Deceptions
Mar. 30th, 2008 02:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cyphomandraIf something looks easy but is actually difficult, is it "deceptively easy" or "deceptively difficult"? I had one of those moments when writing it the other day and now both alternatives look wrong in that way that anything does when you examine it closely. Anyway. A madly tenuous connection can be drawn between this, the post title and the first book here, or you can use it to refer to my equally tenuous belief that I can keep up in a remotely timely fashion with this blog.
Michelle Magorian, Cuckoo in the Nest. At the age of eleven, I (along with my entire class) was massively traumatised by Michelle Magorian’s Goodnight, Mister Tom. I’m not sure I’ve read it since (I read it twice then, as a family holiday meant I missed some of the teacher’s reading it to us), but I think there are still chunks embedded in my cortex somewhere. Her one about the evacuee returning home (possibly called Back Home? Main character Rusty?) was less traumatic and had some very nice character moments, but wasn’t as good, and I think I tried a few others, none of which have really stuck with me. This one, however, is very good, and does not leave me a sodden mass of disillusionment with humanity, so definitely recommended.
It’s set post-war, about a working class family in what I think is a midlands/northern town; Ralph, the oldest boy, was evacuated to Cornwall during the war, and has come back with a “posh” accent (he can also do broad Cornish) and a burning ambition to act. His father wants him to follow in his footsteps, and when Ralph, despite this, does manage to get a foot into the theatre he discovers that money is a larger barrier than talent in terms of getting further. The whole family is under stress – overcrowded with various relatives, underresourced, dealing with the stretched roles and changes resulting from their different war experiences, as well as an absolutely filthily bad winter. The other characters are all excellent – the actors, the widow Ralph gardens for (also trapped by family and expectations) – the lost-in-fog sequences spookily atmospheric, the emotional connections between people well-drawn without ever being clichéd (I particularly like the dynamics between Ralph’s parents, but also the other stage manager who Ralph has a (hopeless) crush on) and it’s all very, very well done. Apparently there’s a loose sequel focussing on Ralph’s sister, and I will snaffle this next time I’m at the library.
Naomi Novik books 2-4. Hmm. There are also nice moments in these, but the whole dragon plague and unlikely exotic cure thing ticked me off enough that I’m finding it hard to remember what they were (particularly when they cooked the mushrooms, thus destroying any innate antimicrobial activity, although given the vagueness of the plague I suppose it could be handwaved - and where are the dragon vet equivalents?). I do like the concept, but I’ve never felt that it’s been really fully explored or, better, wrung out to unexpected conclusions – instead, it all feels like the world started with the books, and the tension between historical fact and fictional dragons isn’t profitable enough. I still like Lawrence, and I like the language, but the plotting really isn’t strong enough to grab me, both with the lack of real surprises and the failure to fill in gaps.
Betty Cavanna, Almost like sisters. I grabbed this from the library sale and was unsure for quite some time whether it was a) a college novel b) a romance or c) a family drama. The answer appears to be all of the above, but I think it’s probably a romance for its time period (published 1964). Girl overshadowed by sparkling vivacious mother (American Southern variant) goes away to college, tries to establish own identity, meets boys etc. Nothing outstanding, but interesting from a social history point of view and has those moments where characters actually manage to see past their own assumptions.
Matthew Reilly, Six sacred stones. While standing in the bookshop on a couple of occasions, because no matter what Reilly’s other faults are, he does “page-turning” rather well. I also have a sneaking fondness for anyone who can decapitate their main character's love interest (previous novel, title left vague to avoid spoilers), which may in fact say more about me than the author.
The sequel to something with Seven in the title – the team only thought that they saved the world in the previous book, as new decipherings of mysterious messages suggest that, unless they find six solid blocks of diamond and insert them in the appropriate ancient monument at exactly the right time to construct a Machine, the world will be destroyed – although I’ve forgotten whether it’s by Earth’s deadly antimatter twin or a tiny black hole. Hmm. Anyway, this is the first half of a two-parter, and it speeds along at a rapid clip, throwing in so many different conspiracy theories, death traps and sudden reversals that it’s difficult not to find it somewhat endearing. I was particularly taken with the bit where, our hero having being crucified on a immensely heavy slab by an obscure sect of - argh, have forgotten, possibly Ethiopian Christians - they throw yet another heavy slab on top of him, making him the top layer in a revolting centuries-old crucifiction sandwich thing, to the despair of his companion who is unhelpfully trapped in a cage sinking in liquid mercury while, meanwhile, three other members of the team race desperately through a deadly maze hidden deep in the African jungle and inhabited by cannibals, pursued by increasingly devious bad guys, heading relentlessly towards yet another cliff-hanger ending...
I do tend to give up blocking the action scenes, which have an awful lot of people disappearing and re-appearing with split-second timing and a certain amount of bending the limits of my credibility, but more studious readers will be delighted by all the little drawings of the trap set-pieces, many of which have stayed in remarkably good condition given their hundreds of years with no maintenance. One of the volumes of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service has an editor's note (on a story about mummification) about how disappointed all our descendants will be at the lack of elaborate deathtraps or at least doomful curses in modern burial grounds, and possibly current scientific breakthroughs would get more attention if they were leaked slowly into the community as wild rumours about life-prolonging elixirs guarded by troops of mutated deadly platypuses or whatever. Am sure Fleming would have gotten much more attention that way.
