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The Rolling Book Report, or, Tealin Looks A Gift Horse In The Mouth
I stopped doing my book reports in large part because I more or less stopped reading ... This happened about when I cleared my 'easy fiction' stack and moved onto the super dense French philosophy stack, oddly enough. I have dabbled in a little fiction here and there: Hans Christian Andersen's original fairy tales, surprisingly a slog; Light Perpetual, binged in two days and had a hard cry at the end.
Someone has just bought me a novel and sent it with very high recommendations, so I am embarking on reading it, and I thought I'd write down some thoughts while I do so because, frankly, at about 50pp in, that's pretty much the only thing encouraging me to keep reading. The thing is absolutely plastered in raving blurbs, so either there's something I'm not getting or it's a slow burn. I look forward to finding out, she said rhetorically.
For fun, I'm not going to tell you what book it is. Maybe you have read it and can guess. Maybe this will start some interesting conversations about the abstracts of storycraft. Maybe this will drive you absolutely crazy and you will badger me until I tell you. Isn't life exciting?
I think my fundamental problem with it is the lack of personalities. If I'm going to embark on a book, I need to enjoy spending time with the characters – even if they're horrible people I'd never associate with in real life, at least be interesting; at least be perceptible. I don't have a sense of who anyone is, at all. This doesn't help with keeping track of them, who all have Fantasy names, half of which start with C. It's like faceblindness, but for ... everything. I can't tell who delivers a line of dialogue. It all sounds the same. No one is described, no one acts, no one has any signifying features at all, aside from the guy who is grumpy. But he doesn't sound grumpy when he talks. We only know he is because we are told, repeatedly, how much of a grump he is.
I am still trying to get over my poor first impression: I opened the new book and was greeted by a foreword detailing the naming conventions and pronunciations. Oh, I thought, it's that kind of fantasy. I put down Dragonriders of Pern on about page 5 for much the same reason. But it came highly recommended from someone whose taste I respect, so I can't give up at the first hurdle, can I?
53 pages in, and it's still that kind of fantasy. I have learned a lot about the political structure of this country and the recent history of the royal family, but absolutely nothing to interest me in the story. It shouldn't be this way; it's about an abused distant heir who gets catapulted to the throne – so much potential for interesting depth! And it jumps right in with the inciting incident on Page 1, no faffing around! If the author had spent as much time reading about the psychological legacy of childhood abuse as they did making up new words for things we already have words for (like 'dowager', that word definitely exists, waiting for you to use it), there might be some meat to get my teeth into.
It's really made me wonder about writers and brain wiring ... I have a friend who's got a bee in her bonnet about signifiers of autism and ADHD in writing styles; reading this, written largely in the form of an internal monologue which somehow reveals nothing about the thoughts or feelings of the character doing the thinking, I am starting to wonder if what I'm not getting is, in fact, how the author thinks, and not a fault of the writing itself. Is this what it's like in other people's heads? They recall backstory when it's convenient and logic out their next steps in extended expository detail? They wake up to find themselves Emperor and they're like 'whoa, OK, I got this' and not 'WTAF?? Also, how many assassins are after me right now?' And do most readers just project personality onto characters without bothering if it's been established in the actual text or not? I am really starting to think this must be the case.
I can't even give it points for worldbuilding, because aside from a billion bespoke names for things that have names already, there isn't much. Again, the potential is enormous: it would be so easy to go 'Fantasy ... BUT 1930s!!' and follow that where it leads, but the mashup here is purely aesthetic – no, not even aesthetic, it begins and ends with the presence of an airship. Argh, it's so frustrating how perfect the period would be for the premise, if only it were taken advantage of!
I used to muse on the idea that many of Terry Pratchett's books seem to be responses to books or movies that he wanted to explore properly, like he read something and cracked his knuckles and said, 'No, this is how you do it' and cranked out Only You Can Save Mankind or Moving Pictures or Feet of Clay. I wonder now if what I'm feeling reading this book is that same creative fire. 'Sit down, I'm gonna write about elves and empire and racism in a 1930s fantasy world! This is how you do it!' But I'm not. I have a comic to colour. And I should get back to that.
Someone has just bought me a novel and sent it with very high recommendations, so I am embarking on reading it, and I thought I'd write down some thoughts while I do so because, frankly, at about 50pp in, that's pretty much the only thing encouraging me to keep reading. The thing is absolutely plastered in raving blurbs, so either there's something I'm not getting or it's a slow burn. I look forward to finding out, she said rhetorically.
For fun, I'm not going to tell you what book it is. Maybe you have read it and can guess. Maybe this will start some interesting conversations about the abstracts of storycraft. Maybe this will drive you absolutely crazy and you will badger me until I tell you. Isn't life exciting?
