May Book Review, Part 1

[shadydave]

Part 1 of 2. I read a lot of books in May. And then had a lot to say, apparently!

The Talisman Ring, by Georgette Heyer

Another one of my favorite Georgette Heyers so far! Sir Tristram Shield promises his great-uncle on his deathbed that he'll marry his cousin, Eustacie; Eustacie, however, is unimpressed by Tristan's distinctly unromantic outlook on life, so she runs away and accidentally ends up helping a smuggler, Ludovic; Ludovic, as it turns out, is ALSO their cousin, on the run after being framed for MURTHER and the theft of the titular ring; the two of them plot to restore Ludovic's honor with the help of Sarah Thane, an extremely amused bystander, and Sir Tristram, at least once he stops ::facepalm::ing at everyone.

As always, there are hilarious secondary characters (like Sarah's brother, who generally lets her do all the heavy thinking), but the real strength of this book is the ensemble cast, who are awesome both on their own AND playing off each other. Eustacie is a hilarious mix of pragmatic and totally ridiculous, which can basically be summed up by the following exchange:

EUSTACIE: I am going to run away to become a governess! I don't actually know what they do, but I'm sure I can pick it up.
HER MAID: But it's snowing out!
EUSTACIE: Never fear, I shall wear a FUR-LINED CLOAK!

She's quick-thinking and very good at manipulating social situations; however, she's also rather young, and since much of her knowledge of the world appears to have been obtained from sensational novels, her perception of how the world works is rather... skewed.

Sarah Thane, meanwhile, has also read those crappy books; unlike Eustacie, she knows they're, you know, fictional. Which is why she finds it totally hilarious that Eustacie and Ludovic have somehow landed themselves in a plot lifted straight from the pages of one, and ends up helping them as much to continue watching the comedy as making sure the crazy kids stay out of trouble. She splits her time between gently diffusing their more outrageous plans with sensible suggestions, and giving them over-the-top ~*~ROMANTIC!~*~ deadpan advice, all for the lulz. And because it annoys Sir Tristram, of course.`

Sir Tristram starts out as the straight man: unromantic and cynical, he was convinced Ludovic was guilty, and not terribly pleased about getting stuck with Eustacie. However, once he stumbles upon the plot against his family's honor, he agrees to help solve the mystery, and reluctantly realizes that since the situation he's stuck in is completely ridiculous, he might as well enjoy it a little. Which leads to hilarious moments such as this:

SARAH: ::gets arrested to cause a diversion:: I'm innocent! I was on my way to meet Sir Tristram for a, um, romantic meeting!
TRISTRAM: ...Yes, totally. We were going to enjoy the balmy breezes outside together.
SARAH'S BROTHER: But it's February!
TRISTRAM: YOU HAVE NO ROMANCE IN YOUR SOUL, SIR.

Ludovic is good-natured, hot-tempered, and prone to flinging himself into trouble without thinking, and my only complaint is that he gets much less development than the other three main characters. However, he's still plenty busy complaining about hiding in the cellar, cross-dressing, and rushing blindly into obvious traps, so it's not like he's any less entertaining, even if it's mostly due to what he does and not how he's reacting to what he does.

In conclusion: awesome people, snarky romances, and a wackadoo plot that actually kind of makes sense in spite of itself! I don't know what more you could want.

Jenna Starborn, by Sharon Shinn

AKA Jane Eyre... IN SPACE! Three guesses why I read this, and the first two don't count.

Sadly, though, this book doesn't live up to its promising conceit. Sharon Shinn comes up with a few clever ideas in setting JE in the future -- Jenna is genetically modified test-tube baby instead of a fostered orphan, and when she's rejected by the woman who commissioned her, she's stuck in the limbo of being a half-citizen (who are allowed a few basic rights, but can expect a life of drudgery unless they somehow manage to buy a higher status) -- but for all the cool planets and bio-domes and spaceships, she never makes her interpretation hers. She doesn't react at all to Jane Eyre, she just transposes it, so the plot barely deviates and the characters are direct analogues to the originals.

The thing that bothered me the most was that for some reason, in the FUTURE! where humanity has colonized thousands of planets and possibly met a few aliens, everyone follows Victorian social norms. Shinn attempts to translate the repression onto the complicated class system, which works in some respects, but doesn't explain why there's so much focus on marriage when business mergers seem a reasonable alternative, or why everyone's so uptight about sexuality when there seems to be a fairly cosmopolitan society around. Of course, these underlying assumptions about society are what drives a lot of the plot of Jane Eyre, so it seems like incredibly lazy writing to either not justify how society has evolved back to the 19th century, or come up with new moralities more in keeping with the setting to inform characters' actions.

