Wintersmith et al
Oct. 25th, 2006 02:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flyingskullMy very good and patient friend ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
baeraad in response to one of my many proddings wrote in his lj:
Oh man yes! :D I read it a few days ago. And from the moment I opened it until I got to the last page, I spent all my time doing one of two things; reading or walking briskly around my apartment trying to resist the urge to whoop and holler in a way offensive to my neighbours. :D
Oh, the characters! Oh, the plot! Oh, the grandeur seamlessly fitting together with the matter-of-fact realism! Oh, my complete inability to say anything on the subject without melting into a puddle of pure Fanboy! ^_^;;
I did remember to study the style, and I must admit it was interesting. There's a detail here, there's a detail there, and somehow it comes together into an entire world. This is definitely what I have to try for - no long descriptions, but a framework for the readers to fill out.
Oh, and I was very fond of the beginning. Not something to try in a stand-alone book, I think, but seeing as this is the third book in a series... we know pretty much what shape things will have, don't we? We know Tiffany is going to be exposed to the Discworld-witch version of zen philosophy, we know that there's going to be an antagonist who's more a force of nature than a person, and we know that there's going to be some kind of showdown where she's going to have to demonstrate what she's learned (the real Witch Trials aren't competitions, are they? They turn up out of nowhere, and the witch either knows her stuff or she doesn't, and if she doesn't, she's not the only one who's going to have to pay).
So here we get it right from the start - just how powerful Tiffany has become, and just how inadequate that is in the face of what she's dealing with. So all through the story, we know that this is where we're heading. We never have to ask ourselves if it's going to get worse before it gets better. We know that it will.
I also love the escalating scale of responsibility Tiffany has to take in each book. In Wee Free Men, the problem came from outside, and she was the only one who could deal with it. In Hat Full of Sky, it was her own desires made a mess of things, but they had to be triggered from the outside. In Wintersmith, it's her fault. Period. She didn't mean any harm, but she did something stupid, and now she's going to have to deal with the consequences before her world ends because of it.
First I don't think that beginning works only because it's part of a series, in fact I am quite sure it would work SMASHINGLY well in any novel. Think of it, imagine this is the first book by Pterry you've ever read. Wouldn't you want to read on to know what the fuck has happened and how and why and to whom and who the HELL is this girl? Me, I would and I'm sure I'm a pretty average reader when it comes to pant over a book and forget to eat at first reading. I come over all critiquy and things at the third or fourth reading, actually.
Then, I don't know you but Tiffany Aching is a heroine I love to dislike. I really do and I think that THIS is the measure of Pterry's real greatness as an author. Look, I'm not sure I can explain, but... well, you see, in a way the Tiffany trilogy is a kind of anti-Potter thingy. There you have your misunderstood but quite hefty hero ('kay, 's a heroine and am not spitting on that but please allow me), there you have your compeer nemesis who is nothing half as lethal as the real baddies (alright, not exactly baddies as such, this is Pterry, not some clichéd pen pusher) but who is snotty and things and you have other compeers who may not seem much, but in the end they are pretty good at things. See where I'm going?
Tiffany is... *takes a deep breath* ... complicated, which I love, and not particularly lovely, which is alright because she has THE quality that really makes her a hero: she takes the consequences of her actions. She's pretty cool, in fact she's way too cool in her own estimation, and here's where the Potter parallel comes in. And you know why I love Pterry so much - BTW I think Maya's getting there, slowly but if she keeps this last style of writing, she's definitely getting there - because he ain't afraid of presenting a not very likeable heroine and he never but never shirks on her bad - very really bad - qualities and he never sugarcoats things BUT anyone can see why she's the bloody heroine. Not because she's powerful, but because she takes responsibilities and fucking PAYS her dues. I don't know many writers who can do that, y'know? Keep the ethics and not fall into the 'loveable' hero pattern.
So what does one do when the hero/ine is not that likeable a person? :-D One gives a long hard look at the baduns and sees if there's anything that resonates there. And oooooooooh LOOOK! We have two!
I truly find Annagramma and Mrs Earwig lovely persons. YEP! I confess: if Granny weren't so... so... oh fuck so on THE EDGE all of the time I wouldn't love her so deeply or so much. The fact that Granny is never but never allowing herself Tiffany's kind of arrogance makes her own arrogance endearing. But my heart, in a way, would be with Mrs Earwig and her daring theory of combining male and female magic all the way and all the time.
