100 books, #9: The Woman in the Wall
Jul. 31st, 2012 01:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerPatrice Kindl has a new book out! Keeping the Castle: A Tale of Romance, Riches, and Real Estate, which the blurb describes as "I Capture the Castle meets Pride and Prejudice," which basically means it's going to be the Best Book Ever.
At least, I hope so. I've often been disappointed by Kindl's books: they're always fun, but often ultimately unsatisfying. I keep reading them because I adored the first book of hers that I read, The Woman in the Wall, and always hope that the white lightning will strike again.
The Woman in the Wall does pretty much what it says on the tin: it's about a terribly shy girl who is so mortified by the prospect of attending school that she builds a network of secret passageways and rooms in the walls of her family's Victorian mansion, and lives in them for years.
My friend Emma lent this book to me years ago, and her mere description of it so enchanted me that I all but shooed her out the door so I could start reading. The book, with its cozy, slightly formal narration, vivid characters, and dream-like ambiance, did not disappoint.
In my room I almost felt that I had become a part of the house. I could hear its heartbeat, the rumble of its pipes, the creak of its timbers. Sometimes and overwhelming love for the house would well up inside of me so that I wanted to cry. It loved me too, I could tell. We were necessary to each other; I protected it against the ravages of time and creeping dry-rot, and it sheltered me and gave me strength.
I loved it because it was strong, but I also loved it because it was blind and mute and deaf. It had no eyes to see me or ears to hear me or tongue to scold me. It did not judge me, it only held me close in its arms and rocked me gently to sleep through the long silent nights.
There's a strong whiff of magical realism about The Woman in the Wall. Nothing technically magic happens, but the book keeps blithely positing implausible things: an unaided seven-year-old building secret passageways; her family failing to notice that said secret passageways are slowly gobbling up the house; the fact that Anna disappears into the walls for seven years and her mother makes no concerted effort to get her out.
And one simply accepts them, because clearly in this little corner of the cosmos, that's simply how the world works.
What The Woman in the Wall taught me is that logic is a limited lens through which to read books. There are certain books in which the rationality of the plot or the setting are important. A murder mystery shouldn't have plot holes so wide you could drive a truck through them, and a fantasy novel that purports to make serious points about real-world politics has to have a political system that makes sense.
But there are also books where complaining about the lack of this kind of rational realism is completely missing the point. The point is the ambiance, the feel of the story: the world works on a kind of dream or fairy-tale logic, and as long as the characters' psychology is - not rational, because people are rarely rational - but plausible, or understandable, then the story can be completely satisfying despite plot holes the size of aircraft carriers.
And The Woman in the Wall is just such a book. If you want to read a lovely, cozy story about houses, and the comfortableness of inanimate things - and slowly embracing the messiness of human relationships, through Anna's budding epistolary romance (epistolary! Who can say no to that?) and her friendship with her sister - then this is the perfect book for it.
At least, I hope so. I've often been disappointed by Kindl's books: they're always fun, but often ultimately unsatisfying. I keep reading them because I adored the first book of hers that I read, The Woman in the Wall, and always hope that the white lightning will strike again.
The Woman in the Wall does pretty much what it says on the tin: it's about a terribly shy girl who is so mortified by the prospect of attending school that she builds a network of secret passageways and rooms in the walls of her family's Victorian mansion, and lives in them for years.
My friend Emma lent this book to me years ago, and her mere description of it so enchanted me that I all but shooed her out the door so I could start reading. The book, with its cozy, slightly formal narration, vivid characters, and dream-like ambiance, did not disappoint.
In my room I almost felt that I had become a part of the house. I could hear its heartbeat, the rumble of its pipes, the creak of its timbers. Sometimes and overwhelming love for the house would well up inside of me so that I wanted to cry. It loved me too, I could tell. We were necessary to each other; I protected it against the ravages of time and creeping dry-rot, and it sheltered me and gave me strength.
I loved it because it was strong, but I also loved it because it was blind and mute and deaf. It had no eyes to see me or ears to hear me or tongue to scold me. It did not judge me, it only held me close in its arms and rocked me gently to sleep through the long silent nights.
