So Many Books... - Once a Princess: Sasharia en Garde, Sherwood Smith
Apr. 30th, 2009
12:00 am - Once a Princess: Sasharia en Garde, Sherwood Smith
Apparently this was only really released yesterday, so I feel less useless for not having written it up yet, despite having received and very much enjoyed it a few weeks ago. Before getting to the book, a few rambling thoughts about that 'enjoyed'. I've been thinking over the differences between this book, the Inda books and the Crown & Court Duet, all of which I consider wonderful. Then I remembered ages ago ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
steepholm telling me that his mother had given him a book by Nick Hornby and he'd read the first couple of chapters and found it intelligent and witty and the writing was fine but he wanted more. First thought was of the order of 'Ack - I need to find my nearest gravitas or high-browness seller quickly!', and second was -- well, about the same, I guess. But on the other hand I've long had a warm spot in my memory for dorianegray's comment about a book reading experience that had been described as having the effect of tearing out the reader's heart and returning it polished and new, that she had no interest in heart surgery from her reading, thank you very much.
I'm not trying to get near the ages-old argument about the (*supposed*) superiority of tragedy over comedy, as -- well, who cares? If one person feels a great book has to be 'serious' and that means tragic, bleak - heart-breaking, then more power to their cardiac health. For me, if a book is the equivalent of Anne Elliot's idea of good company ("the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation"), I'm a happy reader. Despite that, I suppose I was mentally - to a small degree - preparing to defend Once a Princess's being more 'light-hearted' (the author's description in the interview with asakiyume, though I'm not entirely sure if that was Sasha the character or Sasharia (en Garde) the book) than the Inda books. Which is beyond silly, I admit, but "I really enjoyed this book - it was a lot of fun" can sound as if it might be code for a dismissive 'Fluff. Fun, but mind-candy.' And the cover and title -which actually has a significance beyond the Once Upon a Time element - might suggest this also. I suppose I wish I could come up with a nice category for the 'good company' book - it won't leave you feeling that all you've ever felt and thought has been Overturned Forever by the closing page, but it's -- oh, the equivalent of a whole-grain baked goodie, crammed with delicious fruits and satisfying as well as tasty. (I don't think in English Lit courses to come anyone will be including this as a category along with Tragedy, somehow.) (And yes, whole-grain and healthy can be delicious - of course they can!)
Once a Princess opens in L.A., where Sasharia - Sasha - has just settled into a new place, and is very much hoping to be able to stay put for a while. Her mother, Atanial and she have been moving constantly since forced to leave Khanerenth (which is in Sartorias-deles, the world of the Crown & Court Duet, the Wren books, the Inda books, and others) 15 years before, when Sasha's father felt there was no way for them to be safe there. He promised to come get them as soon as it was safe, but they've heard nothing of him since. Unfortunately for Sasha's plans to stay put for a while, she's brought through the World Gate against her will - though whether by people with good intentions or bad ones she's not sure. Atanial - a 50-year old female heroine - oh joy! - finds out that Sasha's been kidnapped and returns to Khanerenth to try to find her.
One of the pleasures of the book is the alternating perspectives - Sasha and Atanial are very distinct characters with the weight of very real experience behind their behaviour. Atanial comes back as an older woman who's constantly aware of the political situation, the need to protect people who might be harmed by association with her or others loyal to her husband, and who has to deal with all these problems while trying to ensure Sasha's safety and worrying about Math, her possibly-dead but definitely-disappeared husband. Not to mention dealing with the wariness of people who see her as just having skipped out when things got bad. Sasha has to escape from Canary, as she and her mother call King Canardan, figure out whether to trust Devli (who kidnapped her) and his sister Elva, and definitely whether or not to trust the pirate Zathdar, who turned up and helped them as they were fighting off Canary's soldiers. And somehow to figure out if she can find out anything about her father, while hopefully avoiding being used as the rallying figure for a civil war. Oh, and dealing with her very awkward attraction to Zathdar.
It was really interesting how well it worked here having Sasha and Atanial belong to and have experiences in the two worlds. Some of it was just wonderfully funny, as when Sasha asks Zathdar if his name is spelled Z'ath'd'ar , as those apostrophes would be telling in a fantasy story. And it also helps put in place details of the ways some thing work on Sartorias-deles, as when Sasha talks about the unreliability she found the Waste Spell had back on Earth. At another level though, it helps establish something I really appreciated in the book, which was the fact that there's a real limiting of the violence in a way that makes perfect sense - a neat trick for a book with pirates and a usurper king, and lots of sword-fighting! Sasha has trained and competed in fencing, so the method of fighting at which she's accomplished is not going to be the type which favours leaving the enemy's throat cut or innards spilled. (The S-d side of this explanation might be a spoiler, so I shall leave that one for discovery on reading.)
The ending was satisfying, but not resolved-satisfying, and I'm very glad that there isn't too long a wait for the second half, Twice a Prince. (Again, the title has a meaning that becomes clear when you read the book.) In fact, I've just discovered this very minute that Better World Books already has it in stock. I really felt bereft of the book's company on finishing, so this is definitely good news. As is the mention in the interview with asakiyume of more Sasha stories, publisherless though they may be for now....
