It Would Be Nice If Something Happened

Apparently, I'm becoming a picky reader in my old age.  Two years ago I was so bold as to ask really good authors to write something that resembled an ending in their works. And here I am now, wanting something to happen in a novel; just a bit of action.

I've said my bit about Among Others, and others seem to agree that nothing happened.  Now, I'm reading The Ocean at the End of the Lane and I find myself reading another novel in which nothing is happening.  I'm getting a bit frustrated...

Added to which I've hit my limit for items checked out from the library at one time (Who knew there was a limit!  Why is there a limit?!).  I almost bought everything on my Amazon wish list, which would have ushered me into insolvency, in hopes of there being one book in which stuff happened as I was too worn out to actually 'shop.'  I'm too worn out to shop, people!

Hell, I'm tempted to go pick up my paperback collection of David Gemmell stuff only because I know stuff happens in those books (even if I have them memorized and even if I'm not sure I could bring myself to read again).

Half way through Gormenghast--nothing is happening...
Half way through The Line Between--nothing is happening...
Halfway through The Ocean at the End of the Lane--nothing is happening...

Thank God for Ted Hughes and Crow; cause it's awesome.  (Thanks for the recommendation Jo Walton.)

What ever will I complain about next?  

Among Others by Jo Walton

Morwenna likes to drink water.  Her favorite thing in the world is inter-library loan.  She doesn't like tea, orange juice, and certainly not champagne.  She doesn't like people and prefers the company of fairies and science fiction--both of which seem to be a rather exclusive, if not an esoteric, pursuit.  While there is nothing wrong with these personality traits, I share a few, neither are they interesting enough to justify writing a book about.  After reading Among Others I feel certain Morwenna wouldn't like apple juice, cool-aid, or Armagnac.  Morwenna likes to drink water.  She is willfully the most boring person alive.

But she doesn't have to be.

Walton chose to write a book about science fiction.  She discusses other books and authors in the genre up until 1980.  There is nothing wrong with such a book, and I think it would be welcomed among that community of readers, but why she chose to do so under the guise of fiction is beyond me.  More so than the book discussion--which was genuinely interesting from time to time--is the fact that Walton chose to write a novel out of what should have been a readers guide to SF with absolutely no conflict or tension to speak of.  It's not that the conflict is subtle or heavily cloaked: it ain't there.  This absence of conflict is exacerbated by lovely prose about trite day-to-day occurrences and vague hints in directions of interest that are never developed or explored.

Morwenna can see fairies, but please, don't expect a story out of that.  She was involved in an accident that killed her twin sister, at which point Morweena assumed her sister's name, and she has been left with a ruined leg and a cane; but for some reason we don't need to make a story out of that either.  After meeting her father and feeling indifferent she brushes off a drunken incident where he tries to force himself on her, but let's not introduce anything that could be misconstrued as an interesting launching point at this time in the story.  The accident that claimed her sister and leg was brought on by her allegedly mad mother, who is a witch, but surely that wouldn't be fun to talk about either.

After running away from her crazy mother, she goes to stay with her estranged father and his three sisters, who are also witches and manipulating their brother.  (No story there either...)  She goes to a private school and resolutely resist making friends or socializing in any way, until she 'magically' works her way into a book club.  I don't mean this as a joke, but to those who have read the book: does any of this sound interesting yet?  Am I being faithful in regards to what the book is about?  Everything is so casually mentioned as to not resonate: 'Today I did some lame ass magic,' 'I followed around the ghost of my sister,' 'I went to sleep masturbating about Wim (a horrible diminutive of William).'  (Okay, actually when she said that I was startled--heart skipped two beats; primarily because that part woke me up and I learned Morwenna has a pulse... )  Nothing in Morwenna's life matters to her and in the narrative she conveys it as such.  It sure doesn't matter the reader.

Over the course of about a year she does manage to grow and develop some, first in the friends she resents having, the book club, a boyfriend, and ultimately finding purpose and direction in her life as opposed to joining her deceased sister, but here is nothing in this journey to the end that warrants a novel.

