, anyone who creates them ends up perpetually bound to a big wheel that sends out inspiration and collects forgotten stories. (This seems kind of purposefully harsh when you're an author.) Sure, you'd have no identity or conception of time, and technically be extremely holy, but STILL. It strikes me as kinda Buddhist, actually, where the world is inherently sucky, and the best you can do is tolerate it until you can escape: stories are a necessary evil. The Western view of storytelling tends to be more positive, focusing more on things like inspiration, creation, catharsis, and enlightenment (how many of our major religions depend on a very limited set of holy books?), so it's a pretty jarring switch in perspective. So yeah: happy fun times, not here.
Also, there was a big plot twist at the end didn't have the impact it should have, and which I didn't predict even though it should have been obvious. Partly, I think this was because it took me such a long time to read the book (since I read most of it in various sessions at B&N ::whistles innocently::) and thus maybe missed/forgot a lot of foreshadowing, but I also had a problem in that every time something was hinted to be not what it seemed, I just assumed it was something BAD and didn't bother to really try to figure it out. I ended up preparing for the book to be more depressing than it was (it was still pretty depressing), which meant that I wasn't nearly as invested in it.
In conclusion: nice of the cover to make it clear the heroine is Japanese. Faaaaaaail.
Interesting Times, by Terry Pratchett
This, however, IS happy fun times. ::hearts Pterry::
Rincewind has never been my favorite character, but I do like him, and I think what his books lack in character development, they make up for in having a larger percentage of surface jokes -- like, footnotes (ARRGH!), running gags (both in-book, like Rincewind's obsession with potatoes, or in-series, like the really old barbarian heroes), totally random plot elements (the Quantum Weather Butterfly), wacky characters (the entire Silver Horde), etc. Interesting Times has the added bonus of being one of Pterry's best-plotted Discworld books, I think: practically every element either gets a proper introduction before coming into play (like the Red Army) or totally makes sense in context (Cohen invading). That's definitely something I miss in his more recent Discworld books, which are still hilarious but more prone to either dropping plots or picking them up in the middle.
I do kind of wonder where it falls in the RaceFAIL scheme, though. Obviously there's a lot of parody and satire, and Pterry spends a lot of time skewering stereotypes, but I kinda feel like he relies on a couple to make jokes, too. Plus, while we generally get an entertaining subversion of the Mighty Whitey plot with Rincewind (is there a character LESS likely to save a culture, except by accident? :D), it's played kind of straight with Cohen and the Silver Horde. Depends on where you draw the line, I guess.
In conclusion: Stercus, stercus, stercus! Moriturus sum!
(Oh, and macros!)
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien
I know this may shock and alarm you, but this was actually a re-read.
Some blog somewhere (Punkadiddle, maybe?) pointed out something really cool about LotR: its writing style basically goes backwards through LITERARY STYLES OF THE AGES! So you start in FotR with a very 19th-century novel (comedy of manners with the hobbits, oodles and oodles of Romantic sublimity of nature, and maybe even a Gothic/horror with the Black Riders and the Balrog) which in TTT morphs into medieval romance mode (Adventuring! Battles! Random awesome people showing up to help you! And of course, questing!) and then peaks in RotK as a full-blown epic (Hubris! Descent into the underworld! Copious use of the word 'Lo!' EVEN BIGGER BATTLES! And finally, an elegiac denouement that gives Beowulf a run for its money. ) What I find interesting, though, is that every time there's a hobbit on the scene, the style shifts back to the 19th century -- which is a neat touch, considering that LotR is supposed to be adapted from Bilbo's and Frodo's stuff.
Anyways, I theorize that this is why it took ME at least several tries to actually read the whole thing: one thing the 19th century is NOT known for is snappy, fast-paced novels, and it definitely took a lot of practice to appreciate FotR's slow build.
Unrelated: I came across this quote and went "Hmmmmm!" It's the conversation Sam's having with Ted Sandyman at one of the taverns.
'But what about these Tree-Men, these giants, as you might call them? They do say that one bigger than a tree was seen up away beyond the North Moors not long back.'
'Who's they?'
'My cousin Hal for one. He workds for Mr. Boffin at Overhill and goes up to the Northfarthing for the hunting. He saw one.'
'Says he did, perhaps. Your Hal's always saying he's seen things; and maybe he sees things that ain't there.'
'But this one was as big as an elm tree, and walking -- walking seven yards to a stride, if it was an inch.'
'The I bet it wasn't an inch. What he saw was an elm tree, as like as not.'
'But this one was walking, I tell you; and there ain't no elm tree on the North Moors.'
'Then Hal can't have seen one,' said Ted. (43)
So, there aren't any giants in LotR, as far as I know. So what did Hal see? A rogue Ent/Entwive? And why were they there? THE PLOT THICKENS!
In conclusion: this quote made me laugh.
"Fail -- even as he said the word his voice faded into silence." (110)
The Corinthian, by Georgette Heyer
So, I think this has my favorite leading couple of any Georgette Heyer book so far. Pen ("like the Quaker") is the spirited and clever heroine who nevertheless gets most of her plans from the wacky plots of books, which is why we first meet her climbing out her window in the middle of the night dressed as a boy. Sir Richard Wyndham, meanwhile, SEEMS like a sensible guy, but nevertheless decides to help her run away from an unwanted marriage basically for the lulz (his being drunk at the time might have had something to do with it, too) so really he is just as crazy as she is, particularly when it comes to the apotheosis of all neckware. Like when he makes her stop IN THE MIDDLE OF FLEEING PURSUIT so he can re-tie her cravat. Naturally, they proceed to get into all sorts of hilarious mishaps and adventures, all while impeccably dressed.
