flyingskull (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
flyingskull) wrote2007-02-21 04:44 pm
flyingskull) wrote2007-02-21 04:44 pm
Review of Drop Dead Gorgeous
As promised, though tardily, here it is, my review of Drop Dead Gorgeous.
"… Commodified fantasy takes no risks: it invents nothing, but imitates and trivialises. It proceeds by depriving the old stories of their intellectual and ethical complexity, turning their action to violence, their actors to dolls, and their truth-telling to sentimental platitude. Heroes brandish their swords, lasers, wands, as mechanically as combine harvesters, reaping profits.
Profoundly disturbing moral choices are sanitized, made cute, made safe. The passionately conceived ideas of the great story-tellers are copied, stereotyped, reduced to toys, moulded in bright-coloured plastic, advertised, sold, broken, junked, replaceable, interchangeable. What the commodifiers of fantasy count on and exploit is the insuperable imagination of the reader, child or adult, which gives even these dead things life - of a sort, for a while. "
(Ursula K. LeGuin – intro to "Tales from Earthsea")
Why do I start with a good healthy dose of bad-fantasy-writers bashing a critique of Maya's latest – and funniest – adventure in fanfic writing? Because, once again, a decent author who thinks about the meaning and function of what she writes has hit the nail on the head: when fiction is bad in the way she describes, good writers will feel the urge to correct the superficialities and give life to the dead things, even if only for awhile.
I realise this is a very general statement to make and it's more a defence of fanfiction than a comment on Drop Dead Gorgeous, but it always starts here for me: giving life to dead things. Which![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mistful does… in abundance.
So Harry and Draco as the Odd Couple of Aurorland works perfectly well. It's so SO delightful that it transcends crack and becomes fic becausemistful is incapable of writing true crack. Humanity keeps intruding. Which is as it should be, really. It's not witty or humorous or laughworthy if there's no humanity in it; even parody – or crack!fic, if you prefer – has to have real people in it to work.
Of course, what makes it parody is the constant intrusion of meta that underlines the sheer idiocy of canon: the monster in Harry's chest, the Harry Had Changed Over The Summer Into a Sex God cliché, the What Heroes Do Is Always Good By Definition amorality. She also parodies the ever-popular fanon idea that If You Are Dead Sexy You Have It Made, Mate, as exemplified in all the Happy!Veela!Sub!anyone stories.
It's not all meta, of course, as I said, humanity keeps intruding. Being on the verge of being constantly raped because you're irresistible is not funny; being a borderline sociopath who has no idea of how to function in a society is even less funny: there are the makings of tragedy here. Yet Maya writes it funny because the other face of tragedy is farce, as she knows very well, and laughter will make the Dousing With Ice Cold Water of personal tragedy all the starker.
It'smistful's compressed and lucid style that makes it work so well. Consider this:
Malfoy turned towards him, his left eyebrow and the left side of his mouth both flying upwards in that lopsided quizzical look he got sometimes. Harry ran his fingers through his hair twice, and only twice. (emphasis mine)
See how many things are expressed in two sentences: Harry's inability to read Draco's expression, to understand what emotion lied behind it; Harry's yearning to touch and his refusal to yield to it, Harry's rigid control of his reactions and the way his very control expresses his affection. I'm probably over-psychoanalysing the character here, but, at the same time it's all there, in two ironically lucid sentences.
Maya quotes constantly, not direct quotes – alright, there's a DW Watch direct quote in chapter 3 – but allusions, implications, refenceres to anything from old TV shows to fairy tales. One reversal of fairy tale cliché I particularly loved to pieces. This:
Malfoy had worked flat out for two and then fallen asleep abruptly by his desk. He’d started to coo, and Katie, with circles under her eyes, had knelt down and kissed him into silent sleep.
She’d looked up and seen Harry watching, and given him a rueful smile.
“It’s the only thing that keeps him quiet,” she said, and then laid down beside Malfoy. Even sleeping, he’d slid his arm around her.
