Books, Movies and Random Thoughts

Ethan of Athos is not one of my favourite Bujold books set in the Vorkosigan universe – it doesn’t have Miles in it, and I’m not particularly grabbed by Ellie Quinn. Allowing for that, however, it’s a reasonably fun adventure story, with enough twists to keep you on your toes. But even the most plot-driven of the Miles stories seem to have extra depth to them, because of Miles’ personality (or maybe it’s just because he’s so hyper, whereas Ethan, although a well developed character, is very staid). Also, although the settings (Athos and Kline Station) are not uninteresting, they’re both a bit conventional – unlike, say, Cetaganda.

Brothers in Arms is also more plot-driven than character-driven – unlike the next few in the series. It’s more sophisticated than, say, Warrior’s Apprentice, but I don’t think it even comes close to the depths of Memory. Though because it introduces the characters of Mark and Duv Galeni, it’s pretty crucial to the series as a whole. I find it hard to make up my mind how much I like it for itself, and how much because it’s setting up the later books that I really like.

I find the concept of a mercenary fleet having an accountant totally bizarre, and yet at the same time completely logical.

I absolutely adored Saffy’s Angel, and really liked Indigo’s Star. While I certainly didn’t dislike Permanent Rose, on a first reading I’d rate it below its prequels (though considerably above the other McKays I’ve read).

I think my problem wasn’t so much with the story itself, as with the fact that it seemed to undercut the earlier books. Maybe I should re-read Saffy’s Angel before saying this, but I strongly suspect that the revelations about Saffy’s background in Permanent Rose had not actually been invented when she wrote Saffy’s Angel. Also, I was unhappy about the way Derek had completely and utterly disappeared off the scene since the end of Indigo’s Star. And the Caddy/Michael relationship was a lot less fun than in the earlier books. In fact, the book as a whole seemed rather darker, and less funny.

Permanent Rose may grow on me – I know I liked Indigo’s Star a lot more the second time I read it – but I don’t think there’s any danger of it displacing Saffy’s Angel as my favourite in the series.

According to his website, George R. R. Martin has now finished writing A Feast for Crows. Yay!

The bad news is that because it came in very much over length, he has had to cut it in half. The decision he made is to include material set in Westeros, King’s Landing, the riverlands, Dorne, and the Iron Islands in this book, and leave the material set in the east and the north until the next book (A Dance With Dragons). In principle, I think this is a good decision; but unfortunately it means that the two characters I’m most interested in (Arya and Tyrion) probably won’t appear in the book at all. On the plus side, this decision means that A Dance With Dragons is now half finished, so maybe we won’t have to wait another five years to find out what happens.

In other good news on the book front, the copy of Permanent Rose (Hilary McKay) that I had reserved at the library came in. When I went up to borrow it, I also got out To the Nines (Janet Evanovich – a Stephanie Plum story) and The Last Temptation (Val McDermid – a Tony Hill story). I think the three of them make an interesting contrast – even more so when you throw in Brothers in Arms (Lois McMaster Bujold), which I am currently re-reading.

And speaking of Bujold, I am very excited about the fact that Michael has picked up a copy of The Hallowed Hunt while he is in the US. Coincidentally, he arrived within a few days of the book’s release.

Someone on Girlsown posted a link to a book meme at Online Learning. (If you follow the links back from the site, you may find where the meme originated. Or you may not – I gave up after a while.)

The instructions are:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don’t search around and look for the “coolest” book you can find. Do what’s actually next to you.

The closest book is Tops and Bottoms by Noel Streatfeild. Since I am writing my Uni treatise on Streatfeild, all her books are handily shelved on the bookcase nearest my desk, and this one happened to be at the end of the shelf. The fifth sentence on page 123 is the rather uninspiring “Beaty looked ashamed of herself -“.

