Wednesday Reading Meme

[osprey_archer]

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Avi’s The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, which I’ve been meaning to read since...fourth grade or so. I probably would have read the hell out of it if I read it back then, but it seems rather thin now.

Also Eva Ibbotson’s A Countess Below Stairs, which I adored. Anna is one of those heroines who conquers the world and everyone's hearts through the sheer magnitude of her vivacious zest for life and kindness (think Anne of Green Gables, or Sara Crew from A Little Princess, or Tohru Honda from Fruits Basket), and it's always fun to read about someone who is just having such a great time being alive.

I also thought Ibbotson did a lovely job with Anna's dialogue: the rhythm of the dialogue makes it clear that Anna, though fluent, is not a native English speaker (she was a Russian countess before the revolution), without the awkward expedients of tossing in random non-English words or trying to write her dialogue phonetically.

What I’m Reading Now

Barbara Hambly's Sold Down the River, in which Benjamin January agrees to pose as a slave in order to investigate a murder. I have spent the first few chapters sending loud waves of "DON'T DO IT" at the book, because this can only end in tears/floggings/actually being sold down the river and disappearing into the gaping maw of the slave economy. But as so often happens none of the characters are listening to my prognostications.

I also was listening to Anna and the French Kiss, but the second disc wouldn't play correctly and I'm not sure I care enough to seek out another way to read it. I suspect that the heroine's sort-of boyfriend Toph and her BFF Bridget are going to end up together, what with the heroine being across an ocean in Paris (and thus clearing the way for the heroine to be with St. Clare without having to shoulder the guilt of breaking up with Toph). I feel no enthusiasm for this possible future plot.

What I Plan to Read Next

I actually have no plan. I'm waiting for a bunch of books that I have on hold at the library - Longbourn, The Goblin Emperor - so I'll just have to see which one shows up first.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I'm having a bad case of everyone-is-raving-about-this-so-perversely-I -don't-want-to-read-it with regard to The Goblin Emperor. Maybe if *you* read and like it I will be able to get over that feeling.

Glad to hear the Eve Ibbotson was good. Little Springtime read bunches of her stuff, and I did get the impression that she was a wonderful writer who created really nice characters.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I have some of that with regard to The Goblin Emperor too...hopefully someone will put a hold on it after me, so then I'll *have* to read it to get it back to them.

[ursula]

Well, you could read Daughter of Mystery instead:

http://lepusdomesticus.livejournal.com/107642.html

(In my head, Goblin Emperor contrasts more tidily with the middle books in Cherryh's Foreigner series. But Daughter of Mystery is pretty great on its own merits.)

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I really have to read **something** by Cherryh! Maybe that's where to start!

[ursula]

I would personally recommend starting with one of the Company Wars books-- perhaps Heavy Time or Tripoint-- or maybe Rusalka. Cherryh does a good job of writing protagonists who are tired, stressed, confused, and sometimes make bad choices because of it, and I think it's worth seeing whether you are up for that dynamic in a more or less self-contained story, first.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

So these ones you recommend, they're each self contained?

[ursula]

Tripoint is self-contained, while Heavy Time has a satisfying ending and a sequel. I don't remember where the action breaks between Rusalka and its sequel; there are three books in that Russian-ish fantasy sequence, but I know the third one picks up much later.

[konstantya.livejournal.com]

Ah, so excited to hear what you thought about A Countess Below Stairs (and I kind of want to reread it even more now, haha). Despite my (ultimately minor) quibbles with the book, I do remember really liking Anna as a protagonist. I've heard other people call her a Mary Sue, but I really don't think that's the case; she always just struck me as a genuinely kind person trying to make the best of her situation, which I find very refreshing and admirable when done right.

Out of curiosity, what were your thoughts on The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle? I read it a couple of times as a kid and loved it, but haven't given it a reread since then, and I'm curious as to how it views to older, adult eyes.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I'm not a big fan of the term Mary Sue applied to a character in an original novel. There are characters in original fiction who are Mary Sue-ish in that they either ridiculously awesome at everything (Kvothe from the Kingkiller Chronicles comes to mind), or who become great sucking black holes at the center of a story - I have a pet peeve about supposed ensemble stories where the creators have an obvious favorite - but, after all, a main character should be at the center of her own story. So where do the traits of main character-hood shift over into the traits of Mary Sue-dom?

It also bothers me that whenever people pick on original fiction characters as Mary Sues, they pick someone like Anna rather than the aforementioned Kvothe or Sherlock (of Sherlock, not ACD's stories), both of whom are clearly their creators' darling pets and have far more extensive and unusual talents than Anna, whose skill set is not at all strange given her background. Her one striking and unusual skill is her kindness (and, okay, her eye color: I'm pretty sure her dark, sensitive, Byzantine eyes are described at least once a chapter).

If I were going to quibble anything in the book, it would be Uncle Sebastian, the hero's uncle who sometimes fondle the maids. One of the evil fiancee's evil acts is to limit his access to the maids by getting Uncle Sebastian a middle-aged nurse. All her other evil acts were pretty awful, but that...did not strike me as bad.

(Uncle Sebastian never laid a finger on Anna. The impression I got was that in Ibboton's mind Anna, as a lady, would of course have minded, but maids don't mind being goosed. O.o)

As for The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, I had the same problem with it I have with Avi's books generally: his people just don't seem to pop for me. I couldn't tell most of the secondary characters apart, and even the characters I remember - Mr. Jaggery, mostly - I couldn't begin to say what makes him tick.

I did like Charlotte, and I think if I read the book when I was younger the awesomeness of Charlotte might have outweighed anything else the book lacked.

[konstantya.livejournal.com]

Yeah, most of the accusations of "Mary Sue!" I've come across seem to be leveled at Anna merely because she's kind and pretty (and the main character?). Which...hardly washes for me, to say the least. I do think the term has a distressing tendency to be thrown around too liberally when discussing characters from original fiction (and towards female characters in particular, which carries its own set of Unfortunate Implications). I will occasionally use the term, myself, in the context of original work, but only when the character is, as you said, a great sucking black hole at the center of the story.

Ugh, the uncle. I'd forgotten about him (or maybe blocked the memory out?). At least now it won't take me by surprise, when I do get around to rereading it?

Re: Avi, that's interesting to hear. The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle was the first book I read by him, and enjoyed it enough to seek out some of his other stuff, but it never grabbed me the way Charlotte Doyle did, and I would inevitably give up after a couple chapters. It might be the era and setting of that book that held my attention more than anything, as I admittedly have a Thing for the Age of Sail.

(Kind of random, but I remember coming across some promotional info years ago, about a possible film adaptation that was to star Dakota Fanning as Charlotte and Pierce Brosnan as Jaggery. Obviously that never happened, and Fanning is too old for the part now, but a nostalgic part of me still wants to see that film.)

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Oh man, that would have been pretty much the perfect adaptation. I've always thought Pierce Brosnan seemed villainous and overbearing, for all that he's always cast as a good guy, and Dakota Fanning could clearly do the shift from confused innocent to rigging-climbing badass. Too bad it never happened!

[anactoria.livejournal.com]

Avi’s The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, which I’ve been meaning to read since...fourth grade or so. I probably would have read the hell out of it if I read it back then, but it seems rather thin now.

Oh, that's a shame! I've been going back and forth on whether or not to reread that for a while, because I only read it once but it really stayed with me.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

It might still be worth rereading! I think your previous emotional investment in Charlotte would probably carry over to a reread. It's just not a good book to read for the first time as an adult.