Michelle Magorian, Cuckoo in the Nest. At the age of eleven, I (along with my entire class) was massively traumatised by Michelle Magorian’s Goodnight, Mister Tom. I’m not sure I’ve read it since (I read it twice then, as a family holiday meant I missed some of the teacher’s reading it to us), but I think there are still chunks embedded in my cortex somewhere. Her one about the evacuee returning home (possibly called Back Home? Main character Rusty?) was less traumatic and had some very nice character moments, but wasn’t as good, and I think I tried a few others, none of which have really stuck with me. This one, however, is very good, and does not leave me a sodden mass of disillusionment with humanity, so definitely recommended.
It’s set post-war, about a working class family in what I think is a midlands/northern town; Ralph, the oldest boy, was evacuated to Cornwall during the war, and has come back with a “posh” accent (he can also do broad Cornish) and a burning ambition to act. His father wants him to follow in his footsteps, and when Ralph, despite this, does manage to get a foot into the theatre he discovers that money is a larger barrier than talent in terms of getting further. The whole family is under stress – overcrowded with various relatives, underresourced, dealing with the stretched roles and changes resulting from their different war experiences, as well as an absolutely filthily bad winter. The other characters are all excellent – the actors, the widow Ralph gardens for (also trapped by family and expectations) – the lost-in-fog sequences spookily atmospheric, the emotional connections between people well-drawn without ever being clichéd (I particularly like the dynamics between Ralph’s parents, but also the other stage manager who Ralph has a (hopeless) crush on) and it’s all very, very well done. Apparently there’s a loose sequel focussing on Ralph’s sister, and I will snaffle this next time I’m at the library.
Naomi Novik books 2-4. Hmm. There are also nice moments in these, but the whole dragon plague and unlikely exotic cure thing ticked me off enough that I’m finding it hard to remember what they were (particularly when they cooked the mushrooms, thus destroying any innate antimicrobial activity, although given the vagueness of the plague I suppose it could be handwaved - and where are the dragon vet equivalents?). I do like the concept, but I’ve never felt that it’s been really fully explored or, better, wrung out to unexpected conclusions – instead, it all feels like the world started with the books, and the tension between historical fact and fictional dragons isn’t profitable enough. I still like Lawrence, and I like the language, but the plotting really isn’t strong enough to grab me, both with the lack of real surprises and the failure to fill in gaps.
Betty Cavanna, Almost like sisters. I grabbed this from the library sale and was unsure for quite some time whether it was a) a college novel b) a romance or c) a family drama. The answer appears to be all of the above, but I think it’s probably a romance for its time period (published 1964). Girl overshadowed by sparkling vivacious mother (American Southern variant) goes away to college, tries to establish own identity, meets boys etc. Nothing outstanding, but interesting from a social history point of view and has those moments where characters actually manage to see past their own assumptions.
Matthew Reilly, Six sacred stones. While standing in the bookshop on a couple of occasions, because no matter what Reilly’s other faults are, he does “page-turning” rather well. I also have a sneaking fondness for anyone who can decapitate their main character's love interest (previous novel, title left vague to avoid spoilers), which may in fact say more about me than the author.
The sequel to something with Seven in the title – the team only thought that they saved the world in the previous book, as new decipherings of mysterious messages suggest that, unless they find six solid blocks of diamond and insert them in the appropriate ancient monument at exactly the right time to construct a Machine, the world will be destroyed – although I’ve forgotten whether it’s by Earth’s deadly antimatter twin or a tiny black hole. Hmm. Anyway, this is the first half of a two-parter, and it speeds along at a rapid clip, throwing in so many different conspiracy theories, death traps and sudden reversals that it’s difficult not to find it somewhat endearing. I was particularly taken with the bit where, our hero having being crucified on a immensely heavy slab by an obscure sect of - argh, have forgotten, possibly Ethiopian Christians - they throw yet another heavy slab on top of him, making him the top layer in a revolting centuries-old crucifiction sandwich thing, to the despair of his companion who is unhelpfully trapped in a cage sinking in liquid mercury while, meanwhile, three other members of the team race desperately through a deadly maze hidden deep in the African jungle and inhabited by cannibals, pursued by increasingly devious bad guys, heading relentlessly towards yet another cliff-hanger ending...
I do tend to give up blocking the action scenes, which have an awful lot of people disappearing and re-appearing with split-second timing and a certain amount of bending the limits of my credibility, but more studious readers will be delighted by all the little drawings of the trap set-pieces, many of which have stayed in remarkably good condition given their hundreds of years with no maintenance. One of the volumes of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service has an editor's note (on a story about mummification) about how disappointed all our descendants will be at the lack of elaborate deathtraps or at least doomful curses in modern burial grounds, and possibly current scientific breakthroughs would get more attention if they were leaked slowly into the community as wild rumours about life-prolonging elixirs guarded by troops of mutated deadly platypuses or whatever. Am sure Fleming would have gotten much more attention that way.
