Year: 2007

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Wilder, Laura Ingalls: Little House in the Big Woods, Little House on the Prairie

It’s funny what I remember about books from my childhood. I’m sure I read Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books, including Little House in the Big Woods and Little House on the Prairie, dozens of times when I was a kid: I have a very strong memory of reading them at my paternal grandparents’, a set of paperbacks like the ones currently in stores except with pale yellow borders. But when I re-read these first two earlier in the year for the first time in probably twenty years, I was amazed at what I rediscovered.

First, I had the hazy recollection that they were set much, much earlier, all the way back in colonial days. (Hey, as a kid I didn’t have a really good grasp on U.S. history, okay?) The Industrial Revolution is a far greater divide than mere chronology would suggest—the author died within my mother’s lifetime! (I don’t think I realized they were autobiographical, either.)

Second, I had completely forgotten a major part of the second book, when the local Indians react to the family’s setting up a homestead on the prairie. This dominates the second half of the book, but when I saw Oyceter remark on it, my immediate reaction was flat-out incredulity. I can’t think how I managed to forget this, but there it is: I remember things like building a house and making maple syrup, but not actual plots. (To be fair, there is quite a lot of detail about making things, from houses to hats to food, which I still enjoy very much.)

Third, I’d forgotten that Laura was a tomboy. The books are mostly told in third person from Laura-as-child’s point of view, and they make no attempt to disguise that Laura wasn’t interested in proper ladylike behavior (or that she sometimes behaved badly). I probably don’t remember this because I didn’t feel very constrained by, or even aware of, gender roles as a child; but now I think it’s pretty cool. (And, conversely, find Laura’s prim sister Mary very boring, as I think Laura did at the time.)

As mentioned above, the books rarely shift point of view: in the first book, there are a few first-person stories set off in the text as “The Story of [something]”, and there are some comments from the present-day author of the type, “No one knew, in those days, that fever ‘n’ ague was malaria, and that some mosquitoes give it to people when they bite them.” From my adult perspective, this is sometimes frustrating. I would have liked to know, for instance, what Laura thought about American Indians when she grew up; I could tell that the adults around her had different views, but not what she thought as she was writing. And sometimes I would have liked a psychological explanation for events, not just a factual reporting. It’s a little thing, but what was Laura’s mother thinking, to tell blonde Mary and brunette Laura that they should ask their cousin which is best, golden or brown hair?

(I also wondered about Laura’s mother’s history. There’s a reference that she was “very fashionable” before she married, and she still likes dressing up; she must’ve been really in love to move out of town to a place where she would go weeks without seeing anyone other than her spouse and children. I am not, however, curious enough to read the prequels written by other authors.)

On the whole, I couldn’t recommend these to adults, because they’re written at a pretty low level. However, so far they hold up quite well to re-reading, and would be fine for kids or to read to kids. I just hope the rest of them continue to hold up.

(This post was written thanks to a LiveJournal poll indicating it was the most desired, rather to my surprise. Thanks, LiveJournalers, for giving me motivation to write.)

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Kay, Guy Gavriel: Ysabel

Guy Gavriel Kay’s new book, Ysabel, is a return to his first work, The Fionavar Tapestry, in at least two ways. It is the first of his books since then to have a contemporary setting, though this book is set entirely in our world; and two characters from The Fionavar Tapestry reappear (rather to my surprise). I read it as a return in a third way, to one of the story patterns prominent in Fionavar, but that’s debatable.

Ned Marriner is fifteen and in present-day Provence, because his photographer father is shooting a book there and his mother is in the Sudan with Doctors Without Borders. In a chapel, he meets two people in rapid succession: an American girl named Kate, and a man with a knife who tells them first, “He isn’t here,” and second, that they should leave because while he has killed children before, he has “no strong desire to do so now.” Because he is a character in a book, and for other reasons, Ned doesn’t let go of the mystery posed by the man; and he, Kate, and the photography crew are drawn into the latest iteration of a very old story.

While I admire Kay for attempting something new, the book doesn’t work for me. The most fundamental reason is the voice, which didn’t click and thus kept me a layer away from the story. Some of my problems are with the little details Kay throws in to show that Ned is a present-day teenager: to take the opening chapter as an example, iPods don’t have an off button, and while Pearl Jam is still angry and might still be cool, I suspect that “grunge” is no longer a label in current use. But more fundamentally, I find that Kay’s distinctive style, heavy on omniscient foreshadowing and portent, jars when combined with a contemporary teenager’s viewpoint. (Also, comma splices seem to be much more obstrusive in this book than in The Sarantine Mosaic, the last Kay books I read.)