Morwenna is perhaps the hardest part of this book to deal with.  If you love SF from the time period involved you'll probably find much to enjoy or happily reminiscence , if not expect to be excluded from about a hundred pages worth of writing in this book.  About of third of the novel.  Morwenna is also the most condescending, high-and-mighty person ever depicted on the page.  (And to this achievement Walton is to be commended: well done.)  I have three post-its full of quotes to this effect but there was one at the end that summed it all up so nicely.  "I looked at him.  He was rarer than a unicorn, a beautiful boy in a red-checked shirt who read and thought and talked about books."  She is far more shallow than those she aggressively mocks and equally unwelcoming of those who aren't like her.  There isn't much she's not better than.    

The writing is clean, clear, and very pleasing to read.  I only wish there was something remotely resembling a story to go along with it.  The ending doesn't fizzle out because what precedes the ending never built up to anything.  The book could have ended on any page--any page--to the exact same effect.  I feel it pertinent to say: I'm not condemning this book.  It's not bad and I'd never tell someone that it is, merely, I've no idea why one would choose to read it, or what compelled Walton to set out on the surely arduous task of writing it.

Month in Review

Oops, I almost forgot to do this.  It's the only regular post I do so it really would have been a shame to leave it out.  July has been busy, and busy, has been good.  I did a lot of reading, and better still, I did a lot of good reading.  Perfect Escape takes the crown for the month but everything I read was really good.

I didn't get around to posting anything for The Cavalier in the Yellow Doublet but I liked it as much as I have best books in Perez-Reverte's Alitriste series.  Spain was the main character and I'm amazed each time I read one of these books to see how he deals with time and setting while still telling a story.  Story of a Girl didn't stick as much as I thought it would, but it was awesome while I was reading it.  Bitterblue has ultimately made me want from of everything from Cashore.   Lonely Werewolf girl was such a break from what I normally read that I'm all kinds a eager to get to the follow up.  A Stir of Bones was not what I was expecting but wonderful nonetheless.  I hope to suppress this urge as long as I can or at least until I'm in another reading funk.

I didn't get to reading any more of Gormenghast, which was a goal of mine, but as I have a friend reading Titus Groan I'll put some more effort into it in August.  I also got about half way through The Line Between by Peter Beagle.  It's a short story collection by a phenomenal short story writer, but all in all, I haven't been in love with anything in it thus far.  It's a very small book of very long stories; which I find odd for some reason.  I plan to finish it soon-ish.

I'm currently reading Among Others, which is an awesome birthday gift, and I'll have a couple things to say about that in a few days.  (It's a about quiet, condescending girl who has read everything.)  Also in line for this month is a small haul from the library: Werewolves in Their Youth by Michael Chabon, Changing Planes and The Birthday of The World both by Ursala K Le Guin.  Three short story collections in one trip; perhaps my subconscious is trying to tell me something.

July is kind of a downer month in terms of reading; one of those that I doubt I'll repeat in terms of quality, but here's to hoping I'm wrong.
     

Perfect Escape by Jennifer Brown

"This is what it's like living with a mentally ill person: everyone afraid to move.  Everyone afraid to speak.  You don't say certain words like suicide or crazy, and you do everything in your power to keep the good milliseconds lasting as long as they possibly can.  And you don't rush into anything at all, because rushing feels like courting disaster and you don't even know what that disaster is, because it's never the same disaster twice.  A ruined birthday?  A scene at a restaurant?  Police cars in the driveway in the middle of the night?  All of the above?  

And you don't ask for attention.  

And you get used to it when you don't get any. 

And you try really, really hard to forget that not getting attention hurts and that this person--this muttering, shadow-eyes, scabbed patient--was once your hero and best friend in the world.  Back when he was just a "weird kid."

And you try to remember that you still love him, even if some days, you can't exactly pinpoint why."  Page 8

Kendra's older brother, Grayson, has problems.  Not in any sense that most people can readily identify with either.  It's not merely Grayson's extreme OCD but a host of other anxiety issues that attest to his mental health and render his life eternally to the care of someone else.  