Tops and Bottoms is definitely not one of the better Streatfeilds, and I’m not actually referring to it in my treatise, but it was the closest book to hand. At least, it was the closest book to my left hand. The closest book to my right hand was the Dreamweaver 3: Using Dreamweaver, but I’m not sure that a several-versions-old software guide really counts as a book; and, in any case, it was about four centimetres further away than Tops and Bottoms. Amazingly enough, at this precise moment in time there are actually no books lying on my desk – the ones that were there about an hour ago are currently in a pile on the floor. Had I not cleared off the desk, you would have got a sentence from Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception – or maybe Booktalk: Occasional Writing on Literature and Children.

This was such a fun book!

I think I first heard it described as “Jane Austen meets Harry Potter”. Well, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell was also described that way, and I found it turgid to the point of unreadability. Sorcery and Cecelia was anything but. It’s a series of letters between Kate, in London, and her cousin Cecelia, in Essex. In both locations, Evil Doings are Afoot, involving a stolen chocolate pot, a beautiful neighbour, a missing brother, a charm bag … and two dashingly handsome (if frustratingly enigmatic) young men.

Coincidentally, just after I finished it, I discovered it was the Galaxy Bookshop Fave Rave in their April 2005 Nexus. Stephanie, who wrote the review, said it was “Jane Austen with magic”, and even considered whether or not you have to be familiar with Austen to appreciate it (which you don’t). I can only assume that Stephanie has never come across Georgette Heyer, since anyone who has will recognise her influence on the writing. I can’t really see any significant Austen connection beyond the time period (and it’s much more Heyer’s Regency than Austen’s), and maybe the epistolary format (which Heyer never used – the only published Austen that uses it is Lady Susan, but the first drafts of both Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice were apparently written in this style).

The book is actually dedicated to Jane Austen, Georgette Heyer and J. R. R. Tolkein. I would say that while Austen and Tolkein have given the authors much joy and general influence, the most direct connection is with Heyer. It’s not as good as Heyer – it’s a sort of “Heyer-lite” (with magic). It’s actually being marketed as a Young Adult title, and I think this is the right call, although I can’t put my finger on exactly why it feels YA in a way that Heyer doesn’t.

I have a nasty feeling Heyer wouldn’t have approved of this book. In The Private World of Georgette Heyer (Jane Aiken Hodge, 1984) there is an extract from a letter to her publisher about an imitator:

I feel compelled to protest against the injustice done me by the author in omitting my name from her list of the works to which she declares herself to be indebted. It might well take the place of Jane Austen’s, for while no one would suspect [the author] of owing anything to Jane Austen it must be obvious to many besides my unknown informant that she owes to me plot, incidents, character, several surnames, and such examples of Regency slang as she has used.” (p. 145)

Sorcery and Cecelia does owe a couple of names and a great deal of Regency slang – plus a general Regency world view – to Heyer. On the other hand, the authors do acknowledge her (though I gather this wasn’t the case with the first edition of the book). Also, of course, the magic component means that it’s not actually a Regency Romance.

Another factor is that it wasn’t originally intended for publication. The two authors were simply playing the “letter game” – writing to each other in character, and making up the plots (without consultation) as they went along. It was only after it was finished that they realised it might be publishable. This makes the Heyer pastiche aspects of it more understandable – and it’s such a key part of the writing style, that I honestly don’t see how it could have been excised when they were preparing it for publication.

So maybe Heyer wouldn’t have objected to it. I’d like to think so, anyway.

Having read this book from the library, I have now ordered my own copy of the book, and of its sequel, The Grand Tour, which I’m really looking forward to reading.

* Actually, the full title is Sorcery and Cecelia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot: Being the Correspondence of Two Young Ladies of Quality Regarding Various Magical Scandals in London and the Country

It’s always tricky seeing the film version of a book you love (and yes, I know Hitchhiker’s was a radio play before it was a book – but it was the book that I first read and loved). I find it interesting to see how close the filmmakers’ vision of the book is to my own interpretation. Normally there’s something to like, though this can often be outweighed by the aspects that just seem wrong.