Annagramma - Tiffany's Draco - LEARNS! Wow! A character who allows facts and experience to influence her way of thinking and acting! Wow! I mean. WOW. I mean she learns she is NOT redeemed. You see the utter awesomeness? And also Annagramma learns lots more than Tiffany, y'know? Because after all's said and done and after Tiffany's learned what it takes to re-define legends and anthropomorphic personifications, she STILL is going to join the dance AGAIN. Catch Annagramma doing something so stupid or being so absent-minded and caught up in the excitement of the moment to do something so stupid. See what I mean?
And I love Mr Wintersmith and his ice roses that melt in the warmth of a human hand and his ice palace of dreams. I love tragedies and all Tiffany's stories are tragedies, have you unoticed? Tragedies hidden in folk rhymes and ballads that are made clear and present. And any person who dares belittle the MacFleagles' triumph will know the extent of my wrath. Which, I hasten to say, is rather more Granny-like than anything else.
Well, this would have been too long a reply and also that thread was starting to get looooooong, so this is a mercy cut, or surgery operation.
baeraad in response to one of my many proddings wrote in his lj:Oh man yes! :D I read it a few days ago. And from the moment I opened it until I got to the last page, I spent all my time doing one of two things; reading or walking briskly around my apartment trying to resist the urge to whoop and holler in a way offensive to my neighbours. :D
Oh, the characters! Oh, the plot! Oh, the grandeur seamlessly fitting together with the matter-of-fact realism! Oh, my complete inability to say anything on the subject without melting into a puddle of pure Fanboy! ^_^;;
I did remember to study the style, and I must admit it was interesting. There's a detail here, there's a detail there, and somehow it comes together into an entire world. This is definitely what I have to try for - no long descriptions, but a framework for the readers to fill out.
Oh, and I was very fond of the beginning. Not something to try in a stand-alone book, I think, but seeing as this is the third book in a series... we know pretty much what shape things will have, don't we? We know Tiffany is going to be exposed to the Discworld-witch version of zen philosophy, we know that there's going to be an antagonist who's more a force of nature than a person, and we know that there's going to be some kind of showdown where she's going to have to demonstrate what she's learned (the real Witch Trials aren't competitions, are they? They turn up out of nowhere, and the witch either knows her stuff or she doesn't, and if she doesn't, she's not the only one who's going to have to pay).
So here we get it right from the start - just how powerful Tiffany has become, and just how inadequate that is in the face of what she's dealing with. So all through the story, we know that this is where we're heading. We never have to ask ourselves if it's going to get worse before it gets better. We know that it will.
I also love the escalating scale of responsibility Tiffany has to take in each book. In Wee Free Men, the problem came from outside, and she was the only one who could deal with it. In Hat Full of Sky, it was her own desires made a mess of things, but they had to be triggered from the outside. In Wintersmith, it's her fault. Period. She didn't mean any harm, but she did something stupid, and now she's going to have to deal with the consequences before her world ends because of it.
First I don't think that beginning works only because it's part of a series, in fact I am quite sure it would work SMASHINGLY well in any novel. Think of it, imagine this is the first book by Pterry you've ever read. Wouldn't you want to read on to know what the fuck has happened and how and why and to whom and who the HELL is this girl? Me, I would and I'm sure I'm a pretty average reader when it comes to pant over a book and forget to eat at first reading. I come over all critiquy and things at the third or fourth reading, actually.
Then, I don't know you but Tiffany Aching is a heroine I love to dislike. I really do and I think that THIS is the measure of Pterry's real greatness as an author. Look, I'm not sure I can explain, but... well, you see, in a way the Tiffany trilogy is a kind of anti-Potter thingy. There you have your misunderstood but quite hefty hero ('kay, 's a heroine and am not spitting on that but please allow me), there you have your compeer nemesis who is nothing half as lethal as the real baddies (alright, not exactly baddies as such, this is Pterry, not some clichéd pen pusher) but who is snotty and things and you have other compeers who may not seem much, but in the end they are pretty good at things. See where I'm going?
Tiffany is... *takes a deep breath* ... complicated, which I love, and not particularly lovely, which is alright because she has THE quality that really makes her a hero: she takes the consequences of her actions. She's pretty cool, in fact she's way too cool in her own estimation, and here's where the Potter parallel comes in. And you know why I love Pterry so much - BTW I think Maya's getting there, slowly but if she keeps this last style of writing, she's definitely getting there - because he ain't afraid of presenting a not very likeable heroine and he never but never shirks on her bad - very really bad - qualities and he never sugarcoats things BUT anyone can see why she's the bloody heroine. Not because she's powerful, but because she takes responsibilities and fucking PAYS her dues. I don't know many writers who can do that, y'know? Keep the ethics and not fall into the 'loveable' hero pattern.