For the past few years Kendra has, consciously or not, made a choice about how she treated her brother.  She was never indifferent and she most certainly did care, but she was for the most part hands-off: the direct involvement she left to her parents, Grayson's doctors, and the institutional facilities he regularly checked into.  They have grown apart and due to some rash (i.e. bad) decision making on her part, facilitated by some serious trouble she has gotten herself into, we see how she plans to reestablish her past relationship with Grayson, maintain it, and even make it stronger.

Kendra is running away because she is in trouble at school.  It's not shallow, surface level trouble either, rather she'll probably be expelled, have her scholarships revoked, and not go to college kind of trouble.  Though not part of any grand premeditated plan, she manages to somehow accidentally--believably-- kidnap her brother and they head out to California, from Missouri.  Kendra excels at overreacting.  Here you would think the cliches come in, and here you'd be wrong.

They pickup Rena, a young woman not much older than Kendra, and her infant son.  It is almost immediately that we see that in a car with the leader of a school wide scandal, a single mother without a penny to her name (literally) and a mentally ill kid who is already miles away from his meds that Kendra is perhaps the least 'normal' person in the car.  

Kendra's discovery about so many things concerning Grayson and how they apply to their relationship was wonderful to watch unfold.  They physically get in a fight and she notices how much weight he's lost since he's been away at the most recent treatment facility.  She never looked at him long enough to see this; she had to physically start pushing him around to notice.  Rena points out, more than once, how genuinely nice he is and Kendra is appalled that she never came to see such an obvious truth.  Grayson is good looking and girls find him attractive and Kendra is outright offended at how she has had the opportunity to know him better than most anyone else ever would and yet she was never aware of these things.  She begins to marvel at how self-absorbed she has been in years past not wanting to get involved with Grayson and his problems.  She'd rather escape from all his drama and be normal.  And yet, on this impromptu, under-funded, not thought out beyond 'get in the car and drive' road trip she kinda treats him like shit… 

This, was a masterstroke by Brown.  Grayson has been coddled by his mother ever since the severity of his illness was uncovered even against the recommendations of his doctors that preach exposure therapy.  Kendra is stubborn, never more so than when she owns up to a mistake like taking someone such as Grayson half way across the country without his meds and not truly being capable of caring for him.  She's never directly mean to him, but she does revel in making Grayson uncomfortable, and everything makes Grayson uncomfortable: the car, a restaurant, a hospital, the motel… She's always joking but circumstance have made her jokes serious; Kendra has chosen to make Grayson confront all that makes him sick or suffer one of his epic meltdowns  knowing that there will be no one available for miles that can help him.  Needless to say, this makes for a ridiculous amount of tension on every page of this book.  

Which brings me to the third and greatest character in the book.  California; the cure; Zoe.  Kendra has it in her head that if everyone would stop coddling Grayson and make him deal with life that he would do so and be okay.  (The full extent of which she is wrong make some of the more intense sections of the book.)  She is going to fix her brother.  California, and Zoe her erstwhile best friend and past pseudo girl friend for Grayson represents a panacea for all his ails, or so she thinks.  Before she moved away, Zoe had a calming affect on Grayson that seemingly no other has had.  Rena too fits this mold in a very fleeting manner.  Reuniting with Zoe will be the culmination of all the trials she puts Grayson through in getting to California.  What Kendra is blind to--and never once stops to consider along the way--is that if she wants to be; if she actually applies herself, and works at this unique and extraordinarily difficult relationship, no one has a more calming and positive affect on Grayson's mind than she.  

The lack of overt affection between the two is a great strength of the novel.  Even when she wants to hug him, with full regard of how poorly Grayson responds to that kind of contact, she doesn't.  It's the kind of thing her mom would do that she feels has held him down.  Right or wrong, she's stubborn to a fault.  And her faults are colossal.  A lot of bad things happen in this book and yet Kendra never stopped pushing him.  