I loved this film’s version of Marvin. He looked a lot more like “Your Plastic Pal Who’s Fun To Be With” than the one in the TV version (though it was nice to see that one having a cameo in the film). And when you add that to Warwick Davis’s depressed slump, and the ironic world-weariness of Alan Rickman’s voice … well, I’ve never had a strong visual impression of Marvin before, but I think this one will stick with me.

I read one review that said Martin Freeman was perfect as Arthur. Well, that’s just silly. The only person who is perfect as Arthur Dent is Simon Jones. However, I ended up liking Martin Freeman more than I expected. He wasn’t Simon Jones, and he wasn’t quite middle-class enough, but he did seem to capture the essence of Arthur. The rest of the main cast were a bit more disappointing. Ford’s part was cut right back, and Zaphod was a bit too over the top (though I’ve never been much of a Zaphod fan). I quite liked Trillian, although the development of the relationship with Arthur meant that she was fundamentally a different character.

I guess I can see why they built up the Arthur-Trillian relationship, though I don’t think it was really necessary – I think the film would have still had a good linear plot without it. However, having decided to put it in, I wish it had been a bit less conventionally bland: it was pleasant enough, but it didn’t have the slightly offbeat nature of the Arthur-Fenchurch relationship in So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Overall, it wasn’t a bad film. Much of the classic Adams stuff was there (though it’s a shame they dropped “on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying Beware of the Leopard“), and some of the new stuff was fun – especially the Point-of-View gun. If I’d never read the book, I would probably rate the film higher than I do – certainly, it was funny and enjoyable. But it just didn’t have the offbeat zaniness of the book, which was disappointing. In spite of the cheesy special effects of the TV version, I think I preferred that over the film – though neither of them will ever take the place of the book.

Back in the last millennium, Justine Larbalestier and I were both members of Sydney Uni Fencing Club. I completely lost contact with her when she gave up fencing, but when I stumbled across her website I read it with interest.

A little while before the publication of Magic or Madness, there was an excerpt on the site. I read and enjoyed it, and was really looking forward to the book. However, a week or so later, one of the people I work got caught up in a friend’s custody battle over a child whose father suffered from a psychiatric disorder. And this made me rethink the Magic or Madness extract. Was it saying that Reason was better off with her mother, and modern society was unkind/insensitive to place her into the custody of her grandmother? Was it trivialising the danger for children in these situations? Was it maybe giving a “wrong but wromantic”/”right but repulsive” slant to the whole thing?

So it was with some trepidation that I bought and read the book. Fortunately, my concerns were allayed – reading the whole book, rather than just an excerpt, didn’t give me the same feelings. Firstly, Sarafina’s madness was much more tied in with the whole magic system than I had realised; and secondly, Reason proved to be a not-entirely-reliable narrator.

I really enjoyed the book. The Sydney sections had a terrific sense of place – probably the New York bits do as well, but since I’ve never been there, I can’t tell. I kept getting a “yes, that’s exactly right” buzz as I was reading it: you’d think this would be easy, but I’ve read some things set in Sydney that really feel as if they could be anyplace.

I really enjoyed the character of Reason. There were times when I wanted to shake her and say “wake up and see what’s really going on”, but I think these were just enough to keep the story going, without making the character absolutely infuriating. I imagine this is a very difficult balance for an author to manage!

I also liked Tom a lot, though Jay-Tee didn’t work for me quite as well. However, she was an interesting character, and I suspect I will warm to her in later books of the series. I particularly liked the fact that there were just enough questionable aspects to Esmerelda that I was never quite sure whether Reason or Tom was right about her – or if they were both wrong.

I’m looking forward to the next one, although sadly it appears there will be a year to wait. (Though this is nothing to George R R Martin – I have been hanging out for the next volume of Song of Ice and Fire since 2000!)

The only Diana Wynne Jones I read as a child was The Ogre Downstairs. I enjoyed it, but not enough to go chasing up any of her other books. Over the last couple of years, having discovered that a lot of people are very enthusiastic about her, I have been reading her books on and off. Howl’s Moving Castle has been the most recent, inspired by the fact that Hayao Miyazaki has made a film version of it (and I just loved his Spirited Away) and this had lead to a certain amount of discussion about the book on both Girlsown and Child_Lit.

