Resonance in a novel

[tozgirl]

I seem to be picking up resonant novels lately, which I presume is accidentally-on-purpose as far as my subconscious goes. First there was Black Swan by Mercedes Lackey, which had some very familiar dynamics in it to do with wanting to do the things that please someone, even while you maintain an apparently completely individual sense of self. And

Comments

[strangedave]

So, I take it, with those references to a shared world that isn't safe, that you actually have some sort of secret second life that involves extreme violence? Excellent, its the sort of thing I always suspected of you.

(I did rather like Obsidian Butterfly, largely because it had so much of Edward and so little of the other, largely irritating, supporting cast. I very nearly gave up the series in disgust with the book before, in which she agonises for chapters over the moral consequences of non-monogamy - but cheerfully tortures without a seconds indecision or remorse. )

[tozgirl]

-grin- Not extreme violence. At least, not personally, not currently. The references are in some ways more of a worldview thing than anything. But, to be quite honest, I don't have any secrets. My life really just is, I've never been good at keeping them so I don't really try. The closest I've gotten to keeping a secret is to not put my name anywhere on this journal, and that's really more about my work colleagues and employers not accidentally finding the journal than trying to find anything. You can see how well I've kept it secret that I have this journal :-) as in, not very...

When I first read the Anita Blake books, the moral conflict over non-monogamy was interesting, partly because it was (at least initially) well fitted to the character's moral compass, but also because it was quite relevant personally. Now that it's no longer a great drama or conflict for me, and her moral compass has shifted significantly (as you note), it's much less interesting.

[tozgirl]

..."trying to *hide* anything"... (not "find anything") - ooops!

[strangedave]

Yes, my life is similarly an open book. I have a few secrets, or at least things that I shouldn't talk about publicly, but not many, and mostly temporary.

The endless wrangling over monogamy was OK as a character conflict, though it did start to seem rather contrived (which isn't necessarily unrealistic), but it was the contrast with the torture. It made it rather obvious, to me, that both LKH and Anita appeared to have no actual moral depth whatsoever, reducing all her moral waffling to the self-involved dramatics of a sociopath. Which, you know, rather reduced the books appeal to just the plot and theatrics and occasional decent villain, as pretty much all the lead characters are moral vacuums.