Princess Charming kisses her Snow White Auror to silent sleep. And ain't it lovely that he coos like a dove?
And talking about old TV shows… It was true of Starsky and Hutch and it's true of Drop Dead Gorgeous – a truth universally acknowledged, I might add if I was feeling Austenish – that, no matter how many beards one throws at the protagonists, the only relationship that's central (I had typoed 'ventral', shades of Freud?) to their emotional and social life is the one they have with each other. It's so central and basic that, even if they never kiss or even hug, they are to all effects and purposes a couple, spouses, soul-bonded and double-tied in mutual dependence.
This is acknowledged here:
They were just - odd together, that was all. When Malfoy was with her he was gentle and considerate, and it seemed incongruous, as if he was a lynx trying very hard to pass for a housecat.
Which can well be Harry's jealousy talking – in a sense it is just that – but it's also a comment on how the only 'natural' relationship, the only one not fraught with trying very hard to pass for something one's not, is the one the joined-at-the-hips partners have with each other. True, Harry doesn't declare his undying passion to Draco, but he wouldn't anyway and besides he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer when it comes to understanding his own jumble of violently self-centred emotions.
Right, Maya gives Harry a more-than-canon honesty about that which is why the fact that he can recognise the problem and correct his behaviour because of it doesn't jar.
To end this long and unbrilliant critique, there's a thing that… no I tell a lie, two things that intrigue me a LOT in DDD.
One is the conundrum of Draco's perceptive capability. Apparently he can read subtle signals that Harry is not aware of transmitting – alright, they could be huge anvil-like flashing neon signs as Harry is fairly oblivious of his own facial expressions – and can react accordingly, BUT is he aware of Harry's all-consuming passion? One is tempted to say that yes, he is and he's not reacting to it because he's trying not to complicate matters and would do nothing to jeopardise this 'beautiful' friendship he has with Harry now, a thing that, according to Pansy – and canon – he's wanted since he was eleven. But it's not a given. Not at all, o subtle and wise Maya. I just love to see how that will resolve, I love puzzles and this particular puzzle gives suspense and thrills in the whodunnit of the boys' ultimate personal fate.
The other is one of THE most hilarious mistake by absent-mindedness in the history of fanfics:
Malfoy had righted Dixon’s chair and was lounging in it. When he caught Dixon’s eye he smiled in a truly horrible way he’d perfected, rolled down his sleeve and showed him the Dark Mark.
Rolled DOWN? rolled DOWN?? MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Sorry, sorry but the image is totally absurdly funny. I can see Malfoy, Draco, Auror and ex Death Eater, ripping his sleeve from his shoulder to make a cloth ring around his wrist to show the Dark Mark (TM) to right bastard Dixon.
All the other characters are either extremely IC with amistful slant or delightful OCs, all – and this is extremely important – are real, fully flashed out people, even if they are kind of extras. I feel immensely for poor Chrysanthemum; I could cheerfully strangle Cuthbert (who's a very Pratchettian kind of character); I could, and in fact did, cheer Harry for punching Theophilus (who's a very Austenian character) and so on.
The one I love best, though, is Pansy. Maya is the only fanfic author I've read that can write a Pansy I can believe in, a Pansy who won't admit in public she loves unicorns, but can wear in public a PINK frilly dress, a Pansy who's intelligent and earthy and who can move on from things, a Pansy Ron deserves because in Mayaverse he's got the nous to finally move on from hero-worship and star-junkie to become his own man.
Oh, and because I'm a Draco-loving woman – no surprises here – I absolutely love Maya!Draco, the White Dove Unicorn of Sarcasm and Hiding Behind Words. And you know what? Harking back to the one real quote in the series – so far - I can actually see Draco in the Watch drawing Carrot absolutely crazy, flirting with Angua, doing impressions of Nobby and Detritus and things.
