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osprey_archerA couple of book reviews...
First, Wednesday Sisters, which my mom recommended to me with the comment that it really captured how it was to be a woman in the late sixties, early seventies: trying to work out how one felt about the women's movement, the anti-war movement, interracial marriage...
Which makes the book sound like a polemic, which it isn't at all. It's the story of five more-or-less ordinary young mothers who meet in the park and discuss books they like - books they'd like to write - who begin a writer's group, discuss the issues of the day, have interpersonal crises...
It gives a seamless impression of time and place - I was honestly surprised to realize that the author would only have been a child during the time period she wrote about - and, given that it isn't heavy on traditional plot, it's surprisingly gripping. I read it in two days. I occasionally got the husbands confused, as they aren't on stage too much, but the women are quite well drawn. The book as a whole is warm, funny, occasionally sad; I wouldn't call it great, but definitely worth reading.
Second, Alphabet of Dreams, by Susan Fletcher, who also wrote the Dragon's Milk books (which seem to be her most popular) and Shadow Spinner (which is my favorite). I had high hopes, which were tragically dashed...
Alphabet of Dreams is set in ancient Persia in 1 BC, and centers around Mitra and her little brother Babak, who are the children of a Persian prince but are now living hand to mouth in the slums of a big city... until Babak starts having prophetic dreams, which brings them to the attention of one of the Magi, who takes them along on a journey toward a great star that is shining in the west, above the land of Israel...
You can probably guess where this is going. An eleven-year-old, maybe not, but it doesn't really matter, because this plot is not really the point of book. The story centers on Mitra and Babak - whose characterizations suffer a bit from "telling rather than showing" - and especially on Mitra's coming of age, which is...
Basically, Mitra's coming of age is an anti-Cinderella story. Instead of fulfilling all her desires, Mitra realizes that her dream (finding her family and living with them in something like the noble style in which she grew up) is foolish and impossible, and gives up.
Anti-Cinderella stories need to be told very well in order to be satisfying, and Alphabet of Dreams simply doesn't make the cut. Mitra's dream is impossible - her family is almost certainly all dead - and she does have to give up before she can move forward in life; but she doesn't just give up that particular dream, she seems to give up on having dreams at all.
What is especially frustrating is that the climax has all the elements that could have made the ending satisfying. Mitra has a clear choice: she could give up searching for her family and go back to Bethlehem to warn the people that Herod's soldiers are coming to kill their children, or she could continue the search and condemn the children of Bethlehem to certain death. If she actually made a decision, the story would describe Mitra's growth from self-centered and impossible dreams to heroic dreams (although still impossible; she doesn't save most of Bethlehem's children).
But she doesn't make a choice; she gets abandoned by the caravan that would have taken her onward, and is therefore forced to return to Bethlehem.
It's hard not to feel that she ends the book significantly diminished.
First, Wednesday Sisters, which my mom recommended to me with the comment that it really captured how it was to be a woman in the late sixties, early seventies: trying to work out how one felt about the women's movement, the anti-war movement, interracial marriage...
Which makes the book sound like a polemic, which it isn't at all. It's the story of five more-or-less ordinary young mothers who meet in the park and discuss books they like - books they'd like to write - who begin a writer's group, discuss the issues of the day, have interpersonal crises...
It gives a seamless impression of time and place - I was honestly surprised to realize that the author would only have been a child during the time period she wrote about - and, given that it isn't heavy on traditional plot, it's surprisingly gripping. I read it in two days. I occasionally got the husbands confused, as they aren't on stage too much, but the women are quite well drawn. The book as a whole is warm, funny, occasionally sad; I wouldn't call it great, but definitely worth reading.
Second, Alphabet of Dreams, by Susan Fletcher, who also wrote the Dragon's Milk books (which seem to be her most popular) and Shadow Spinner (which is my favorite). I had high hopes, which were tragically dashed...
Alphabet of Dreams is set in ancient Persia in 1 BC, and centers around Mitra and her little brother Babak, who are the children of a Persian prince but are now living hand to mouth in the slums of a big city... until Babak starts having prophetic dreams, which brings them to the attention of one of the Magi, who takes them along on a journey toward a great star that is shining in the west, above the land of Israel...
You can probably guess where this is going. An eleven-year-old, maybe not, but it doesn't really matter, because this plot is not really the point of book. The story centers on Mitra and Babak - whose characterizations suffer a bit from "telling rather than showing" - and especially on Mitra's coming of age, which is...
Basically, Mitra's coming of age is an anti-Cinderella story. Instead of fulfilling all her desires, Mitra realizes that her dream (finding her family and living with them in something like the noble style in which she grew up) is foolish and impossible, and gives up.
Anti-Cinderella stories need to be told very well in order to be satisfying, and Alphabet of Dreams simply doesn't make the cut. Mitra's dream is impossible - her family is almost certainly all dead - and she does have to give up before she can move forward in life; but she doesn't just give up that particular dream, she seems to give up on having dreams at all.
What is especially frustrating is that the climax has all the elements that could have made the ending satisfying. Mitra has a clear choice: she could give up searching for her family and go back to Bethlehem to warn the people that Herod's soldiers are coming to kill their children, or she could continue the search and condemn the children of Bethlehem to certain death. If she actually made a decision, the story would describe Mitra's growth from self-centered and impossible dreams to heroic dreams (although still impossible; she doesn't save most of Bethlehem's children).
But she doesn't make a choice; she gets abandoned by the caravan that would have taken her onward, and is therefore forced to return to Bethlehem.
It's hard not to feel that she ends the book significantly diminished.
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Date: 2010-03-21 12:06 am (UTC)We can't probably ever know, but I'm sure curious.
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Date: 2010-03-21 12:27 am (UTC)That's a fairly accurate assessment of Mitra's character growth, actually, which is probably one of the reasons the book didn't work for me. Her character arc consists almost entirely of letting go of her dream. She grows a bit in some other directions, but not enough to make up for the loss, so in the end its a book where a lot happens... but it doesn't add up to anything.
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Date: 2010-03-21 12:45 am (UTC)