Also, on a meta note, Shinn is totally a Rochester apologist, and the way she portrays him kinda has some uncomfortable implications when compared to the original. In Jane Eyre, Rochester is a HUGE WEIRDO. He dresses up as an old gypsy lady to find out if Jane likes him. He sets up an elaborate sham of a courtship to make her jealous. He has an insane wife he LOCKS IN THE ATTIC. OF A HOUSE HE LIVES IN. EVEN AFTER SHE TRIES TO KILL HIM MULTIPLE TIMES. You can definitely argue that he's good at heart, and he has reasons for all his crazy, crazy ways, but his morality is seriously skewed and his logic is not our earth logic. Which is why it's a little disturbing in Jenna Starborn when the Rochester dude is presented as more or less right. The Blanche Ingram character is much more mercenary without the nineteenth century's social pressure to marry, so his treatment of her is less off-putting, and he seems more uncomfortable lying to Jenna; meanwhile, this Bertha is a malfunctioning cyborg, who he has to hide unless he wants the government to kill her. Which makes him a much better person than Rochester classic, but by elevating his actions to the realms of almost noble, Shinn obscures the problematic aspects of the original, and kind of excuses them, too. And that's terrible.

In conclusion: I'm sad that something featuring Bertha Rochester as a KILLER ROBOT wasn't more awesome. Also, Kate Beaton is totally right. Tenant of Wildfell Hall for the win! I would gladly read about Helen Graham... in SPACE!

The Wee Free Men, by Terry Pratchett

By far the weirdest thing I realized while rereading this book is how the Nac Mac Feegle aren't actually the focus of it at all: that would be Tiffany, and her dual journey of figuring out what it means to be a witch, and fighting off the Queen of the Fairies. For all that they're the titular heroes, the Nac Mac Feegle are pretty much supporting characters, albeit extremely memorable ones. Though I guess it's very in-character for them to take up more space than they're actually allotted :D

(I just re-read Carpe Jugulum, too, and noticed something neat. Pterry really tones down the Scottish/Gaelic/Whatever dialect in The Wee Free Men -- you can actually understand them! -- which actually makes a lot of sense, since this clan has been living in the Chalk for a while, whereas the Nac Mac Feegle in CJ just moved in.)

Also, I liked Tiffany a lot better this time around: not that I didn't like her before, but Pterry has a tendency to write his clever young female protagonists as very, like, prickly (Susan is a prime example), and while they provide an awesome POV, they're not as lovable as some of his other characters. I had vaguely remembered Tiffany as Susan Lite, and was pleased to realize that though they do have some similarities (read: snark), Tiffany is much more of a people person (which I find rather hilarious, considering). The stuff with her grandmother is especially sweet. (On another note completely, Pterry definitely captures the exasperation you get with annoying younger siblings. I mean, who hasn't wanted to tie their brother to a stake and use him for monster bait? It probably builds character, anyway.)

Another detail I really liked was Tiffany's reaction to her family's books: she hates the fairy tales, because they tell you what to think instead of how, whereas she read their dictionary all the way through. It's a neat little parallel to her journey throughout the book, where she can't take stories at face value because they're trying to hide the truth about fairy land, and where she has all the elements of how to be a witch and fight off the fairy Queen but has to figure out how to use them: like knowing the definitions of words, but then learning how to use them in a sentence and pronounce them properly. That Pterry, he's so clever.

False Colours, by Georgette Heyer

Surprisingly, I did not like this one quite as much as Georgette Heyer's other Regency romances. It definitely wasn't bad, but I think I missed the sheer volume of hilarity I've gotten in the last couple. Possibly this is because the plot seems conducive to quite a lot of hilarity: Kit Fanshawe has returned home when he senses something bad has happened to his twin, Evelyn (who is a dude, BTW, albeit with an unfortunate name), but Evelyn has disappeared, and his mom convinces Kit to impersonate him for just one party so they doesn't lose Evelyn's potential fiancee of convenience. Of course, it escalates from there.

Usually Heyer exploits wacky Shakespearean twists like these for all the comedy they're worth, but in this she actually plays Kit's impersonation really straight. Which is kind of a cool idea, because usually these kind of plots require a healthy dose of suspension of disbelief, and it's nice to have someone consider all the difficulties masquerading as your brother would require. However, I think she forgoes a lot of comedic opportunities on that front to keep it srs, and I for one missed that particular kind of humor. Also, because the book was less overtly funny, I kept expecting for Evelyn's disappearance to have some cool sort of plot reason -- highwaymen? A crime syndicate? Spies? Assassins? All possibilities Heyer is capable of -- but really, it was just because he fell into a ditch and forgot his name for a couple days (maybe he was doomed to lamesaucery by his name, I don't know). So there wasn't even an unexpected dose of drama to round off the experience -- in fact, kind of the opposite.