With the exception of Fire and Hemlock, I’m just not seeing the magic a lot of people find in DWJ. For me, most of her books are enjoyable enough, but nothing extraordinary – and there have been one or two (e.g. A Tale of Time City) that I found all but unreadable.

Howl’s Moving Castle fell into the “pleasant enough” category. The story had some interesting ideas, but I wasn’t particularly grabbed by any of the characters. I didn’t dislike them, but I found them rather on the bland side – which surprised me a little, since I gather some people list Howl as one of their all-time favourite heroes. Obviously DWJ is just one of those authors I’m somehow missing the point of.

This was the first Margaret Attwood I ever read, and it’s the only one I tend to re-read. I find the society she envisages fascinating, and I love the way the story unfolds. I simultaneously enjoy and am frustrated by the open ending. However, I do find it a bit hard to believe that the society could undergo such a radical change in a relatively short period of time.

I have to admit, though, one of the things that annoys me about Attwood (and a number of other “serious” modern writers) is the attitude of “I can make up my own rules of punctuation”. This particularly applies to dialogue. What’s wrong with the generally accepted standards of opened and closed quote marks? I’m not a big fan of writing in the present tense, or idiosyncratic grammar, but I can see how these can have a real impact on how the story is being told, and the effect it has on the reader. But changing punctuation?

Some authors choose to replace quote marks with other dialogue signifiers: for example, in Everything Will Be All Right, Tessa Hadley puts a dash at the beginning of the paragraph, and immediately after (though not before) the “he said/she said” tag (if there is one). Attwood, however, dispenses with signifiers altogether – as in the following example:

I’ve learned to do without a lot of things. If you have a lot of things, said Aunt Lydia, you get too attached to this material world and you forget about spiritual values. You must cultivate poverty of spirit. Blessed are the meek. She didn’t go on to say anything about inheriting the earth. (The Handmaid’s Tale, 1996 Vintage edition, p. 74)

These authors may find quote marks aesthetically displeasing. However, standard punctuation, understood by readers, does actually make the reading process easier – particularly when it comes to separating the actual dialogue from the “he said/she said” tags. Of course, it’s not actually difficult to read these authors, but a higher level of concentration is required, and occasionally one needs to re-read a sentence after misinterpreting a tag as dialogue (or vice versa) the first time through. And personally, I’d prefer to be putting my cognitive processing power into dealing with the intricacies of plot, the subtleties of character or the beauties of language, rather than into coping with unfamiliar punctuation.

Maybe there is some subtle effect that is passing me by. But to be honest, what it actually feels like is that these authors are just looking for a gimmick that will set them apart from “ordinary” authors. I think Attwood’s writing is good enough to do this on its own, and I find that messing around with punctuation detracts from her book, rather than adds to it.

I have always been a bit underwhelmed by Looking for Alibrandi, Marchetta’s first book. I quite enjoyed it, but it didn’t give me the real insight into what it is like to be an Italian/Australian that I had been hoping for. Also, I found much of the plot pretty conventional.

Saving Francesca is a whole different matter. The fact that the central character is Italian is not foregrounded so much – it’s not the main point of the book. I thought the the two plot strands – mother suffering from depression, and main character gradually forming a new peer group – wove together well. I found the main character very engaging, particularly the way that her self image was so bound up in the perceptions of her former friends, and she only gradually realises that she has changed – and that they have always been shallow. The subsidiary characters were presented more superficially, so I didn’t really feel that I “knew” them as well as Francesca, but then that makes sense for a first person narrative. However, I liked them, and I liked the way they gradually changed as Francesca’s perceptions did. The only one who left me unmoved was Will, who I basically found completely uninteresting. This is probably because he is a relatively conventional romantic lead, whereas most of the other characters are slightly quirky.