So what does one do when the hero/ine is not that likeable a person? :-D One gives a long hard look at the baduns and sees if there's anything that resonates there. And oooooooooh LOOOK! We have two!
I truly find Annagramma and Mrs Earwig lovely persons. YEP! I confess: if Granny weren't so... so... oh fuck so on THE EDGE all of the time I wouldn't love her so deeply or so much. The fact that Granny is never but never allowing herself Tiffany's kind of arrogance makes her own arrogance endearing. But my heart, in a way, would be with Mrs Earwig and her daring theory of combining male and female magic all the way and all the time.
Annagramma - Tiffany's Draco - LEARNS! Wow! A character who allows facts and experience to influence her way of thinking and acting! Wow! I mean. WOW. I mean she learns she is NOT redeemed. You see the utter awesomeness? And also Annagramma learns lots more than Tiffany, y'know? Because after all's said and done and after Tiffany's learned what it takes to re-define legends and anthropomorphic personifications, she STILL is going to join the dance AGAIN. Catch Annagramma doing something so stupid or being so absent-minded and caught up in the excitement of the moment to do something so stupid. See what I mean?
And I love Mr Wintersmith and his ice roses that melt in the warmth of a human hand and his ice palace of dreams. I love tragedies and all Tiffany's stories are tragedies, have you unoticed? Tragedies hidden in folk rhymes and ballads that are made clear and present. And any person who dares belittle the MacFleagles' triumph will know the extent of my wrath. Which, I hasten to say, is rather more Granny-like than anything else.
Well, this would have been too long a reply and also that thread was starting to get looooooong, so this is a mercy cut, or surgery operation.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-11-10 02:01 pm (UTC)That's usually where the most interesting stuff is found. :D
And going even more off-topic... isn't ALL fiction fantasy?
This is certainly what fantasy freaks such as myself tends to argue. =] The implication being that fantasy is thereby more honest than normal fiction, because it admits it's all invented. But that's mostly just something we say because we feel put upon and feel the need to launch a counterattack... ;)
Seriously, though, yeah, all fiction is fantasy. And personally, I kind of prefer writers who acknowledge that. I love it when authors who normally write fantasy write something realistic, because that tends to have the same... glow, the same... playfulness as fantasy, but because it's realistic you don't have to suffer those damn elves and dwarves that everyone's sick of by now. =]
I mean, fantasy is all about attaching emotional significance to things, and you can do that without magic. In fact, it's probably better done with things that are perfectly mundane and contemporary. If you want to write modern myths, why do it with an archaic setting?
Worth pondering for my own writing projects, actually...
All questions neatly answered and motives neatly laid out and people being ultimately knowable and predictable?
Heh! Yeah, that's probably the defining quality for storytelling. And even with journalism, really. It's all about people trying to answer the question, "okay, so what was that all about?" =]
Brats... yeah, maybe Carrot don't look like one, but have you forgotten Fifth Elephant?
Good point. Maybe the reason why Carrot doesn't look like a brat is that most of the time, everything automatically turns out as he wants it to. No need to be bratty then. And of course, if you're used to getting what you want, you don't deal too well with things not going your way... =]
Bit like Jane Austen's novels: most readers blip over some very stark things she's saying because she makes it easy for them to blind themselves to them.
I did notice a few occasions when she seemed to be poking fun of the underlying assumptions of her own fictional world, though I'm sure I've missed most of it... But, in that famous opening sentence of "It's a truth universally acknowledged that a wealthy bachelor is in need of a wife," (misquoted because my mum stole her copy of the book back, darn her ^_^; ) do I perhaps detect more than a slight hint of "the bachelor's own opinions on the matter are entirely inconsequential"? =]
no subject
Date: 2006-11-18 05:38 pm (UTC)"It is a truth universally aknowledged that a single man in possession of a fortune must be in want of a wife." And notice how you remembered it as 'in need' while she wrote 'in want' which is crueller as it doesn't refer to the single man's needs (i.e. he needs companionship, someone to manage the house to make him comfortable, heirs, tec.) but to his desires and wishes and that's even more intimate.
She wasn't poking fun at her own fictional world, though, she was satirising the real world she lived in: society's assumptions and push to make everyone conform to the existing norms. She writes about a claustrophobic society (hate the burgeoisie)that demands - and obtains - total submission of its members. Note that Bingley himself knows he will have to get married to someone sooner or later. He's actually lucky to fall in love with someone he can marry in the novel. And Darcy is doubly so lucky, he's much more hemmed in than Bingley. Poor creep Wickham is not so lucky and Charlotte is even less lucky. Okay, got sidetracked again, but you get my drift, I hope.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-19 12:03 pm (UTC)Ugh. Ye gods, yes. It sounds hauntingly familiar. And put like that, it carries on right up until today, except for the fact that being broke is no longer an excuse not to get married, because these days getting married means combinging two incomes. =]
Not that I object to the idea of getting married, but I also don't object to the idea of not getting married, and I feel that people object very strongly to the idea of me not objecting to the idea. ^_^; You'd think a country with one of the world's largest number of single households would be a bit more open-minded on the subject, wouldn't you? =]
She wasn't poking fun at her own fictional world, though, she was satirising the real world she lived in: society's assumptions and push to make everyone conform to the existing norms.
