(Untitled)

[bookelfe]

I was scared to read The Islands of Chaldea. In order to make myself read it, I had to get it out of the library, and then let it sit around for a while so I could get used to the idea. I read it on the day before it was due back.

And now that I've read it still don't really know how to write about it. I mean, I've got stuff to say, I just

Comments

[ladyherenya]

The pool metaphor is a good way of putting it. If I think about the lack of depth too much, I start wondering if that was because she would have added more depth on a subsequent draft, or because it was always intended to be a more surface-y sort of story? Because some of her stories just have a lot more depth than others...

If it wasn't her last novel, if it hadn't been left unfinished, I would be a lot more comfortable analysing it (and my reactions to it) than I am now. I liked it, on the surface. Although I wasn't thrilled about the sudden "and we're going to get married" at the end.

[bookelfe]

Yeah, it's really, really hard to disentangle the book itself from the last-book factor or the co-written factor. I was always going to really want to love it, and I was always going to be hyper-attuned to any flaws, no matter what. (I also was not super thrilled about the TOTALLY MARRIAGE ending.)