Their interaction is brilliant and it's interesting to see how similar they are.  They each feel they've have destroyed the other's life over the course of living their own.  And in no small degree they are both right.  The story, and the story of both their lives, is all about Grayson.  Even though it's told through Kendra's first person there is no distance or objectivity with Grayson.  No one hates that fact more than Grayson.  While his self-loathing is evident from the outset it is never explicitly communicated until a 'full-on freak out' as Kendra would say near the end.  He's almost always completely lucid (and it's usually some manifestation of his genius that pushes him into freak out mode) even if he has to always be counting something, touching something, rubbing something.  He can joke, and recall anecdotes from years past, he can sing along with the radio and bad pop music.  And after being forced into so many awkward situation by his sister he is surprised at the full extent of what he is capable of doing that he didn't know he was capable of doing.  

Kendra's self loathing is jealousy of all that has been taken away from her due to Grayson and a little bit of jealously masquerading as guilt for allowing them to grow apart in the first place. 

"Zoe was able to do something for Grayson that nobody else could: accept him for who he was.  Laugh and have fun with him.  Love him.  Make him relax.  She was able to do what I only wished I could.  She would never try to cure him.  She'd only try to make herself understand him better.  I was his sister.  I was his blood.  Why couldn't I do that?"  page 153

"...the feeling of resentment that I tried to stuff away because when someone can't even walk through his home normally, resenting him somehow feels mean.  Not to mention pointless.  Resenting Grayson wasn't going to cure him."  Page 9

Grayson is aware of how hard he's made his parents life, and Kendra's.  He feels like a hostage himself.  He's sick and not willfully so.  What he needs Kendra to see is that his pills, Zoe, nor this hell-bound road trip will cure him.  

They got in the car because of Kendra's problems; Grayson was an unfortunate casualty of Kendra's impulsive wrath.  They drove to California, 1,800 miles from home, because she thought she could outrun her troubles.  As strong as Kendra is, discovering the true nature of her problems and how to save herself from them took the help of the most broken person she knew; the one she'd been trying to ignore for years.  Understanding how, and why, is the reason you should read Perfect Escape.  

How do I write this review?

I'm not sure I'll ever read another book again.  Perfect Escape by Jennifer Brown may have destroyed my ability to read for pleasure.  I'm pretty sure that everything I may read for the rest of my life will be awful by comparison.  The bar has been set too high and my bookshelves are now weighted down with fail...

It's a rare feeling upon finishing a book that one can be so wholly satisfied with the experience that the thought of reading something else seems nothing short of absurd.  That is exactly how I feel.  Hopefully, this feeling will fade after a good night's sleep.  My sentiment aside I do feel a bit confused as to how to leave comments for this book.  I generally rip the books I love to shreds.  The ones I don't like I spend time trying to express reasons as to why.  I rarely rant or gush and when I do those are my worst bits of commentary.

I won't be ripping Perfects Escape to shreds and I'm not even going to attempt to temper my gushing.  In thinking about this I've come up with the following three thoughts:

1  The book personally speaks to me in a powerful and favorable way and for whatever reason I can't see it objectively.

2  The book is factually the best bit of fiction ever set to paper.

3  A combination of the above two (which is what I'm currently feeling, hours after finishing it).  

There may be other options, but right now, I admit to being blind to them--willfully or not.  I don't want to talk about this book.  I want to forcibly make my friends read it so I can talk about it with them.  I'll write it up tomorrow or the next day (I'm gonna take at least that long and enjoy basking in the glow of how good this book was).  Once written, I'll hang onto it for a bit longer in hopes of not gushing to the point of losing credibility.

Is objectivity a set goal in writing a review?  If so, I plan on failing that criteria.  

A Stir of Bones by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

"House has a mind of it's own," said Nathan, "and I don't know what it's thinking right now.  This isn't the way things are supposed to go."

"So what's supposed to happen," Julio asked.  His voice shook.  "Are we all supposed to die?"

"No.  You run away screaming, and tell everyone how scary it is here."

"But we can't."  Deirdre jerked the doorknob.

Susan slipped away from Edmund and went to the kitchen wall.  She placed her hands flat on it.  The house was breathing more rapidly.

She leaned against the wall, wondering at it's warmth.  It felt welcoming.  She sensed a laugh inside it.  She pressed her cheek against it, closed her eyes, breathed deeply in time with the house.

