osprey_archer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
osprey_archer) wrote2010-11-27 12:22 am
osprey_archer) wrote2010-11-27 12:22 am
Entry tags:
Susan Fletcher
You guys! You guys! Susan Fletcher has written a new Dragon's Milk sequel!
...it appears to be set in the modern world?
I'll let you know how that turns out.
I enjoyed the Dragon's Milk books as a kid, but by far my favorite Susan Fletcher book is Shadow Spinner - her retelling of the Scheherazade story. It's beautifully written, woven through with stories within stories (and further layers of stories). The pace is ferocious, the sense of place rich (ancient Persia! All my interest in Iran, I owe to this book), and the characters pop off the page.
I love the heroines especially. Marjan, our narrator, a dreaming, angry storyteller who hero-worships Scheherazade. Scheherazade, dazzlingly clever and kind. Dunyazad, Scheherazade's impulsive tomboy little sister. Zaynab, the crazy pigeon woman.
Yes. The crazy pigeon lady is one of the heroines. And she, too, is a storyteller; in Shadow Spinner, everyone tells stories, and a large part of the book is a meditation on the meaning of story-telling and the relation of stories and truth. Each chapter starts with a little section called "Lessons for Life and Storytelling"; a lesson for one is a lesson for the other.
As this might suggest, there's a definite didactic element to the Shadow Spinner. But it's so beautifully done that it enriches the story. It's one of very, very few books I've read that posed a moral question so effectively that, even now - ten years after I first read it! - I catch myself chewing it over.
Has anyone else read it?
...it appears to be set in the modern world?
I'll let you know how that turns out.
I enjoyed the Dragon's Milk books as a kid, but by far my favorite Susan Fletcher book is Shadow Spinner - her retelling of the Scheherazade story. It's beautifully written, woven through with stories within stories (and further layers of stories). The pace is ferocious, the sense of place rich (ancient Persia! All my interest in Iran, I owe to this book), and the characters pop off the page.
I love the heroines especially. Marjan, our narrator, a dreaming, angry storyteller who hero-worships Scheherazade. Scheherazade, dazzlingly clever and kind. Dunyazad, Scheherazade's impulsive tomboy little sister. Zaynab, the crazy pigeon woman.
Yes. The crazy pigeon lady is one of the heroines. And she, too, is a storyteller; in Shadow Spinner, everyone tells stories, and a large part of the book is a meditation on the meaning of story-telling and the relation of stories and truth. Each chapter starts with a little section called "Lessons for Life and Storytelling"; a lesson for one is a lesson for the other.
As this might suggest, there's a definite didactic element to the Shadow Spinner. But it's so beautifully done that it enriches the story. It's one of very, very few books I've read that posed a moral question so effectively that, even now - ten years after I first read it! - I catch myself chewing it over.
Has anyone else read it?
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Does your mother read lots of kid's books?
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