General Ben January thoughts upon rereading Wet Grave
I reread Wet Grave (Ben January Mysteries #6) over the last couple of days because I talked 
rachelmanija into going back to reading the series with that one, and so I'll make a nonspoilery post for that in a little while, but reading it made me have some thoughts that reference later books all the way up to Cold Bayou.
* I remember finding the first half of this book draggy the first time, but it's vastly more interesting now that the St. Chinians and Viellards have become major players in the series. I did remember that this was the book in which we got to know Chloe (with the best love triangle resolution ever) but I had completely forgotten that Artois was her half-brother ... and of course we'll see Uncle Veryl again in Cold Bayou.
I was really intrigued, though, that Chloe comes across much warmer and more approachable here than she does in many of the subsequent books, especially Cold Bayou. I got the impression in CB especially that the issue is mainly that Ben just doesn't like her, for basically irrational reasons -- probably having partly to do with the Dominique thing, but also because she doesn't quite fit his idea of what a woman should be like -- and this is coloring the way she comes across in the narrative. I think the narrator bias is especially noticeable in CB because the exact things he criticizes about her are qualities that some of the male characters share (her coldness and emotional buttoned-down-ness, for example, is something that's one of Shaw's traits as well), and he doesn't seem to mind it there. But I get the impression it's narrator bias rather than author bias, if that makes sense. I don't think we're supposed to feel as biased towards Chloe as Ben does. He just doesn't like her much. For the culture he lives in, Ben is extremely open-minded, particularly towards women, but I think Chloe is running afoul of some of his unconscious biases towards wanting more emotional openness from the women he interacts with.
I also thought of this while reading Wet Grave and noticing the way that Ben relates to the prostitutes in the Swamp. Again, it's hard to untangle author bias from character bias, and while I got the strong impression in Cold Bayou that we weren't supposed to share Ben's opinions on Chloe, here it's a lot harder to tell; but I do think this is another case where the "slut", etc, is mainly coming from Ben and his Good Catholic Boy background, especially in dealing with white woman. (He's more sympathetic towards prostitutes of color, especially people he knows personally.) But admittedly it is kind of difficult to tell if this is an intentional narrator thing, or if the author simply gets more nuanced with the working-girls later on, e.g. Viente-y-Cinco in The Shirt on His Back, who is very sympathetically portrayed.
* On a more cheerful note, I have so much love for the slow, slow burn on Ben and Shaw's friendship. Slowly developing friendships that have to overcome a lot of obstacles to get to a good place are one of my favorite things, and I think this one is a bit anomalous (compared to some of the others I like) because they actually like each other from the very first time they meet; they click right away, and trust each other instinctively almost from the first. And yet, the ironclad barriers of race and class and culture are something they only very, very slowly manage to crawl past. I love how it takes something like 4 books, I think, before Ben even refers to Shaw as a friend in his own head, let alone admitting it out loud yet. And in this book we get Ben flipflopping between (understandably!) seeing Shaw as The Enemy and as a friend, and then the hug, and their seamless teamwork in the climax ...! And it builds and builds, but quietly, in the background, 'til in The Shirt on His Back he just shorthands the relationship for Morning Star as "he's my brother."
I'm still slightly annoyed that we've never gotten Shaw interacting with Ben's kids in canon. I realize that finding a way to get Shaw and Ben's kids into the same scene might be narratively difficult, but COME ON, there have been several perfect openings for it (e.g. when the kids were kidnapped) and it just never seems to happen.
I also feel that we're overdue for another Shaw-spotlight book, but maybe that's just me.
This entry is also posted at https://sholio.dreamwidth.org/1224381.html with
comments.
rachelmanija into going back to reading the series with that one, and so I'll make a nonspoilery post for that in a little while, but reading it made me have some thoughts that reference later books all the way up to Cold Bayou.
* I remember finding the first half of this book draggy the first time, but it's vastly more interesting now that the St. Chinians and Viellards have become major players in the series. I did remember that this was the book in which we got to know Chloe (with the best love triangle resolution ever) but I had completely forgotten that Artois was her half-brother ... and of course we'll see Uncle Veryl again in Cold Bayou.
I was really intrigued, though, that Chloe comes across much warmer and more approachable here than she does in many of the subsequent books, especially Cold Bayou. I got the impression in CB especially that the issue is mainly that Ben just doesn't like her, for basically irrational reasons -- probably having partly to do with the Dominique thing, but also because she doesn't quite fit his idea of what a woman should be like -- and this is coloring the way she comes across in the narrative. I think the narrator bias is especially noticeable in CB because the exact things he criticizes about her are qualities that some of the male characters share (her coldness and emotional buttoned-down-ness, for example, is something that's one of Shaw's traits as well), and he doesn't seem to mind it there. But I get the impression it's narrator bias rather than author bias, if that makes sense. I don't think we're supposed to feel as biased towards Chloe as Ben does. He just doesn't like her much. For the culture he lives in, Ben is extremely open-minded, particularly towards women, but I think Chloe is running afoul of some of his unconscious biases towards wanting more emotional openness from the women he interacts with.
I also thought of this while reading Wet Grave and noticing the way that Ben relates to the prostitutes in the Swamp. Again, it's hard to untangle author bias from character bias, and while I got the strong impression in Cold Bayou that we weren't supposed to share Ben's opinions on Chloe, here it's a lot harder to tell; but I do think this is another case where the "slut", etc, is mainly coming from Ben and his Good Catholic Boy background, especially in dealing with white woman. (He's more sympathetic towards prostitutes of color, especially people he knows personally.) But admittedly it is kind of difficult to tell if this is an intentional narrator thing, or if the author simply gets more nuanced with the working-girls later on, e.g. Viente-y-Cinco in The Shirt on His Back, who is very sympathetically portrayed.
* On a more cheerful note, I have so much love for the slow, slow burn on Ben and Shaw's friendship. Slowly developing friendships that have to overcome a lot of obstacles to get to a good place are one of my favorite things, and I think this one is a bit anomalous (compared to some of the others I like) because they actually like each other from the very first time they meet; they click right away, and trust each other instinctively almost from the first. And yet, the ironclad barriers of race and class and culture are something they only very, very slowly manage to crawl past. I love how it takes something like 4 books, I think, before Ben even refers to Shaw as a friend in his own head, let alone admitting it out loud yet. And in this book we get Ben flipflopping between (understandably!) seeing Shaw as The Enemy and as a friend, and then the hug, and their seamless teamwork in the climax ...! And it builds and builds, but quietly, in the background, 'til in The Shirt on His Back he just shorthands the relationship for Morning Star as "he's my brother."
I'm still slightly annoyed that we've never gotten Shaw interacting with Ben's kids in canon. I realize that finding a way to get Shaw and Ben's kids into the same scene might be narratively difficult, but COME ON, there have been several perfect openings for it (e.g. when the kids were kidnapped) and it just never seems to happen.
I also feel that we're overdue for another Shaw-spotlight book, but maybe that's just me.
This entry is also posted at https://sholio.dreamwidth.org/1224381.html with
comments.