So, leaving you with this cheerful image, I conclude by saying: Your Original Works have absolute precedence, Maya dear, but please don't stop writing fics, don't stop writing DDD and, to me MOST important, don't stop writing QOM, your fanfic masterpiece. We need you to give life to that dead thing: canon.
"… Commodified fantasy takes no risks: it invents nothing, but imitates and trivialises. It proceeds by depriving the old stories of their intellectual and ethical complexity, turning their action to violence, their actors to dolls, and their truth-telling to sentimental platitude. Heroes brandish their swords, lasers, wands, as mechanically as combine harvesters, reaping profits.
Profoundly disturbing moral choices are sanitized, made cute, made safe. The passionately conceived ideas of the great story-tellers are copied, stereotyped, reduced to toys, moulded in bright-coloured plastic, advertised, sold, broken, junked, replaceable, interchangeable. What the commodifiers of fantasy count on and exploit is the insuperable imagination of the reader, child or adult, which gives even these dead things life - of a sort, for a while. "
(Ursula K. LeGuin – intro to "Tales from Earthsea")
Why do I start with a good healthy dose of bad-fantasy-writers bashing a critique of Maya's latest – and funniest – adventure in fanfic writing? Because, once again, a decent author who thinks about the meaning and function of what she writes has hit the nail on the head: when fiction is bad in the way she describes, good writers will feel the urge to correct the superficialities and give life to the dead things, even if only for awhile.
I realise this is a very general statement to make and it's more a defence of fanfiction than a comment on Drop Dead Gorgeous, but it always starts here for me: giving life to dead things. Which
mistful does… in abundance.So Harry and Draco as the Odd Couple of Aurorland works perfectly well. It's so SO delightful that it transcends crack and becomes fic because
mistful is incapable of writing true crack. Humanity keeps intruding. Which is as it should be, really. It's not witty or humorous or laughworthy if there's no humanity in it; even parody – or crack!fic, if you prefer – has to have real people in it to work.Of course, what makes it parody is the constant intrusion of meta that underlines the sheer idiocy of canon: the monster in Harry's chest, the Harry Had Changed Over The Summer Into a Sex God cliché, the What Heroes Do Is Always Good By Definition amorality. She also parodies the ever-popular fanon idea that If You Are Dead Sexy You Have It Made, Mate, as exemplified in all the Happy!Veela!Sub!anyone stories.
It's not all meta, of course, as I said, humanity keeps intruding. Being on the verge of being constantly raped because you're irresistible is not funny; being a borderline sociopath who has no idea of how to function in a society is even less funny: there are the makings of tragedy here. Yet Maya writes it funny because the other face of tragedy is farce, as she knows very well, and laughter will make the Dousing With Ice Cold Water of personal tragedy all the starker.
It's
mistful's compressed and lucid style that makes it work so well. Consider this:Malfoy turned towards him, his left eyebrow and the left side of his mouth both flying upwards in that lopsided quizzical look he got sometimes. Harry ran his fingers through his hair twice, and only twice. (emphasis mine)
See how many things are expressed in two sentences: Harry's inability to read Draco's expression, to understand what emotion lied behind it; Harry's yearning to touch and his refusal to yield to it, Harry's rigid control of his reactions and the way his very control expresses his affection. I'm probably over-psychoanalysing the character here, but, at the same time it's all there, in two ironically lucid sentences.
Maya quotes constantly, not direct quotes – alright, there's a DW Watch direct quote in chapter 3 – but allusions, implications, refenceres to anything from old TV shows to fairy tales. One reversal of fairy tale cliché I particularly loved to pieces. This:
Malfoy had worked flat out for two and then fallen asleep abruptly by his desk. He’d started to coo, and Katie, with circles under her eyes, had knelt down and kissed him into silent sleep.
She’d looked up and seen Harry watching, and given him a rueful smile.
“It’s the only thing that keeps him quiet,” she said, and then laid down beside Malfoy. Even sleeping, he’d slid his arm around her.
