Snowpocalypse 2: February Rematch

[ase]

Every time I check the forecast, the snow totals have been revised upward. As long as the power stays on, I'm good:I have food, internet access and several novels. I'm trying to re-read The Riddle-Master of Hed, but I don't see what distinguishes the "riddles" from straightforward questions or investigation

Comments

[sraun]

IIRC, riddles had a formal structure. They have elements of koans and fairytales - they all have a lesson of some kind that they are supposed to teach.

I should put them on my re-read list. They're a lot more fun to read back-to-back! I read The Riddle-Master of Hed when it was first published, borrowed from my school library. Heir of Sea and Fire was the first hard-cover book I ever bought. Harpist in the Wind may have been the second, or maybe the third - I did end up owning all three of them in hard-cover. They were what first inclined me to 'I don't want to start reading a series until it is complete' - the cliff-hanger of Riddle-Master followed up by the opening of Heir is a bit much.

[ase]

Riddle-master is okay but not great. The story fails to capture my sense of wonder: there's a lot of traveling and learning arcane skills, but I'm distracted by what J. Random Peasant thinks of all this. The story tells me things, but I do not feel them in my story-reading soul, except perhaps for the shape-changing.

[charlie_ego]

Ha! It does indeed capture *my* sense of wonder, probably because a) I love her writing and b) McKillip actually tries to tackle epic, which I feel like she never quite handles again, but I agree if I were to read it now for the first time I'd really wonder about the peasants. I have to say though that you are in the majority of people I've made read these books.

I still adore Deth enormously, though, as well as the first book's cliffhanger and the third book's resolution, although it is never quite clear to me why everyone in the books loves him the way they do.

[khavrinen]

Strange synchronicity; I just finished a re-read on Tuesday. I still have the Science Fiction book club omnibus of all three that I appropriated from my Dad back in 1979, so to me it has always seemed like one continuous story. I do agree that most of what they call "riddles" don't seem to fit my definition of the term, but that doesn't diminish that much from the enjoyment of re-reading it.

[ase]

Without an agreement between the reader and writer about something as key to the story, my enjoyment is diminished, unfortunately.

[charlie_ego]

McKillip had been reading too much Welsh lit (as -- I can't get up to check now, but I think she says something about reading stuff like The White Goddess, which as she (I think?) says is fabulous fool's gold, in the intro to the reprint, which I own). In medieval Welsh lit riddles meant less the kind of thing we have in mind (or even the sort of thing an Anglo-Saxon, or Gollum, had in mind) and more a way to compare knowledge bases/show off one's knowledge, e.g., "What song did the Sirens sing?" being an example of a riddle Taliesin asked the wise men of his day (which presumably they couldn't answer).

The "stricture" thing, I think, is more McKillip's own invention.

(Sorry if this comment makes no sense; am not quite coherent.)

[ase]

I don't have the reprint, but I wish I had the intro essay! Sounds like Welsh riddles were closer to a trivia game than the puzzle-logic questions I was thinking of.

So far you're making clear sense. How's the mom thing going?

[charlie_ego]

I spent a year studying this stuff, so it's kind of near and dear to my heart, so you're going to get a little essay :)

The White Goddess is Robert Graves' way of asserting that poets Are All Kin Across The Ages, and has not a whit of actual scholarship (or, you know, real textual analysis) in it, and basically fills real scholars with scorn. But it's also wildly entertaining for Welsh fanatics such as myself. (Speaking of which, GAH, "What song did the Sirens sing?" was actually from White Goddess and not something Taliesin asked at all; my old Welsh prof would kill me if he knew I had made such a mistake

[charlie_ego]

(note: I do not actually recommend you READ White Goddess unless you are just really a glutton for poetic-frilly-nonsense punishment. Which I occasionally am, but know no one else who is.

Above, I also meant that no one I've made read Riddle-Master has actually liked it as much as I do. I suppose I must be far on the end of some scale.)