The house was alive, and the boy wasn't.  Page 35

This is the first novel by Hoffman I've read and I may have messed things up from the very start.  A Stir of Bones is a prequel to A Red Heart of Memories which was written four years before.  While reading the books in order of publication may impart some deeper attachment or meaning, I didn't feel short changed in anyway.

While not exactly dense the story is well controlled and the pacing reflects a style that I've encountered before with many of Hoffman's longer short stories.  That alone makes me think that this story about children and a haunted house is for adults, but the novel's sense of magic and wonder are certainly strong enough to appeal to any reader.

Susan, the main character, is perhaps the most boring girl on the planet.  She's endearing in that her lack of personality isn't necessarily her fault, but her fathers.  Her life is so tightly controlled by her father that she never has a chance to develop a personality.  She is Daddy's most prized possession; an angel; a 'princess.'

She is fourteen and learned at an even younger age that acting out, being an individual, a kid, or going against her father in any way, shape, or form, meant that bad things would happen to her mother.  Sometimes her parents had to make late night hospital visits due to Susan's behavior or she may notice her mother carrying herself in an awkward manner the next morning due to bruises easily concealed by clothing.  To escape the pain that Susan could bring about, her mother seeks alcohol.  To escape her abusive father and her mother's drinking--of which she is made to believe are directly related to her behavior--Susan seeks out a haunted house, a dead boy, and paradoxically, that which has been most explicitly forbidden to her by her father: friends.

Julio is an aspiring magician.  Unknowingly, Susan is something akin to a medium.  Alone with some other friends they spend time in a long abandon house with it's lone inhabitant: a long deceased suicide victim, Nathan,  a boy who died when he was their age.  Susan grows.  She develops as a person and finds that life--and even death--have more to offer her than the ridiculously harsh strictures that she lives under with her father.  As she learns the power of friendship and as her friends enable her with her own fey abilities Susan ceases to see the house as an escape, but as a symbol of power she can wield.

It's amazing how quickly we come to understand her father considering the minimal amount of time given to him.  While he is hyper possessive and controlling of Susan there was never a doubt that he loved her in his own way.  Susan can't stand up to him in any literal, physical sense.  Any opposition means horrible things for her mother, but through the house and her friends Susan finds that she does have the power to aid her mother.

It's a dark book but not overtly so.  There is plenty of reading in between the lines to be done and despite the fact that there is magic and children named 'Susan and Edmund' I'm not sure this book should be passed off to the kids.  I'll never know what anxieties and tensions I've missed by not reading these books in order of publication, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy A Stir of Bones and it certainly won't keep me from reading A Red Heart of Memories.

Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore

Kristin Cashore likes to torment me: this is how I know she loves me back.

Bittleblue takes place ten years after Graceling and even makes ties to Fire, the chronological 'first' book in this series of stand alone novels.  Bitterblue is the Queen (who for infuriating reasons unknown to me was always redundantly called 'Lady Queen' as if this dual honorific helped separate her from all the Mr Queens and Gentlemen Queens that aren't in the book) who inherits the shambles or her father's kingdom.  While her father has passed away, undoing his legacy--the mind job he did on the nation's psyche--is a real and present task.  Sadly, that's it.  That's our conflict; nothing more.  

I didn't think Fire, had that much to go on so how does Cashore fare with equally weak conflict in Bitterblue?  Much, much better, yet she still leaves us wanting.  

Bitterblue is born into a position of extreme power yet refuses to exert herself in anyway for fear of drawing comparisons to her father who abused the obscene amount of power he wielded.  (This has become Cashore's shtick: powerful, rash, young women who want nothing more than to avoid the male family shadow lurking over them.  Katsa didn't want to be her uncle--yet another bad guy king--Fire was afraid of being her father--a really, really bad guy who was advisor to the king--and now Bitterblue whose father is still, in my mind the granddaddy of bad guys.)  The conflict is weak in light of the character's Cashore has created; this is a compliment.  The uniqueness of this problem lies in the character's the author brings back rather than those created in Bitterblue.  