As a separate problem, I was not engaged by the old story that the present-day characters become enmeshed with. It has logistical issues, if you will, the why and how of things, which are not explained, and I couldn’t construct any satisfactory explanation myself out of the information given. This lack led, at least in part, to other problems: a perception of gender essentialism, which needless to say I disliked; a lack of conviction that the story was as fundamental as the characters claimed; and a dissatisfaction with the story’s resolution, which seems either anticlimactic, pessimistic, or subversive of the grand high nature of the story itself—which I suppose might be interesting, if I thought it were done on purpose. Instead, it just seems a muddle.

I’d been thinking I might re-read The Fionavar Tapestry if I didn’t like this book, because something else reminded me of it. Now that Ysabel has turned out to be connected, that might be another incentive. Of course Fionavar is a muddle too, but in the kitchen-sink direction, and for all its flaws I retain an affection for it. It may well be that like Fionavar, Ysabel would work for some people who either disagree with my assessment of its flaws or aren’t bothered by such things. But it’s not a book for me.

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Robins, Madeleine E.: Point of Honour and Petty Treason

Madeline E. Robins’ Point of Honour opens with the statement that “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Fallen Woman of good family must, soon or late, descend to whoredom,” and spends the rest of its pages proving it wrong. It is Austen noir, with all that such a juxtaposition implies, and is both admirable and entirely enjoyable (as is its sequel, Petty Treason).

The protagonist, Sarah Tolerance, declines to conform to truths universally acknowledged, and so forges a career as an “agent of inquiry” instead of working in her aunt’s brothel. (The setting is tweaked just very slightly from our history to make this career not impossible, though still looked at askance.) What seems a simple matter, the retrieval of an Italian fan, turns much nastier (as would be expected in a noir) and brings into Miss Tolerance’s life an attractive, high-ranking, and wealthy man (as would be expected in a Regency). Where the book goes from there, and how it negotiates these genres—is something I will leave the reader to discover. I will say, however, that I deeply admire the ending.

In the sequel, Petty Treason, the publicity that Miss Tolerance gained from the prior case results in her hire to investigate a murder, that of a Chevalier who turns out to be a thoroughly nasty piece of work. His wife comes under suspicion, which is one of the meanings of the title: petty or petit treason was the English common-law offense of a husband’s murder by a wife, which according to the thought of the time paralleled high treason’s betrayal of a sovereign by a subject. As with the first book’s examination of prostitution, however, this book finds many different meanings of treason, often ones unacknowledged by society of the time. Fear not, however, Miss Tolerance is not a twenty-first-century feminist dressed in Regency clothes. Indeed, one of the functions of the omniscient narration is to highlight Miss Tolerance’s different ways of thinking, by contrasting it with the narration’s opinion. (For those who dislike omniscient, it’s rarely obvious: most of the time the narration is indistinguishable from tight third. Also, I have to say that a novel has done a really good job of worldbuilding when “Fuck” is genuinely shocking.)

If it were just the great premise, and the way it’s followed through on—both careful and fun, with verbal and literal fencing—that would be sufficient. But the characters are also vivid and rounded. I particularly like that Miss Tolerance has existing relationships as the books open, ones that evolve along with her during the course of the books. Unfortunately it appears there will not be a third book, so these relationships will not be further developed. (Both books are still available in paperback from Amazon, despite my taking an appalling amount of time to get around to writing them up.)

Finally, fans of Kate Ross’s Julian Kestrel series may well like these books, though I think they better handle the contrast between, and the convergence of, the glittering and seamy sides of Regency England. Fans of fantasy of manners should definitely check these out, unless the lack of fantasy and of a sparkling tone is an impossible barrier. I think very highly of these books, and (paradoxically) it’s been that high opinion that kept me from timely booklogging them. I hope that this belated report will nevertheless help the books find some more appreciative readers.

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O’Brian, Patrick: (12) The Letter of Marque (audio)

Patrick O’Brian’s The Letter of Marque feels in some respects like a reset of the series, despite being the twelfth in the Aubrey-Maturin series. Principally this is an effect of the naval activity, which comes in tight, intense pieces of subterfuge and bravado both, which remind me of the Sophie‘s daring actions. However, the stakes are as high as they’ve ever been after the crucial events of the last book, and that additional edge also echoes younger days.

I don’t think there has been such a span of highs and lows in a single volume since maybe The Fortune of War, or even H.M.S. Surprise. Or perhaps not at all, since so much of the effect of this volume comes from the accumulated weight of characterization and history [*]. Deeply satisfying and well-crafted as always.

[*] I believe that this book was the first published in the U.S., which must have been very strange indeed.