I think my fundamental problem with it is the lack of personalities. If I'm going to embark on a book, I need to enjoy spending time with the characters – even if they're horrible people I'd never associate with in real life, at least be interesting; at least be perceptible. I don't have a sense of who anyone is, at all. This doesn't help with keeping track of them, who all have Fantasy names, half of which start with C. It's like faceblindness, but for ... everything. I can't tell who delivers a line of dialogue. It all sounds the same. No one is described, no one acts, no one has any signifying features at all, aside from the guy who is grumpy. But he doesn't sound grumpy when he talks. We only know he is because we are told, repeatedly, how much of a grump he is.
I am still trying to get over my poor first impression: I opened the new book and was greeted by a foreword detailing the naming conventions and pronunciations. Oh, I thought, it's that kind of fantasy. I put down Dragonriders of Pern on about page 5 for much the same reason. But it came highly recommended from someone whose taste I respect, so I can't give up at the first hurdle, can I?
53 pages in, and it's still that kind of fantasy. I have learned a lot about the political structure of this country and the recent history of the royal family, but absolutely nothing to interest me in the story. It shouldn't be this way; it's about an abused distant heir who gets catapulted to the throne – so much potential for interesting depth! And it jumps right in with the inciting incident on Page 1, no faffing around! If the author had spent as much time reading about the psychological legacy of childhood abuse as they did making up new words for things we already have words for (like 'dowager', that word definitely exists, waiting for you to use it), there might be some meat to get my teeth into.
It's really made me wonder about writers and brain wiring ... I have a friend who's got a bee in her bonnet about signifiers of autism and ADHD in writing styles; reading this, written largely in the form of an internal monologue which somehow reveals nothing about the thoughts or feelings of the character doing the thinking, I am starting to wonder if what I'm not getting is, in fact, how the author thinks, and not a fault of the writing itself. Is this what it's like in other people's heads? They recall backstory when it's convenient and logic out their next steps in extended expository detail? They wake up to find themselves Emperor and they're like 'whoa, OK, I got this' and not 'WTAF?? Also, how many assassins are after me right now?' And do most readers just project personality onto characters without bothering if it's been established in the actual text or not? I am really starting to think this must be the case.
I can't even give it points for worldbuilding, because aside from a billion bespoke names for things that have names already, there isn't much. Again, the potential is enormous: it would be so easy to go 'Fantasy ... BUT 1930s!!' and follow that where it leads, but the mashup here is purely aesthetic – no, not even aesthetic, it begins and ends with the presence of an airship. Argh, it's so frustrating how perfect the period would be for the premise, if only it were taken advantage of!
I used to muse on the idea that many of Terry Pratchett's books seem to be responses to books or movies that he wanted to explore properly, like he read something and cracked his knuckles and said, 'No, this is how you do it' and cranked out Only You Can Save Mankind or Moving Pictures or Feet of Clay. I wonder now if what I'm feeling reading this book is that same creative fire. 'Sit down, I'm gonna write about elves and empire and racism in a 1930s fantasy world! This is how you do it!' But I'm not. I have a comic to colour. And I should get back to that.
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But. Yes. I can see how numerous c-names, a bland protagonist and the poorly defined era might detract (...I thought it was more 1830s flavored, myself).
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TBH it's only the airship that twigged the 1930s for me, but once I got on that mental track I could see some hints of inter-war China in the Unseelie* court – the extreme formality, the deep and intricate history informing everything, the vastness, the rumbling of change while clinging desperately to tradition – though, on reflection, maybe I'm only seeing this because his experience of 1930s China informed Mervyn Peake's depiction of Gormenghast, and that is an evident inspiration here. Aside from the airship it's just coming across as handwavey olde-worlde Fantasy, though there really isn't much to signify that, either.
*I know that's not what it's called, but my grounding in folklore drops that word in place of a similar one I don't know
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I don't necessarily disagree with your criticisms, but I think Maia's pathos is very endearing to people, and he does have distinct traits to me (being religious, the way he reaches for his mother's legacy, the shyness and worry yet solid determination where he thinks it's important) that come across. That said I think you're 100% right about the dialogue. And I think
It's also got a really good last few lines, and I think that makes a big difference to how much the flaws recede in your mind's eye if you do actually finish it. That said, I really don't think you're gonna like it much more by the ending (I think personalities come through more as people get less stiff around Maia, but basically the flaws remain the same) so I wouldn't really recommend slogging through!
And do most readers just project personality onto characters without bothering if it's been established in the actual text or not?
Haha, I do think this is definitely a thing! And tbf like, I think it's in some ways just an extension of the way writers can use a few well-chosen details to get across an overall impression of a personality. But yeah.
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It's a bit of a project now, to figure out how I'd 'fix' it, so I'm stubbornly sticking it out in the hope of learning something. Anyway, the alternative is going back to my French philosophy, which isn't really that much more enticing. ;)