While realising my ignorance on this subject and being fully prepared to being proven wrong, I would say that Ms Austen was nevertheless a part of that claustrophobic force. Her stories reinforce the "truth universally acknowledged" - not only is a good marriage necessary for a happy ending, some sort of marriage is mandatory. That's why I would call comments like that self-ironic rather than ironic - her created world mirrors, not the real world, but the world as her contemporaries (and she herself?) see it.
Still puts her ahead of a lot of other authors, past and present, though. =]
Poor creep Wickham is not so lucky and Charlotte is even less lucky.
Lifetime with Lydia. Now there's a horrible thought. What's the Phantom and "an eternity of this before your eyes" in comparison? Honestly, this is punishment disproporitionate to the crime! =] Okay, maybe not, because he almost condemned an entire family to poverty so that he could get laid, but still... =]
Not sure about Charlotte. She seems to have gotten all the best parts of spinsterhood while still being supported financially. I'm sure you can put up even with Mr Collins a few hours a week as long as he pays the bills and leaves you alone the rest of the time. =]
Okay, got sidetracked again, but you get my drift, I hope.
I think so. :)
no subject
Date: 2006-11-19 09:15 pm (UTC)Charlotte has to fuck Mr Collins, y'know? Or better, to be fucked by him while laying still and thinking of God as he surely wants her to do. She also has to go to that infernal woman's evenings and listen to her husband shamelessly brown-nose her, also she has to follow ALL of that woman's advice because her husband would make her do it. She has to go visit the poors and sick of the parish because that was what being a pastor's wife was all about. And she has to listen to him prose on and on and on and on and live with him. What makes you think he'd live her alone at all? She would have to go to church with him and he'd have nothing else to do but write aeons long sermons, potter in the garden according to whats-her-face's orders, and bother his wife. POOR Charlotte, it's a form of suicide by marriage. At least Lydia can get her own back on Mr Whickam, she's as promiscuous as he is and has a temper and a tongue to rival his. And wait until she breeds... O the horror, the horror!
BTW someone has written a sort of sequel to Pride and Prejudice and I ordered it out of curiosity..
Can't you just see Harry as Elizabeth and Draco as Darcy?
*pokes at friend with uncouth slash*
no subject
Date: 2006-11-19 09:18 pm (UTC)Hmmm... fun. Lessee... Neville is Charlotte, Ron is Jane and Hermione is the bookworm sister. Luna is Kitty and Lavander is Lydia. McGonagall is Mr Bennet, of course but who is the monster Mrs Bennet? C'mon, play this game with me...
no subject
Date: 2006-11-22 01:37 pm (UTC)(*shudders*) There is that, I admit.
She also has to go to that infernal woman's evenings
Hehehehehe... True, Hyacinth's got nothing on Catherine de Burg. Still, sooner or later Mr Bennet's bound to croak, and the Collinses gets to move quite some distance away from her... much to one Collins' disappointment and the other's delight, one suspects. =]
What makes you think he'd live her alone at all?
Uhm, because she said she only ever saw him at dinner... or was that just in the movie? ^_^;
And wait until she breeds... O the horror, the horror!
Oh dear, yes. Never mind a lifetime with Lydia. A lifetime with Lydias! Poor Wickham, I wonder how long it'll take before he starts eyeing his militia rifle with some temptation. =]
*pokes at friend with uncouth slash*
Okay, let's see. Mrs Bennet? Hagrid. Loud, annoying, without social skills and completely oblivious to how that lack affects others, always demanding that they give room for his temper, intent on having everything his own way and certain that that way is the proper way which everyone else should also embrace.
Slughorn is Mr Collins, I suspect. Well-meaning, self-indulgent, self-important, and not nearly as charming as they think they are.
Hmm, I can't think of anyone for Catherine de Burg except granny Black, which is a pretty dull choice based on the fact that they're both class-concious and yell at people.
What of Bingley? Kind, stupid, genuinely charming... Is there anyone in HP who's dumb without making one want to smack them over the head? I can't say I can think of one, I kind of want to smack even the supposed clever people over the head... =]