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So Many Books... - June 6th, 2009
Jun. 6th, 2009
10:14 am - The Demon's Lexicon, Sarah Rees Brennan
Well. THAT was intense. Like 'I can't stop reading this though I'm already wrecked and don't want to be too tired to enjoy the 48 hours' intense. More significantly, it was 'Oh my. Everything I thought was a quibble about the book up until this point turns out not to have been the book anyway'.
Phew, start more coherently. The protagonist is Nick, a 17-year old living with his older brother Alan and his mad mother. (No, seriously. Not funny mad. Not got-a-mental-illness-sympathetic mad. In.Sane.) It starts with them living in Exeter, but they're always on the run, because of the magician trying to get back a charm Nick's mother stole years ago, who doesn't just come calling to sort out the whole sticky situation nicely. In this very dark, fully-developed setting, magicians can call demons into our world in a win-win situation. For the magicians and the demon, but not so much for the human intermediary. Demons want more than anything to be in our world, and will offer power to the magicians in exchange for the brief time they can stay in some poor human's body. Possession? Very, very unfun. And then the human will die, as the body can't bear the inhabiting by the demon for long.
The thing is, Nick's my least favourite kind of protagonist, as he's angry, seriously, blazingly angry, with the kind of anger that can only be satisfied (some) by killing something. (Something evil. Mostly.) He's not great at understanding Alan's tenderness and concern - for their mother (yeah, but he's got reason!) or especially for the two 'tourists' who come to Alan looking for help for the boy, Jamie, who's got himself marked by a demon. Mae, Jamie's sister, he can almost respect, and also fancy, which is a bit of a problem, as he knows Alan likes her. But the narrative is very carefully balanced so that the reader goes bouncing back and forth between finding Nick's coldness repelling and feeling deeply sympathetic to him. Bounce, bounce. Even Alan, who is Nick's opposite in almost every way, occasionally shows signs of the willingness to kill that makes for a deep sense of moral ambivalence at times. Not an easy read!
I'd have given the book many, many points for the Goblin Market alone though - that is just made of awesome. Both in the vivid description of the sellers and the fruit and dancers, and in the shadowing darkness underpinning it too. And Mae and Jamie are great - both doing a parallel ride to the reader's - between aversion to Nick (who usually wants it that way), and attraction, however reluctant.
There are blurbs from Cassie Clare and Holly Black on the book cover, and not coincidentally, I thought of both as I was reading. I didn't find the book at first as sure-stepping as the Mortal Instruments trilogy, though that might have been my preferences only, and certainly didn't find the 'wit' Clare (and others) see in it. If I had the time, this would be a good place for a bit of a meander down that lane: why does the humour work so well (for me, this being intensely personal) in the Mortal Instruments and in Maggie Stiefvater's Lament, and why didn't I feel once like laughing at this?
Can't say anything more about the ending (many clues, got some, missed some!), but I found it very moving. And I was pleased to see that the sequel will be out next year and will centre on Mae. It may be every bit as intense, but at least the reader knows the whys and wherefores of this world and has sympathies accordingly aligned. Right? Or maybe not...
04:26 pm - First Light, Rebecca Stead
Again, I manage to prove wrong about the tone of my Challenge books! I expected wise-cracking angsting in The Demon's Lexicon and didn't get the funny, and for some reason (having seen it described as a mix of adventure and science (fiction) taking place in the far reaches of Greenland, possibly?) thought First Light would be heavier, "worthy' and the chilly kind of bleak. In fact, it was the one that had me laughing often (though on the verge of tears from time to time) and it was anything but chilly. Plus the husky-like Chikchu? Wonderful.
Two point of view narratives, the first giving the story of Peter, son of a glaciologist father (and molecular biologist mother, no less) who gets to go on a six-week trip to Greenland with his parents and a graduate student of his father's. There were so many lovely little touches, like Peter's saying he only ever got to see his father as the university lecturer, never the adventurous Arctic explorer. 'It was a little like living with Clark Kent and never once getting to meet Superman.' Another was that the chapters set in New York city are fully drawn, rather than just setting up a bit so that the story can begin properly once they get to Greenland. His best friend Miles is great, with his inventing words (I especially liked 'countryball') and his sturdy friendship.
Then there's Thea, who lives in a world called Gracehope, established by her ancestors to escape persecution as witches, hundreds of years ago. It's a matriarchal society, with much importance being placed on the bloodlines of those original ancestors. Thea lives with her aunt, her mother being dead, and people not knowing who their fathers are. (This was a wee bit fuzzy, to me at least, but there doesn't seem to be the messing with sexual desire seen in The Giver, frex, but rather a control of childbearing which would be quite vital in such a small, totally enclosed community.) Although there's reason to believe that Grace, the woman who had the scientific ability which allowed her to see how Gracehope could be established below the surface of the ice-cap, never wanted her people to live there forever, over the years most have forgotten anything but the persecution and death they suffered in the 'wider world' and fear any risk of contact with it.
Thea tries to propose that there be funding at least for a research committee to investigate the possibility of going to the surface, in order to develop more land on the other side of the lake which provides them so much. Resources are shrinking and there's already rationing of food. But her grandmother, head of the Council, forbids it. This doesn't stop Thea from discovering the old tunnel to the surface and, with the somewhat reluctant help of her cousin Mattias, going through it, to see the sky and outside world for herself.
Peter, meanwhile, is quietly exploring both life in this tiny, temporary expedition site and his newly growing ability to see across great distances - an ability that brings him crashing headaches but is still something he feels he wants to understand and to use. His mother, who has suffered from 'headaches' (more a sort of depression, as Peter has come to realise) a few times a year for as long as he can remember, is drifting into one of her bad patches, but manages to explain to him something of the book she is writing, on mitochondrial DNA. Although much is understood about the mutations that cause diseases and disabilities, she is convinced that some mutations could cause greater functioning as well.
Okay, it doesn't take a genius to see how these two narratives might intersect, but there are still mysteries enough to keep the reader guessing, and so many delights along the way, that's no weakness. I did have a bit of a problem with the big, climactic scene in the Council - counterpoint to the first one, in which Thea fails dismally to get herself heard. That's not a big complaint though, when there's so much good stuff. Both of the kids were wonderful - smart, loving and responsible but ready to be stubborn when necessary - and the adults were nicely done too. The 'there was no need to protect the children THAT much' message was handled with a light touch rather than being hammered home.
I recommend reading this book with a dog in your lap, if at all possible! Even that hyper little freak-dog Dougie made a good companion. (Though my reading SO slowly might have something to do with that.)
10:25 pm - Update of sorts...
So tired! Seem to be reading at a snail's pace and it's so dark here today my eyes are starting to bother me. I feel as if I've been reading Monster Blood Tattoo forever, and it's only the first book, which is - gulp - something less than half the length of the second? (No idea how much of that is appendices or Explicarium or whatever though.) Taken a 10 minute networking idea (very good idea!) and everyone else - okay, the two people I popped in to visit - seem to be flying through books.
I will finish MBT before I go to sleep nonetheless, and tomorrow have Mortal Engines to look forward to. *yawns*
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