Which is not to say I didn't enjoy the book. As usual, there were some great supporting characters: the mom was highly entertaining, and I liked Kit/Evelyn's fiancee and her crotchety grandmother who terrified EVERYONE. Plus it WAS pretty neat that Heyer was writing slightly against type, even if she didn't pull it off with quite so much aplomb. In the end, I can't complain too much when I get a book that depends on well-drawn characters interacting charmingly. Even if there WERE no wacky impersonation hijinx.

Comments

[failing-light.livejournal.com]

YOU HAVE NO ROMANCE IN YOUR SOUL, SIR.

By far the weirdest thing I realized while rereading this book is how the Nac Mac Feegle aren't actually the focus of it at all: that would be Tiffany

Duh. I am deeply concerned you apparently never realized this before.

I guess it's very in-character for them to take up more space than they're actually allotted

Hee. Yes.

who hasn't wanted to tie their brother to a stake and use him for monster bait?

DAVE. WICKEDNESS.

Anyway, I have never really found Tiffany to be all that similar to Susan, despite their snarkiness, because although Tiffany is a Clever Young Female Protagonist and therefore somewhat removed from the world by her ability to examine it reflectively, she is still very much connected to her world. Her possessiveness is a kind of deeply rooted love and absolute commitment and it ties her to things as much as she ties them to herself: it's her brother and her land, but also therefore his sister and the land's . . . person. Whereas Susan has never had that kind of connection. She's Death's granddaughter, she can stalk the stalk and TALK THE TALK, and she is fundamentally set apart by that. She might be human, but she's not tied to the world the way Tiffany is. At some level, she is ALWAYS an observer.

Anyway, I have always loved Tiffany best because she is like a tiny Granny Weatherwax!

I think she forgoes a lot of comedic opportunities on that front to keep it srs

I think that this ties into the idea that we have discussed before, that wacky hijinks never seem as wacky when you're the one doing them. Because from your own point of view, they seem like the only sensible thing to do in the situation. And simply because I was just thinking about PTerry, I think that the reason for this is that Heyer isn't detached enough from her characters in order to convey BOTH the idea that the POV character sees themself as acting sensibly AND that their behavior is actually hilarious. Her narrative voice tends to identify so closely with the POV character that we see the sensibleness rather than the ridiculousness of their actions because that's what they see; she doesn't have the ironic detachment of a PTerry or a Jane Austen that would allow us to see both.

Even if there WERE no wacky impersonation hijinx

I thought the part where Evelyn's mistress' mom came to demand satisfaction and then he had to be rescued by his "fiancee" was pretty damn hilarious myself :D

[shadydave.livejournal.com]

Duh. I am deeply concerned you apparently never realized this before.

THERE IS MORE TO THAT SENTENCE, FOOL.

I think that this ties into the idea that we have discussed before, that wacky hijinks never seem as wacky when you're the one doing them. Because from your own point of view, they seem like the only sensible thing to do in the situation.

That's true, but I feel she has exploited the wide disparity between "what a character thinks is sensible" and "what is actually sensible" before to great effect. Like Richard and his cravat obsession in The Corinthian: just because he thinks it's terribly important to fix Pen's cravat before they RUN AWAY doesn't mean I'm not loling like mad. Whereas in this one, Kit WAS acting more or less sensibly, given the situation.

And simply because I was just thinking about PTerry, I think that the reason for this is that Heyer isn't detached enough from her characters in order to convey BOTH the idea that the POV character sees themself as acting sensibly AND that their behavior is actually hilarious. Her narrative voice tends to identify so closely with the POV character that we see the sensibleness rather than the ridiculousness of their actions because that's what they see; she doesn't have the ironic detachment of a PTerry or a Jane Austen that would allow us to see both.

I dunno, I think she usually does a decent job: there's the aforementioned cravat issue, or Sir Tristram hiding in the curtains in The Talisman Ring, or Gilly setting things on fire in The Foundling, all of which are totally hilarious but seemed like good ideas at the time.

I thought the part where Evelyn's mistress' mom came to demand satisfaction and then he had to be rescued by his "fiancee" was pretty damn hilarious myself :D

Heee, it totally was. However, that was funny mostly because it was dependent on his fiancee's awesome, not because of wacky impersonation hijinx.