Princess Charming kisses her Snow White Auror to silent sleep. And ain't it lovely that he coos like a dove?
And talking about old TV shows… It was true of Starsky and Hutch and it's true of Drop Dead Gorgeous – a truth universally acknowledged, I might add if I was feeling Austenish – that, no matter how many beards one throws at the protagonists, the only relationship that's central (I had typoed 'ventral', shades of Freud?) to their emotional and social life is the one they have with each other. It's so central and basic that, even if they never kiss or even hug, they are to all effects and purposes a couple, spouses, soul-bonded and double-tied in mutual dependence.
This is acknowledged here:
They were just - odd together, that was all. When Malfoy was with her he was gentle and considerate, and it seemed incongruous, as if he was a lynx trying very hard to pass for a housecat.
Which can well be Harry's jealousy talking – in a sense it is just that – but it's also a comment on how the only 'natural' relationship, the only one not fraught with trying very hard to pass for something one's not, is the one the joined-at-the-hips partners have with each other. True, Harry doesn't declare his undying passion to Draco, but he wouldn't anyway and besides he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer when it comes to understanding his own jumble of violently self-centred emotions.
Right, Maya gives Harry a more-than-canon honesty about that which is why the fact that he can recognise the problem and correct his behaviour because of it doesn't jar.
To end this long and unbrilliant critique, there's a thing that… no I tell a lie, two things that intrigue me a LOT in DDD.
One is the conundrum of Draco's perceptive capability. Apparently he can read subtle signals that Harry is not aware of transmitting – alright, they could be huge anvil-like flashing neon signs as Harry is fairly oblivious of his own facial expressions – and can react accordingly, BUT is he aware of Harry's all-consuming passion? One is tempted to say that yes, he is and he's not reacting to it because he's trying not to complicate matters and would do nothing to jeopardise this 'beautiful' friendship he has with Harry now, a thing that, according to Pansy – and canon – he's wanted since he was eleven. But it's not a given. Not at all, o subtle and wise Maya. I just love to see how that will resolve, I love puzzles and this particular puzzle gives suspense and thrills in the whodunnit of the boys' ultimate personal fate.
The other is one of THE most hilarious mistake by absent-mindedness in the history of fanfics:
Malfoy had righted Dixon’s chair and was lounging in it. When he caught Dixon’s eye he smiled in a truly horrible way he’d perfected, rolled down his sleeve and showed him the Dark Mark.
Rolled DOWN? rolled DOWN?? MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Sorry, sorry but the image is totally absurdly funny. I can see Malfoy, Draco, Auror and ex Death Eater, ripping his sleeve from his shoulder to make a cloth ring around his wrist to show the Dark Mark (TM) to right bastard Dixon.
All the other characters are either extremely IC with a
mistful slant or delightful OCs, all – and this is extremely important – are real, fully flashed out people, even if they are kind of extras. I feel immensely for poor Chrysanthemum; I could cheerfully strangle Cuthbert (who's a very Pratchettian kind of character); I could, and in fact did, cheer Harry for punching Theophilus (who's a very Austenian character) and so on.The one I love best, though, is Pansy. Maya is the only fanfic author I've read that can write a Pansy I can believe in, a Pansy who won't admit in public she loves unicorns, but can wear in public a PINK frilly dress, a Pansy who's intelligent and earthy and who can move on from things, a Pansy Ron deserves because in Mayaverse he's got the nous to finally move on from hero-worship and star-junkie to become his own man.
Oh, and because I'm a Draco-loving woman – no surprises here – I absolutely love Maya!Draco, the White Dove Unicorn of Sarcasm and Hiding Behind Words. And you know what? Harking back to the one real quote in the series – so far - I can actually see Draco in the Watch drawing Carrot absolutely crazy, flirting with Angua, doing impressions of Nobby and Detritus and things.