There is not a situation of intrigue that Po, a graceling with an extraordinary ability and a very good friend of the Queen's, can't solve.  In the beginning of Bitterblue Po is not around and I thought that was the only way the novel could work.  He eventually works himself in the story but had to be sick and delusional the entire time or risk ruining any tension created.  (As was evidenced by his only moment of 'health' at the end when he finds Bitterblue's crown with ridiculous ease.)  

The other returning character that makes the story difficult to countenance is a dead guy: Bitterblue's father.  The previous king's grace (i.e. magical power) and subsequent abuse of power is what Bitterblue is self-tasked with eradicating.  Even dead, the past king is still strong enough to warrant top billing as a villain, but it's hard to concretely identify what is being fought against and why, without a tangible figure head.  A lot of powerful people are doing absurd things in an effort absolve themselves of crimes committed under the past king's influence.  It's even harder (and more vague) to resolve such conflict.

The onus of cleaning up the previous king's mess falls to Bitterflue as she is our heroine.  Again, her problems stem more from Graceling than the novel that bears her name.  Her uncle, Po's father and the only good guy king in the entire world, left her in charge at the age of eight.  He's not one for international politics so he gives her a hug and a kiss, 'Holla if you need me,' and I'm out.  At age eight… 

Her top four advisors and indeed everyone in a position of power were retained from her father's rule.  Major fucking oversight considering her dad ruled for thirty-fives years and was the scourge of the world from day one…  So terrified of being called daddy's little girl, (and with good reason) Bitterblue is content to drown in her own ignorance and bad decision making.  As soon as I realized Po wasn't going to be around to solve every issue that arose, I kept waiting for her to exert her power as an absolute monarch.  Even if she made a bad decision I wanted just a little bit of backbone and her to say, 'Look Bitches, I'm the Queen.  This is how shit's gon' be…'  She finds administrators working against her--the same ones more than once--and they don't even get a slap on the wrist.  They are left to their own device, which is undermining Bitterblue, because she never thinks to have someone put away for a bit let alone 'off with his head.'  There is a strong undercurrent of Bitterblue's public perception, which is true for any ruler especially so for her due to her father, but it's not like she's living in the Twitter age and I continually marveled at her lack of a propaganda machine even when she was working with the people who were deceiving her.  Having a near inept character execute a weak story is not only difficult to convey as convincing, but equally difficult to keep interesting.  

So what happens in the book where Bitterblue tries to correct the wrongs of her father and establish a true understanding of her people and her land?  Well; she starts a romance with a commoner, she gets beat up, and she spends a lot of time in her library trying to break codes.  (The latter of which had huge potential and I kept waiting for something to come of it.)  It's not as if from the first day she decided she was tired of being a puppet Queen she starts whooping ass.  One could presumably write a story around that.  Nor is the reconciling of her family history through her mother's encrypted embroidery and her father's journals--encrypted from a language no one else speaks (can't make this up)--connecting to her people's suffering and why people are manipulating her the launching point for the narrative.  The infrastructure for a great story is there, there are many many elements to build on.  Somehow, nothing materialized.  

There is no real ending or resolution as their is no real conflict.  External, internal, or otherwise.  The story just kinda peters out with a resounding, soft, wet, 'splat.'  It's not necessary to give up the endgame stakes on page one, but if you're not building toward that point you do need to find away to keep your finger on the 'high tension anxiety' button at all times.    

There is a great story in-between this novel's covers only I didn't feel it was told very well.  Many of the problems stem the world she's created and past characters.  (Po can't be in a story unless he's a primary character.  It even felt like Cashore knew this as the times he was present he felt a bit 'neutered' from where we left him in Graceling.  My biggest contention with her 'world' is in the connection of The Dells to The Seven Kingdoms and the inexplicable notion of gracelings in one and 'monsters' in the other.)  Cashore humanized Bitterblue's father which was not only a mammoth accomplished but also a missed opportunity for Bitterblue to be active in her own story.  Is the book bad?  Absolutely not; I could talk about it ad nauseum.  Point me in the direction of the correct forum and I'm all over it.  Only Bitterblue isn't very strong either.  I don't need Aslan fighting The White Witch in terms of conflict and resolution, but upon finishing a novel I do need a sense that something was accomplished.  

Kristin Cashore likes to torment me: this is how I know she loves me back.