Book reviews
Jun. 8th, 2006 09:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petronia1) Shadow of the Wind, which I actually finished weeks ago, not long after I mentioned I was in the process of reading it; I just haven't reviewed because I couldn't think of what to say. In the meantime I've been reccing it to all and sundry in RL - to Talal, because he actually *is* Daniel I honestly couldn't imagine a book he'd like better, and to Erin, for whose benefit I classified the book as one of those algorithms in computer science - and they do have a name, I just don't have the time to trawl Wikipedia for it - that are in and of themselves what their statement encompasses: like the phrase, a phrase that describes itself.
Not an ourobouros; a fractal. You gaze at the lobes and veins of a fallen leaf and you find that they are composed of smaller lobes and veins, and those of yet smaller, and yet.
The best thing about the book, though, is that the whole is a gothic tearjerker of grand and sweepingly romantic, almost cheesy effect; in much the same way as the best thing about House of Leaves was that it was - despite being composed of equal halves typographical gimmick and hermeneutics parody by weight - really kind of fucking terrifying. It's not easy to be that clever, but it's even harder to be that clever and still bleed red when pricked. I read two-thirds of the book (Shadow of the Wind) in one evening session from 7PM to midnight while outside it stormed and banged like Bulwer-Lytton's darkest fancy, and I was glad when I finished that it didn't require an all-nighter like House of Leaves. Bit of a waste of electricity to keep all the lights on in the house like that. XD
2) Conrad's Fate, which I probably shouldn't review since I haven't technically finished it - partially it's psychological, because it's the last Chrestomanci novel, and I usually elect to abandon a series at some arbitrary mid-way point rather than 1) run out or 2) endure the merest whiff of shark-jumping. Which is illogical but you know how it is. ^^; Also it's told in first person, unlike the other books, which weirded me out so I didn't keep reading past the first couple of chapters. But a few days ago I picked it up again and kept reading, and it continued to be enjoyable, so I guess I'll finish it sometime soon.
I'd like to remark on the characters and storytelling to date but I feel as if I could do just as well by linking to my previous DWJ-related entries. Which is maybe a problem. I mention "shark-jumping" in the immediately preceding paragraph but that's not the right word. What I mean, I think, is that the more one reads of a series (or of a given writer's works in general, but it's most apparent in a series of novels with recurring characters/plot), the more the writer's flaws inevitably become glaring. At least, to me. ^^; Familiarity breeds contempt for the aspects of the books that made them enjoyable to begin with, but if one has a problem with the author's pacing, characterization, humour etc. that one was only able to identify in book 7, it will come back to bother one twice as much in book 8, and twice as much again in book 9. What made me stop reading Lois McMaster Bujold was the realisation that I don't like the way she handles romance. I love many of her characters as individuals but somehow the romantic entanglements always make me twitch and wish she'd "go back to the plot". Maybe it's as J says - the emotional perspective [1] is too relentlessly male and heterosexual despite proportionate representation of characters who are neither - which is kind of weird given that, yanno, Bujold is a woman.
[1] It's just the romance - when she writes about motherhood and such it really resonates with me, which is one of the reasons why Barrayar is still my favorite of the Vorkosigan novels. Ha, maybe the problem is that she's too good at portraying the inner mind of the callow young male. ._.
To come: notes on Higuri You's Gorgeous Carat Galaxy once I finish that, and... what else?
Not an ourobouros; a fractal. You gaze at the lobes and veins of a fallen leaf and you find that they are composed of smaller lobes and veins, and those of yet smaller, and yet.
The best thing about the book, though, is that the whole is a gothic tearjerker of grand and sweepingly romantic, almost cheesy effect; in much the same way as the best thing about House of Leaves was that it was - despite being composed of equal halves typographical gimmick and hermeneutics parody by weight - really kind of fucking terrifying. It's not easy to be that clever, but it's even harder to be that clever and still bleed red when pricked. I read two-thirds of the book (Shadow of the Wind) in one evening session from 7PM to midnight while outside it stormed and banged like Bulwer-Lytton's darkest fancy, and I was glad when I finished that it didn't require an all-nighter like House of Leaves. Bit of a waste of electricity to keep all the lights on in the house like that. XD
2) Conrad's Fate, which I probably shouldn't review since I haven't technically finished it - partially it's psychological, because it's the last Chrestomanci novel, and I usually elect to abandon a series at some arbitrary mid-way point rather than 1) run out or 2) endure the merest whiff of shark-jumping. Which is illogical but you know how it is. ^^; Also it's told in first person, unlike the other books, which weirded me out so I didn't keep reading past the first couple of chapters. But a few days ago I picked it up again and kept reading, and it continued to be enjoyable, so I guess I'll finish it sometime soon.
I'd like to remark on the characters and storytelling to date but I feel as if I could do just as well by linking to my previous DWJ-related entries. Which is maybe a problem. I mention "shark-jumping" in the immediately preceding paragraph but that's not the right word. What I mean, I think, is that the more one reads of a series (or of a given writer's works in general, but it's most apparent in a series of novels with recurring characters/plot), the more the writer's flaws inevitably become glaring. At least, to me. ^^; Familiarity breeds contempt for the aspects of the books that made them enjoyable to begin with, but if one has a problem with the author's pacing, characterization, humour etc. that one was only able to identify in book 7, it will come back to bother one twice as much in book 8, and twice as much again in book 9. What made me stop reading Lois McMaster Bujold was the realisation that I don't like the way she handles romance. I love many of her characters as individuals but somehow the romantic entanglements always make me twitch and wish she'd "go back to the plot". Maybe it's as J says - the emotional perspective [1] is too relentlessly male and heterosexual despite proportionate representation of characters who are neither - which is kind of weird given that, yanno, Bujold is a woman.
[1] It's just the romance - when she writes about motherhood and such it really resonates with me, which is one of the reasons why Barrayar is still my favorite of the Vorkosigan novels. Ha, maybe the problem is that she's too good at portraying the inner mind of the callow young male. ._.
To come: notes on Higuri You's Gorgeous Carat Galaxy once I finish that, and... what else?
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no subject
Date: 2006-06-08 11:05 pm (UTC)(Huh, my finger slipped while I was picking out an icon, landing on Feilong -- maybe that means you should tell us more about Traffic!)
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Date: 2006-06-08 11:07 pm (UTC)Traffic, ahaha, must run (not a joke, I will have something to say when I come back).
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Date: 2006-06-09 04:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-09 01:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-09 02:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-09 01:45 am (UTC)I personally liked Conrad's Fate. It's full of DWJ-isms (e.g., main characters who don't have a clue of what's going on or how they're being manipulated), but there are little things in it that make it glow.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-09 04:14 am (UTC)