I'm really eager to hear what you think of the second half of the story. Also, while delicately avoiding spoilers, was a certain secret identity a surprise for you, or not? It was not for me, but I very much enjoyed seeing how we got to the reveal, and thought the character in question was interesting in both roles.
Nope to the surprise but absolutely agree that it didn't decrease enjoyment but rather increased it. I also liked the character in both roles and loved the way the disguise was maintained. Now I can't wait even worse for the second half!
But the way you put it makes it sound as if what I wanted more of from Nick Hornby was gravitas, highbrowness and tragedy! As I mentioned yesterday, I've no memory of making that comment, and you have the email in question, but I really doubt if I've ever asked for more tragedy in anything, and the other two seem pretty out of character as well. Quite possibly my comment said more about my mental state at the time than about Mr Hornby, but if not I'd guess that what I was after was something that gave me a different way of viewing and experiencing the world, to put it laughably vaguely. There are times when I feel disenchanted with literature (I don't consider myself as much of a reader are you are) and simply being served up with a cold collation of the familiar isn't enough, however exquisite the presentation.
I'd guess that what I was after was something that gave me a different way of viewing and experiencing the world, to put it laughably vaguely.
That may be laughably vague, but it's still a better stab at defining what you want from reading than I've managed here. I want that too, of course, but I kept having flitting thoughts last night about things like humour and how much that would fill some - oh, virtual dance-card for a book. Or how does the trade-off work between humour, great characters, wonderful plot, nifty ideas, good philosophising... I think we also talked about this on the plot, character and setting scales. (Yup, just checked that too and we did - I said that The Merlin Conspiracy hadn't worked for me because of what I felt was weak characterization.) I'll have to try to polish up the 'good company' book classification.
I can indeed squeeze it into my hand luggage for you!
Maybe there's a good discussion in that, if we can agree on a term . . . what term? It isn't quite comfort book, because that kind of implies the same read. What is it I'm getting when I read something that is often slanged by those who feel that gritty and tragic is somehow superior (that reading has to be painful in order to do good, which to me is like adding asfoetida to medicine to convince people it works)? The insights can be just as telling, though they might be small in scope. Or insights that depend on a second thought, and then a third--whether the first thought was shocking or not.
The violence human beings do to one another, and how they justify it (or not) is something I grew up with, so encountering that in fiction is neither new nor enlightening. What I craved as a kid, and gravitate toward as an adult, is the making of sense around that, the striving toward a moral path anyway--with as much enjoyment as our brief lives can afford. Thoughtful comedy gives me that. Cormac McCarthy doesn't.
I was not impressed with The Kite Runner because I could see the authorial hand; I thought The Knife of Never Letting Go because of the stupid plot manipulation
spoiler
the boy can hear all the men, so why the heck didn't he hear the setup?
in order to force the obvious painful choice and double betrayal at the end. Blech. But that sort of sharp emotional flaying seems to work on some as insightful, brave, or true. I just don't think it is.
The 'comfort read' description, as you say, is potentially bad because people take it to mean escapist. Silly, because if someone said they take comfort in friends nobody would look down on them for trying to escape the 'real world'. And all this is multiplied by many factors when you're trying to describe fantasy and/or YA. But 'good company' read only works for those of us who know Persuasion inside out, I guess! I do think you'd get a good discussion without a really good term though, given your flist.
I love how you put it about the making of sense around the harm people do one another, and the choosing of a moral path anyway... (Oops - computer's making its preparatory-to-crashing noises, so I'll post this and then go on to the last point.)
Exactly! And I was thinking again about my friend's reaction when I gave her two YA books to read (she'd to do an essay on publishing stuff for an MA in creative writing) - it was Sara Zarr's Sweethearts and Looking for Alaska - she said they were intelligent and well-written and she enjoyed them - but she couldn't possibly imagine reading any more YA. Just because they were (many expletives deleted here) teens and she wanted them to get over themselves. But the thing that really struck me is that we'd been talking about a bunch of people she knows who'd been behaving in ways that would merit their being told to get over themselves FAR more than the protags of those two books! We're all living with our experiences as children and teens, in one way or another, and I think one of the values of YA lit for me is the openness to ways of seeing those 'small insights', so we can bring what's good and bad in the past into best possible alignment with the directions we want to move - a process as continual as steering a vehicle of any kind. (Or walking!) Again, the fact that the world may be one in which magic works doesn't negate the insights - it may just offer a different way of presenting them. Like - oh, Howl's Moving Castle and Sophie's reinforcing the aging spell by talking it onto herself without even knowing it.
I haven't read either of those books (though Charlie told me about Knife, so it wasn't a spoiler), but what you say about them is very similar to what I felt about the book I asked you about recently. The main character asks at one point if there's any world so cruel as theirs, which makes them kill the people they love the most, and I wanted to tell her to take it up with the author, who set it up so they'd have to do that, despite its not even making sense. And many, many people find the book powerful and moving.