IMPORTANT NOTE: NO RELATION TO THE CORINTHIAN FROM SANDMAN. Though Pen would probably agree that an eyeball-chomping nightmare would have made things considerably more exciting.
The Black Swan and Firebird, by Mercedes Lackey
I picked The Black Swan up again after finishing Princess Tutu (everyone's favorite ballerina magical girl epic meta anime!) since they both re-mix Swan Lake, and then re-read Firebird because I wanted to see how it compared on the ballet/fairy tale adaptation front. Some observations:
-- I really liked Odile and Odette's friendship in The Black Swan, especially because it sets up so nicely for the subverted ending. However, I really wish we could have had Odette as a POV character (instead of reading so much about Clothilde the evil queen, e.g.) as 1) her take on their friendship would have been cool and 2) it would have made her more three-dimensional. As it was, she still remains kind of an idealized princess figure as BOTH Odile's BFF and Siegfried's love-interest.
-- I DID, however, like that the whole idealized princess thing was TOTALLY SHOT DOWN (IN FLAMES) at the end of Firebird. Heh.
-- Mercedes Lackey seems to have some kind of obsession with her heroes (but not the heroines) having SO MUCH SEX OMG. Seriously, both Siegfried and Ilya spend at least a third of their books respectively contemplating how much tail they've been getting. (Though I did find this kind of hilarious in TBS thanks to Princess Tutu.) However, I was particularly meh about the former resulting in our hero date-raping a random gypsy -- sure, he reforms and becomes a better person, but THE GYPSY LADY IS STILL DEAD WHILE YOU'RE HAVING YOUR HAPPY ENDING, DOUCHE. That subversion, not pulled off so well.
-- Mercedes Lackey spends so much time explaining things. I mean, I appreciate it when writers do their research, but there's only so much exposition about medieval German/Russian culture, the protagonists' plans for the day (WHICH AREN'T EVEN GOING TO HAPPEN BECAUSE OF PLOT), or what EVERY SINGLE PERSON EVER IS WEARING that one can take.
The Book of Heroes, by Miyuki Miyabe
I first found this in the skiffy section of B&N, but eventually got it out of the children's section of the library, and WOW, is it mis-shelved. Conceptually, it's REALLY GRIM for a kid's book (and even for me!).
Japanese grade-schooler Yuriko's older brother, Hiroki, disappears after knifing two of his classmates, and she finds out he's been possessed by the King in the Yellow, the dark side of the Hero. Not a specific hero, but the entire fictional archetype. Because everywhere a heroic protagonist goes, death and destruction follow, and invoking the Hero (as Hiroki has done by reading the titular Book of Heroes) means that the world and beyond will be consumed by war. So Yuri sets off on a quest to find her brother and capture the Hero, with the help of a anthropomorphic spell-dictionary, a monk who is supposed to be a non-entity but isn't, and a fictional character who has escaped from his book series to hunt the Hero.
It's a really cool plot, but not exactly fun because the meta is so DARK. Not only can invoking the Hero (even for good reasons!) end up destroying the entire universe, but there's the whole unpleasant cycle of storytelling to consider: people need stories to live, but because stories are, you know, LIES, anyone who creates them ends up perpetually bound to a big wheel that sends out inspiration and collects forgotten stories. (This seems kind of purposefully harsh when you're an author.) Sure, you'd have no identity or conception of time, and technically be extremely holy, but STILL. It strikes me as kinda Buddhist, actually, where the world is inherently sucky, and the best you can do is tolerate it until you can escape: stories are a necessary evil. The Western view of storytelling tends to be more positive, focusing more on things like inspiration, creation, catharsis, and enlightenment (how many of our major religions depend on a very limited set of holy books?), so it's a pretty jarring switch in perspective. So yeah: happy fun times, not here.
Also, there was a big plot twist at the end didn't have the impact it should have, and which I didn't predict even though it should have been obvious. Partly, I think this was because it took me such a long time to read the book (since I read most of it in various sessions at B&N ::whistles innocently::) and thus maybe missed/forgot a lot of foreshadowing, but I also had a problem in that every time something was hinted to be not what it seemed, I just assumed it was something BAD and didn't bother to really try to figure it out. I ended up preparing for the book to be more depressing than it was (it was still pretty depressing), which meant that I wasn't nearly as invested in it.
In conclusion: nice of the cover to make it clear the heroine is Japanese. Faaaaaaail.
Interesting Times, by Terry Pratchett
This, however, IS happy fun times. ::hearts Pterry::
Rincewind has never been my favorite character, but I do like him, and I think what his books lack in character development, they make up for in having a larger percentage of surface jokes -- like, footnotes (ARRGH!), running gags (both in-book, like Rincewind's obsession with potatoes, or in-series, like the really old barbarian heroes), totally random plot elements (the Quantum Weather Butterfly), wacky characters (the entire Silver Horde), etc. Interesting Times has the added bonus of being one of Pterry's best-plotted Discworld books, I think: practically every element either gets a proper introduction before coming into play (like the Red Army) or totally makes sense in context (Cohen invading). That's definitely something I miss in his more recent Discworld books, which are still hilarious but more prone to either dropping plots or picking them up in the middle.
I do kind of wonder where it falls in the RaceFAIL scheme, though. Obviously there's a lot of parody and satire, and Pterry spends a lot of time skewering stereotypes, but I kinda feel like he relies on a couple to make jokes, too. Plus, while we generally get an entertaining subversion of the Mighty Whitey plot with Rincewind (is there a character LESS likely to save a culture, except by accident? :D), it's played kind of straight with Cohen and the Silver Horde. Depends on where you draw the line, I guess.
In conclusion: Stercus, stercus, stercus! Moriturus sum!
(Oh, and macros!)