Finally, another O’Brian resource: “A Guide for the Perplexed”, which translates all the non-English words and phrases in the series. (The Butcher’s Bill, an index I mentioned last booklog post, has already proven its worth by confirming that the confusion over Dixon is all on O’Brian’s part, not mine.)

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Doyle, Debra, and James D. Macdonald: Land of Mist and Snow

Land of Mist and Snow, by Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald, is a stand-alone fantasy set an alternate U.S. Civil War. Despite the title [*], the book is mostly concerned with the sea: the Union has discovered a way to power a ship without steam or sail, which is obviously of great benefit despite its unusual requirements (no iron, virgin brass, a virgin woman . . . ). But as a character notes, “the presence of one esoteric ship implies the presence of another esoteric ship,” and soon the chase is on.

[*] Yes, okay, Google tells me that it’s a poetic allusion, but I didn’t know that ahead of time and was therefore puzzled.

Told in epistolary form, this is a fast-paced and enjoyable novel. I suspect it of having structural and symbolic depths that I am unable to recognize, both because that tends to be my experience when reading Doyle and Macdonald’s books (e.g., The Apocalypse Door), and because Teresa Nielsen Hayden refers to it as having allegorical personifications in the middle of a really, really long Making Light thread. However, it’s perfectly possible to enjoy the novel without consciously understanding any layers other than those on the surface.

In conclusion, I must briefly disagree with a short review in this month’s Locus, which complained that a particular person was a cardboard villain—not over whether the person was cardboard, which is a matter of taste, but over the implication that the person was the antagonist, which is not structurally supportable (she says, humbly).

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Pierce, Tamora: (115) Terrier

Terrier is the most recent of Tamora Pierce’s novels set in Tortall and surrouding countries, though set a couple hundred years before the other books. It’s in epistolary format, almost entirely in the form of the diary of Beka Cooper, a trainee in the Provost’s Guard, the equivalent of a city police force. (There are a couple of excerpts from other people’s diaries at the beginning, which are annoying for being both clumsy setup and printed in difficult fonts.)

This is Pierce’s first novel told in first-person point of view, and though the form slips slightly on occasion, the voice works well overall. While I thought a significant character could have used some more development, that could be attributable to the focus of the book as well as the form; and if I read things right, there ought to be plenty of opportunity to develop this character in the forthcoming two books.

I also look forward to more about the Court of the Rogue, which seems to be a cross between the Mafia and a government for the lower classes—one that is benevolent when properly ruled. That kind of thing makes me twitch, thanks to The Lies of Locke Lamora and Pierce’s own Street Magic, but it may be that the compatibility of these two roles will be explored later on. (Or possibly they were explored in the initial Alanna quartet, but somehow I doubt it. I’m not going to re-read those, because I’m trying to cut down on my re-reading, and also I suspect they won’t hold up very well.)

Otherwise, if you like Tamora Pierce’s other books (especially the Kel quartet), you’ll probably like this one.

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O’Brian, Patrick: (11) The Reverse of the Medal (audio)

It’s difficult to know how much to talk about books in a series. I knew the major plot point of the eleventh of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series, The Reverse of the Medal, ahead of time, and while I appreciated seeing how the novel was constructed to lead up to that, I think I would have liked the suspense of not knowing how it comes out. On the other hand, it’s very hard for a new reader to avoid finding out about this book—as shown by my example, and because the back cover copy and most other descriptions of the next book will give it away.

Which is all a long way of saying that this is a pivotal novel in the series, in which a long-running arc finally climaxes, with some resolution but with serious consequences for the characters’ futures. It’s a really admirable piece of work on a number of levels. This individual book is beautifully constructed, precisely setting up both the major plot point and all the surrounding events that foreshadow it or echo the themes. The characters and the emotion are as true as I’ve come to expect from O’Brian. And as part of the larger series, this book is a very canny structural development. I’m impressed.

I note with regret that Patrick Tull died in September 2006 (Wikipedia; NYT death notice). His narrations are literally the reason I love the series so much: as I said when logging the first one, I’d read the first three and they just didn’t stick, but Tull’s characterizations, humor, and fine sense of pacing made the books come alive for me, to my great enjoyment and enrichment.

On a happier note: The Butcher’s Bill, by Michael R. Schuyler, is a free pdf download that fully indexes injuries, deaths, births, marriages, prizes, and other such things in the series. I can’t wait for my printed copy to arrive (I asked Lulu to generate a single copy for me, reasoning that this was equivalent to printing it out myself, except that I don’t have a laser printer).

As usual, a spoiler post follows.

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