There's a strong whiff of magical realism about The Woman in the Wall. Nothing technically magic happens, but the book keeps blithely positing implausible things: an unaided seven-year-old building secret passageways; her family failing to notice that said secret passageways are slowly gobbling up the house; the fact that Anna disappears into the walls for seven years and her mother makes no concerted effort to get her out.
And one simply accepts them, because clearly in this little corner of the cosmos, that's simply how the world works.
What The Woman in the Wall taught me is that logic is a limited lens through which to read books. There are certain books in which the rationality of the plot or the setting are important. A murder mystery shouldn't have plot holes so wide you could drive a truck through them, and a fantasy novel that purports to make serious points about real-world politics has to have a political system that makes sense.
But there are also books where complaining about the lack of this kind of rational realism is completely missing the point. The point is the ambiance, the feel of the story: the world works on a kind of dream or fairy-tale logic, and as long as the characters' psychology is - not rational, because people are rarely rational - but plausible, or understandable, then the story can be completely satisfying despite plot holes the size of aircraft carriers.
And The Woman in the Wall is just such a book. If you want to read a lovely, cozy story about houses, and the comfortableness of inanimate things - and slowly embracing the messiness of human relationships, through Anna's budding epistolary romance (epistolary! Who can say no to that?) and her friendship with her sister - then this is the perfect book for it.
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no subject
Date: 2012-07-31 10:27 pm (UTC)I agree! Different books need to be judged by different standards; they're not trying to do the same sorts of things.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-31 11:53 pm (UTC)I think it would often help people write better reviews if they would sit back and say "This book is doing something that I have no interest in...so even if it's exquisitely done I'm not going to care for it much." In an odd way it might help them appreciate whatever book they don't care for more - to see it as an intellectual puzzle, to try to figure out what it is trying to do and why that would work for someone.
I feel this way about certain criticisms of Twilight, for example. It doesn't matter that the vampires aren't scary enough; it's not meant to be a horror novel.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-01 01:55 am (UTC)Yes: this is what I call the believing game, after Peter Elbow. Try to understand what it is that the story is trying to do. If it's using lush prose and has a convoluted plot, it's probably best not to apply the Hemingway standard to it.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-01 08:20 pm (UTC)I'm super-excited that Patrice Kindl has a new book out!! I've loved Owl in Love for years. I remember liking The Woman in the Wall quite a lot too, though I don't remember it as well.
The point is the ambiance, the feel of the story: the world works on a kind of dream or fairy-tale logic, and as long as the characters' psychology is - not rational, because people are rarely rational - but plausible, or understandable, then the story can be completely satisfying despite plot holes the size of aircraft carriers.
Yeah. I love books like this and I love Fairy Tales. I'm trying to think of other titles or authors that fit this mould, other than Patrice Kindl, who does it so well. Robert Munsch, Roald Dahl, Diana Wynne Jones, Margaret Mahy, Jeanette Winterson's Sexing The Cherry. OH! Especially Sean Stewart. I love that man! ;) (MOCKINGBIRD)
Stories like this can contain many truths, even though they are utterly unrealistic. :)
I'm off to see if my library, which just came through with a copy of Code Name Verity for me, will also provide Keeping the Castle and Verdigris Deep, which
no subject
Date: 2012-08-02 03:43 am (UTC)I tried Verdigris Deep but couldn't get into it; maybe I should give it another go.
And I'm waiting for my library to come through with a copy of Code Name Verity! I've heard splendid things about the book: I'm so, so looking forward to it!
(Did you ever read The Montmaray Journals? I think they would be right up your alley.)
no subject
Date: 2012-08-03 03:11 am (UTC)I put holds on Keeping the Castle and Verdigris Deep at the library, so I'll start there, and keep The Montmaray Journals and Gullstruck Island in mind. I'm also waiting for a copy of Team Human.
Good books to read! Yay!
no subject
Date: 2012-08-03 04:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-05-23 12:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-05-23 01:18 pm (UTC)But definitely it's easier to start with a book like The Woman in the Wall, which I LOVED despite also seeing that it didn't meet certain definitions of "good," like the kind where a story needs to make logical sense. It forces you to expand your definition of good.
no subject
Date: 2024-05-28 07:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-05-28 11:17 pm (UTC)