Okay, here we are: March 9. Time to discuss Lloyd Alexander's Westmark. For those of you just tuning in, discussion of The Kestrel will follow on April 9, and The Beggar Queen will be discussed here May 9
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I don't think I've ever run into an adult who read it and felt it was too "young" to be worth their time. (Speak up if that last describes you.)
Well, I'm certainly not an adult yet. But like swan_tower I clearly felt the influence of children's (vs. YA) literature in the heavy-handed characterization, the simple prose, and the arc length. Cabbarus felt like a flat villain, and I never became much enamored of Theo. His philosophical struggles about morality seem distinctly childish, although perhaps I'm comparing unfairly to recent readings in philosophy at a layman but much more sophisticated level (solidly adult nonfiction).
The politics became more interesting, but again, I prefer the denser machinations of adult secondary-world fantasy. I did like the absence of magic; what subgenre is this exactly? Not fantasy-of-manners in style, but no apparent magic either. In terms of type, I'm also not fond of adventure stories
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I think I would classify it as a Ruritanian fantasy. Ruritania is one of those "not really anywhere" countries without speculative elements aside from its own existence. But some of those are explicitly set in false countries within our world--like Alexander's own Vesper Holly books, where she visits the pseudo-Germanic Drackenberg, the false Latin American El Dorado, etc.--where the Westmark series has other imaginary countries around it.
Well, I'm certainly not an adult yet. But like swan_tower I clearly felt the influence of children's (vs. YA) literature in the heavy-handed characterization, the simple prose, and the arc length. Cabbarus felt like a flat villain, and I never became much enamored of Theo. His philosophical struggles about morality seem distinctly childish, although perhaps I'm comparing unfairly to recent readings in philosophy at a layman but much more sophisticated level (solidly adult nonfiction).
The politics became more interesting, but again, I prefer the denser machinations of adult secondary-world fantasy. I did like the absence of magic; what subgenre is this exactly? Not fantasy-of-manners in style, but no apparent magic either. In terms of type, I'm also not fond of adventure stories ( ... )
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