So, leaving you with this cheerful image, I conclude by saying: Your Original Works have absolute precedence, Maya dear, but please don't stop writing fics, don't stop writing DDD and, to me MOST important, don't stop writing QOM, your fanfic masterpiece. We need you to give life to that dead thing: canon.
no subject
Now, on to your most insightful essay. :D
Malfoy turned towards him, his left eyebrow and the left side of his mouth both flying upwards in that lopsided quizzical look he got sometimes. Harry ran his fingers through his hair twice, and only twice.
I bow before your supreme literary insight. All I got out of that passage was "wow, Maya has made a fine art of making the slashers squeel, hasn't she?" =]
Which can well be Harry's jealousy talking – in a sense it is just that – but it's also a comment on how the only 'natural' relationship, the only one not fraught with trying very hard to pass for something one's not, is the one the joined-at-the-hips partners have with each other.
My take on it is that with Katie, Draco acts like the person he'd want to be. Which is why, alas, they're going to go down in flames. He thinks she's making him a better person, but he's just dreaming. He really isn't that kind, solid guy, after all - he's a sarcastic, hyper-active bastard, and sooner or later, he's not going to be able to play that role anymore.
For her part, I've got a sad feeling that she doesn't really love him (as evidenced by her being vulnerable to Veela charms), she just loves all the attention he's showering over her, and she's confused that for the real thing. It's all very sad and... Mistful-like. They're both trying so hard, but the real thing just isn't there. ;_;
The one I love best, though, is Pansy.
I love Pansy too, but as far as that relationship goes, I think I love Ron even more. He's such a guy - which is a nice change of pace in a story that centers on Harry the gay-straight-man and Draco the straight-gay-man (or is it the other way around? I forget ^_^;). He likes boobs and sports and he's completely clueless about emotional intricacies, so while he would like some true love and a long-lasting relationship, he'd rather have that just develop on its own, without him having to figure out how to make it. Which is why he needs to be with a woman like Pansy, who wears her heart on her sleeve. He'll know when she's mad at him, because she'll yell at him. And she'll yell at him about the exact thing that she's mad about, so that he'll know what it is. =]
I can actually see Draco in the Watch drawing Carrot absolutely crazy, flirting with Angua, doing impressions of Nobby and Detritus and things.
You really don't like Carrot, do you? Not that I'm all that fond of him myself, I suppose. There's nothing really wrong with him, but he's sort of limited - a one-trait character, as an unfriendly reviewer once (quite correctly, I fear) called some characters of mine... =]
no subject
Thanks for the kind words about my feeble thing and I agree with you absolutely about Ron the One True Male. I also agree about the Draco/Katie thing. The best thing about that relationships is that it happens exactly like that a LOT in real life. Well, I said that Maya IS good, din't I?
No I don't like Carrot and I don't think Pterry exactly 'loves' him too. Carrot is pivotal in the Watch books, I wouldn't want him not to be there, but I don't like people like Carrot. And no, he's not a one-trait character, he's a person and a complicated one at that. My problem with Carrot is that he IS a king hence he's a user of the first water and I loathe users even when I can see clearly that one - like Carrot in the Watch - is extremely useful and good for society in general.
no subject
Honestly... there's plenty of positive traits attributed to manhood. So why did I have to get stuck with only the stupid and embarrassing ones? =]
The best thing about that relationships is that it happens exactly like that a LOT in real life.
Even I, hermit that I am, can vouch for this one, yes. ^_^; Love as a redeeming force isn't what it's cracked up to be. Actually, I became a better person because someone left me. Strange but true. =]
And yeah, Maya's very good that way. Nothing in her stories works by magic. (except, of course, magic. That works by magic, as Vimes so perceptively pointed out once. =]) If something works, there are reasons for it, even if they're not readily apparent. If something works for a while and then goes down in flames, there are reasons for it. Now there's a rare and precious talent in this world of "love conquers all" nonsense... =]
no subject
Well, it's not you as in YOU, y'know? It's males. And yeah, not sorry, but males get stuck with the 'the measure of a man is acold' kinds thing in MY world. Live with it. :P
Actually, I became a better person because someone left me. Strange but true. =]
Maybe strange, but not oroginal, same thing happened to me. Siblings under the net skin, ay?
