Monday, November 9, 2009

Magical Books and Books About Magic*

While reading Raymond Feist's Riftwar Saga, the Mister regularly remarked about how strange the books were, in a way that didn't exactly endorse them. As a result, I had no desire to read the series until he re-read the whole thing less than a year after first encountering them and I needed something for plane reading on the way to Colorado.

Had I not had a 2 1/2 month old on my lap, the first book of the series Magician: Apprentice, would have made fine plane reading. As it was, however, I didn't finish M:A and the accompanying Magician: Master until I returned here. Overall, I enjoyed the set: not enough to dive into the third and fourth book of the series, but enough to think that I will someday read them. Potential readers should be forewarned that Magician was written as a single book, and starting it means committing to both volumes. They should also be warned that the pacing is, well, unusual at best. At least two thirds of the book feels like it is set-up, and there are at least fifty pages post climax, post reasonable denouement, most of which are outlining a political intrigue that doesn't materialize. Having said that, the voluminous set-up is interesting and the worlds described are fascinating (if the full history in the middle of the second volume a bit unnecessary). I was bothered that there was a bit too much "European-like world good: Asian-like world bad" until I realized that one big point was that despite superficial differences, people and governments are all alike and all both good and bad.


I was reading Magician during unsympathetic character week at Wuthering Expectations (starting here), and noted that as soon as one character became a demi-god, the reader stopped seeing his story from his point of view, I assume because at that point he was unsympathetic. His story was then given from the point of view of one of his past small-town acquaintances (Martin), and we could feel Martin's keen sadness at the demi-god's loss of humanity. Unsympathetic Week highly recommend, Magician recommended only for those who already enjoy fantasy series.


At the Mister's influence, I recently re-read all of the Harry Potter series. I actually like it much better upon the third reading, which is saying something because I am a fan. One aim of unsympathetic character week was to push readers beyond stating "I liked the characters" and "I didn't like the characters" although several commenters mentioned that likes and dislikes are a great starting point for more thoughtful analysis. Applying this to Harry Potter, I honed the reasons for my preferences. One aspect of Harry Potter I like is that each book ends and is a self-contained story. Interestingly, the exception to this is Half Blood Prince (6), which remains my favorite. I think I like 6 the best because it has a wonderful mixture of levity, romance and fighting of evil. While reading recently, the Mister commented as to how wonderful the Felix Felicis scenes are, and I couldn't agree more. 6 also contains the only true plot twist in the series, and, even though I knew it was going to happen, I truly felt kicked in the gut when I first read that S killed D. I was surprised to learn that Order of the Phoenix (5) was the favorite of a colleague of mine (6 is his least favorite), as it is my least favorite. I've always thought that 5 is just one long dark rant of Harry whining that nobody understands him, while my colleague liked it as it showed the students united with Harry. Plot-wise we are both right, but, as I realized with this re-reading, I read much more quickly at the end of books, so the whining, which really only fills the first third, probably filled two-thirds of my reading time. A full series re-read also reminded me that I think the epilogue is brilliant. I know some readers hate it, but I feel that the speech to Albus Severus and the mention of Scorpio are essential to the resolution of the book's theme of the power of love, and don't hurt from a plot standpoint either. Anyway, readers can contact me if they ever want to chat more about H.P.

While I think that Amateur Reader's idea that one sympathizes with, or at least develops a relationship with, the author of a book is great, I realize that I sympathize with Harry, Hermione, Ron, Minerva McGonagal. Luna, Neville, Snape and even Draco, but I prefer to leave J.K. Rowling, who, for some reason, I really don't like, out of my reading experience.

*I almost re-read Inkheart so I could add "and a book about the magic of books", but it seemed like too much work just for a line in a blog post. Besides, I watched the movie on a plane over the summer more time needs to pass to prevent me from seeing Brendan Fraser as the father.

Image is of Dianthus and his first snow, Oct. 22 in Colorado. Nothing to do with fantasy books except that he happens to own a "magical hat".

8 comments:

Amateur Reader (Tom) said...

Well, not the actual author. Not the actual J. K. Rowling.

Sparkling Squirrel said...

I know, but the actual J.K. Rowling interferes with my imagined J.K. Rowling, and, unlike works you practice full appreciationism with, I often don't like to think that the HP books are the product of someone else's imagination and toil.

Amateur Reader (Tom) said...

Even pretending that the story is real, that it's non-fiction, there is someone telling you the story. You may not call her J. K. Rowling - no reason to, actually.

"Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense."

Again, say it's non-fiction. Regardless, someone is ordering those sentences. Someone is telling the story. That's someone's voice.

The reader's concept of the implied author can be inchoate - it mostly is - or naive, but it's there. Whoever makes you feel like you're in good hands when you pick up a Harry Potter book, that's the implied author. I'm not (Wayne Booth's not) talking about a technique, but rather trying to investigate the psychology of reading.

I mean, you can say that there's no author, but that's just play, right?

I'm not sure what that "practice full appreciationism" business means. You don't fully appreciate Harry Potter?

Molly said...

Love, love, love Dianthus's hat :).
Your post makes me want to reread HP. I've been on a (somewhat predictable, not very original) Julia Child kick. Just read "my life in France" and have been reading the Julie/Julia blog. Both are fascinating to me for the "wow, these are actually real people, not just movie/TV characters" factor. Of course, JC's story is written at end of life, post-fame, while Julie's is the opposite. I wasn't expecting to find the blog so compelling, but, well, there it is. Often kind of redundant, often a little whiney, but still addictive. There's an entry where she's trying to flip beans in her omlette pan that had me laughing out loud.

Sparkling Squirrel said...

AR- of course I appreciate HP. Appreciationism, however, as described on WH, seems to be more than enjoying a book. It involves establishing a relationship with an author (i.e "Yet there is one character with whom I sympathize strongly: I care about what happens to her, and I wish her well in her goals.") and consciously thinking about the author and his or her goals.

Clearly, I do do this with HP, as I willingly dissect favorite books as books, and note the overuse of "puce". Still most of the time with HP I don't want to think about the books as books, be they fiction or non-fiction. I don't want to think about the pacing or plotting or use of "puce", I want to be able to argue with my best friend about S's backstory as if she (my best friend) knows better than JK, who clearly got something wrong because S does not die in my best friend's universe.

Sparkling Squirrel said...

Molly- I'd love to talk with you about Julie and Julia. Chat soon?

Amateur Reader (Tom) said...

Thanks, this has helped me clarify a couple of things for myself.

Molly said...

Sounds lovely! Sunday (tomorrow) I'm free except for a baby blessing (I guess the LDS version of baptism?) from 11 to noon....