Five short takes with six notes
11 October 2005 04:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
larryhammer The Wrong Reflection may be the best Gillian Bradshaw I've read, but man is the book's packaging deceptive. Everything -- blurbs, art, colors, type -- says it's a near-future romantic technothriller with a skiffy mcguffin (and to be fair, the first hundred pages read like one). But, um, no. Wrong genre.1 It's even better than Island of Ghosts, though.
I got Richard Wilbur's recent Collected Poems for the two collections since his previous Collected and the appendicized volumes for children. I'm not disappointed. He's still writing poems with the same skill, and more Wilbur poems are a Good Thing. But they're ... slighter is not the right word -- not as chewy as his older work. "Blackberries for Amelia" (scroll down) is lovely, but it's no "The Writer." Love still calls him to the things of this world, but not with snow.2
I'm still trying to figure out what to say about Elizabeth Willey's three fantasies (at least, published to date) that I haven't said before. A Sorcerer and a Gentleman and The Price of Blood and Honor are great fun, despite the painful prices paid in the second for the deeds of the first. But still what interests me most is the disjoint between what we're shown and what Gwydion, in The Well-Favored Man, knows of those events. Even though, ultimately, Gwydion is the less interesting character, compared to his parents.
I've been waiting for The Will of the Empress aka The Circle Reforged for a couple years now.3 Yum. The Empress has her will, yes, but so does Sandry, and while (unlike Diane) she may not have a death goddess behind her when she loses her temper -- she does have Tris, Daja, and Briar. More importantly, it's much better written than the Trickster books.4 Not perfect -- some of the four's motivations for not relinking5 aren't as well supported as others, as is some plotting -- but it's as good as any of the Circle Opens books, if not better, and quite satisfying. Spoilery: And it's amusing to watch Daja right after reading Fingersmith.6 ETA: On reflection, there's one aspect of the ending that bothers me. Tris needs to get in big trouble for one of her decisions.
The problem with reading several James Branch Cabell novels in a row is that eventually the misogyny festering under his engaging wit bubbles up and makes you gag. All women are either comfortably shrewish wives (the Clute Encyclopedia of Fantasy describes them as "acidulous") or seemly unobtainable and often sourcerous royalty who, upon being won, all become the latter. Eddison's pose that all women are avatars of Aphrodite is, despite its pedestalizing, much more amenable to my pagan tastes.
The problem with not reading them in a row is you loose track of the complicated family trees and cosmologies.
1. Unfortunately, I can't name the real genre without massive spoilers.
2. Er, no, I don't know what that means. But it sounds lovely.
3. Now, of course, I get to wait through at least five novels for the story of Tris at Lightsbridge University. Small arghs. Many, many small arghs.
4. Though to be honest, I've always preferred the Circle books over Tortal, Protector of the Small not withstanding.
5. Not much of a spoiler given it's in the online excerpt.
6. Still spoilery: I want to see what happens when Sarah Waters writes a lesbian couple caught up in the plot of a Trollope novel. That would rock even more than Fingersmith.
---L.
I got Richard Wilbur's recent Collected Poems for the two collections since his previous Collected and the appendicized volumes for children. I'm not disappointed. He's still writing poems with the same skill, and more Wilbur poems are a Good Thing. But they're ... slighter is not the right word -- not as chewy as his older work. "Blackberries for Amelia" (scroll down) is lovely, but it's no "The Writer." Love still calls him to the things of this world, but not with snow.2
I'm still trying to figure out what to say about Elizabeth Willey's three fantasies (at least, published to date) that I haven't said before. A Sorcerer and a Gentleman and The Price of Blood and Honor are great fun, despite the painful prices paid in the second for the deeds of the first. But still what interests me most is the disjoint between what we're shown and what Gwydion, in The Well-Favored Man, knows of those events. Even though, ultimately, Gwydion is the less interesting character, compared to his parents.
I've been waiting for The Will of the Empress aka The Circle Reforged for a couple years now.3 Yum. The Empress has her will, yes, but so does Sandry, and while (unlike Diane) she may not have a death goddess behind her when she loses her temper -- she does have Tris, Daja, and Briar. More importantly, it's much better written than the Trickster books.4 Not perfect -- some of the four's motivations for not relinking5 aren't as well supported as others, as is some plotting -- but it's as good as any of the Circle Opens books, if not better, and quite satisfying. Spoilery: And it's amusing to watch Daja right after reading Fingersmith.6 ETA: On reflection, there's one aspect of the ending that bothers me. Tris needs to get in big trouble for one of her decisions.
The problem with reading several James Branch Cabell novels in a row is that eventually the misogyny festering under his engaging wit bubbles up and makes you gag. All women are either comfortably shrewish wives (the Clute Encyclopedia of Fantasy describes them as "acidulous") or seemly unobtainable and often sourcerous royalty who, upon being won, all become the latter. Eddison's pose that all women are avatars of Aphrodite is, despite its pedestalizing, much more amenable to my pagan tastes.
The problem with not reading them in a row is you loose track of the complicated family trees and cosmologies.
1. Unfortunately, I can't name the real genre without massive spoilers.
2. Er, no, I don't know what that means. But it sounds lovely.
3. Now, of course, I get to wait through at least five novels for the story of Tris at Lightsbridge University. Small arghs. Many, many small arghs.
4. Though to be honest, I've always preferred the Circle books over Tortal, Protector of the Small not withstanding.
5. Not much of a spoiler given it's in the online excerpt.
6. Still spoilery: I want to see what happens when Sarah Waters writes a lesbian couple caught up in the plot of a Trollope novel. That would rock even more than Fingersmith.
---L.
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Date: 12 October 2005 02:26 am (UTC)pk
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Date: 12 October 2005 03:33 am (UTC)---L.
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Date: 12 October 2005 03:49 am (UTC)Oops: I've spattered egg on my erudition -- or maybe I mean ego. I thought I was mashing two of Wilbur's lines, but the seond turns out to be my own -- from a poem responding to his "winter downs the dying of the year."
---L.