You just said why Maya is great in a few and pithy sentences, You're kind of great that way, ain't you?
no subject
no subject
Wonderful. I'm in a world where I'm an inferior species. ^_^;;
Maybe strange, but not oroginal, same thing happened to me.
Any chance I could get you, with your historical inclination to play'em close to your chest, to tell me that story? :)
Siblings under the net skin, ay?
I guess that's one way to put it. =]
You're kind of great that way, ain't you?
(*complete lack of modesty*) I am great in many ways, and you are quite kind to notice. ;)
no subject
Look, haven't you noticed how often it's the women who doss on women? Look at La Rowling werewolves, now. Monthly curse? Changes personality? WOMEN! MENSTRUATION! PMT! C'mon, it's a man's world and you know it. Some slight pointing out of men's inadequacies is not going to make it a world where you Mr Viking Man are considered in any way inferior. PSHAH!
Any chance I could get you, with your historical inclination to play'em close to your chest, to tell me that story? :)
A very good chance, actually. AFTER you told me yours. :P
I notice because I ain't kind. Takes a LOT for me to start to suppose someone has maybe got a brain. :P
no subject
I have, sadly, yes... A number of female writers start out becrying male oppression, but end up wailing (or that is the impression they give) about how much they don't want to be women. Not quite the inspiring message young women need today... =]
I've been reading some Laurel K Hamilton lately. She's... surreal. ^_^; Aside from her heroines, all women in her novels are stupid, incompetent, slutty, evil or otherwise undesirable. And the only men to escape similar demonification are the ones who agree to serve the heroine's every whim. Strong, independent men and women of any kind are apparently too threatening for Hamilton to deal with.
Her books are like a train wreck. You want to look away, but your eyes are drawn back to verify that yes, it really is as bad as you thought. 0_0;
C'mon, it's a man's world and you know it.
Not this man's world, I'm quite sure of that much. =] I can't recall any time when being male helped me out at all. It just saddles me with a bunch of expectations that I am entirely unsuitable of fulfilling. Like taking the first step. I fail to see why I should have to. I'm not a first-step-taking person. I'm a gatherer, not a hunter! Mostly I gather dust, I must admit, but that's just because I take it to the extreme. =]
A very good chance, actually. AFTER you told me yours. :P
With pleasure. But in an email, I think. I don't exactly come off looking too good in that story, and while I don't mind my friends knowing that I'm a huge freak (they already know, or they're going to find out eventually anyway =]), I like to keep up appearance as far as the net at large is concerned. =]
I notice because I ain't kind. Takes a LOT for me to start to suppose someone has maybe got a brain. :P
That's quite a complement, then. Thank you. :)
no subject
Oh, yes. Sorry for not saying it at once. In emails we'll confess our shady love-pasts. :-D
That's quite a complement, then.
And well deserved it is too.
true love
Agreed. Kinda sad :-/ "You make me want to be abetter person.But that's not who I am."
she just loves all the attention he's showering over her, and she's confused that for the real thing.
:-(
What do you think of the Draco/Pansy in Underwater Light?
He'll know when she's mad at him, because she'll yell at him. And she'll yell at him about the exact thing that she's mad about, so that he'll know what it is. =]
:-D
Re: true love
I think that was "true love," in that there was a genuine connection there. But I also think that Pansy is ultimately too much of a straight arrow to really understand Draco's corkscrew of a mind. =] Which means that he can never really confide in her, and she can never really be there for him, not in anything but the most basic of ways.
Essentially, I think they found that while they worked great together in a casual way, there was a definite limit to how intimate they could get.
Re: true love
You're a deep 'un ain't you?
Re: true love