Reading for Writing

On the way back from Los Angeles, I started reading Jennifer A. Nielsen’s The False Prince. I had read a raving review about the novel on the Book Smugglers blog where Thea compared it favorably to Megan Whalen Turner’s The Thief, which I had also loved. And so I had high hopes. Contrary to my expectations, I was not blown away. Instead, I learned a lot as a writer.

The False Prince is written in short paragraphs and easy-to-read language. The chapters end with cliffhangers which tempted me to keep reading. Sage, the protagonist, is a likable character, strong, smart and rebellious, just like I’d expect a fourteen year old boy. And I loved the story: four boys competing to be the next prince of a fairytale-like country.

There were several things which disappointed me about the novel. There is a beginning of an internal conflict: Sage is not certain he wants to be king and is not sure that he will make a good king. But this moral dilemma did not unfold enough. I was not convinced that Sage believed either of the other boys would make a better king, and I could not understand his reasons for thinking he would not be good enough. He certainly seemed the obvious choice, if only because he is the narrator. To me, the other boys felt under-developed and bordering on stereotypical: the sick, the strong, and the smart.

The internal conflict especially seemed to me hampered by the fact that Sage hides a secret which is only revealed to us by the end of the book. After a chapter or two, I suspected what this secret is. After five chapters, I was sure. I think this secret, which I won’t reveal just in case you plan to read the book, is what most prevents the novel from fulfilling its potential. It is the greatest block to revealing Sage’s thoughts, prohibits him from truly growing as a character, and diminishes the suspense of the novel.

The lack of suspense also arose from the fact that the villain is an obscure character who barely appears in person in the book. Veldergrath’s notoriety perhaps received some credibility because his name resembles Voldemort’s, but the assurances within the novel that he is evil come from Conner, a character who I did not read as reliable and who clearly had ulterior motives. None of the characters challenge the certainty of Veldergrath’s villainy anywhere in the novel, and he is removed, without proof or trial, from his position by the end.

Adam Gopnik from The New York Times Book Review, called The False Prince a “page turner, not a page earner.” The book did help me pass the time of the drive back from LA, and in the end it did make me think a lot about writing techniques and editing. For being entertained for a few hours, and for this opportunity to learn as a writer, I am always grateful. For these two purposes, it was a fabulous book.

Missing the Novel by Reading for Action

A few months ago I read Kristin Cashore’ Graceling. I loved the fantasy world Cashore created, the strong characters, the danger that bubbles below (and above) the surface. Graceling enchanted me, whole and complete from beginning to end, so much so that after I read the last word, I knew I was not yet ready to revisit its world. All around me, however, readers were raving about Cashore’s second novel, Fire, and so finally, expecting to plunge back into the world of Graceling, I began to read.

While reading Graceling, I wondered again and again how Cashore would challenge Katsa, the powerful fighter she had created. After all, what could possibly stop a woman so strong that none, neither man nor force of nature, can defeat her. When the challenge came, it was complete. The stakes were high, and I trembled and read faster, wanting to find out if and how Katsa will win the day. I cheered for her, because despite her immense strength I could see her humanity, her frailty, her dependence on the other characters which I knew would not help her when the moment came to face her test.

I had a harder time empathizing with Fire, the heroine of Fire. She appeared to me a passive heroine, floating through the novel, experiencing rather than causing the action around her, engaged mostly with her own inner turmoil. With mind reading abilities and the capability of altering people’s behavior and thoughts, Fire ought to have been a powerful character. And yet because she never fully acknowledges her magic, or because she is always surrounded by her bodyguards, I felt she never fulfilled the promise of her potential.

Fire limits the physical and mental manifestations of her powers. Since the sight of her beauty causes people to lose their self control, she covers her hair and downplays her physical appearance. She refuses to touch people’s mind unless for self defense, and even after the royal family convinces her to work for them as an interrogator, she reads the prisoners’ minds with a gentleness and kindness that attests to her distaste for any form of violence or invasion.

Though Fire deals with war, it is as calmly written and as introspective as a ride down a tranquil river. I think, after Graceling, I imagined something more like a class five white-water rafting trip. I wonder if I read the novel too quickly, with an eye for the action and plot rather than the intricacies of character development and relationships. Perhaps I ought to have taken the time to enjoy the thought process that turns Fire into the heroine she is. Fire, I think, is a novel to read slowly and carefully, not a race to the end.

Maybe my expectations were at fault, but far from feeling discouraged, I plan to approach Bitterblue, Cashore’s third novel, with fewer beliefs, to luxuriate in her poetic prose and enjoy her perfect building of character and world.

The Thief of Complex Plotting

Just as I stopped complaining to myslf, a week or so ago, about not finding a really good book to read, a book that would carry me away to far lands, I picked up Megan Whalen Turner's magnificent The Thief. Sucked into the landsape of Eddis, Sounis and Attolia without a last glance behind me, I fell in love with Eugenides, the narrator, and his adventures. Three books later, and I'm worried -- Megan Whalen Turner had written four books so far, but I am not ready to say goodbye.

Turner is a master plotter. Her prose sings. Her landscape maerializes before my eyes like a movie, sometimes a grim black and white film, at other times a colorful, musical adventure. Reading her novel is like taking a deep breath and diving into the clearest water, expecting to find the bottom of the pool below, instead discovering the rich life of a sprawling reef.

Have I told you yet that I love this book?

Rich, a rich tapestry of life and intrigue, a longing for adventure, love and life, the complexitie of being -- I don't know how she did it. How do you create such a world, so alive? No wonder that in each novel's end note Turner says that the events there described are fiction, for how can one author's mind encompass so much unless it was the truth?

I have always admired composers, their ability to hear separate threads of music, themes, instruments and turn them into one cohesive, melodic piece. Mozart, for example, surely was a genius. Or Bach. Beethoven. How were they able to hold all this music together to create their perfect concertos? I had not thought about novels the same way -- yet here, in Megan Whalen Turner's work, is a symphony of voices, characters, action, threads upon threads that somehow coalesce again and again into the most amazing, unexpected conclusions, shining a new light upon every written word.

Have I told you already that I love this book?

Eugenides is flesh and blood in mythological proportions. The gods speak directly to him, giving him their answers in short, clear sentences: go to sleep, stop whining. He is elusive, strong, a master swordsman, yet fragile, with an undeniable fatal flaw. I don't want to tell you the plot of either novel, because there is no way to do that without spoiling the story. I read the first novel without an idea as to what to expect. Caught by the story, I read Eugenides' adventure as he wished to tell it, in his own order and words.

What I loved about the series: Eugenides' voice, the shifting landscape of his journey, the sea of olives, the dirtiness of prison, the arrogance of weak men, the beautiful yet cruel queen and the second, pants-wearing queen whose nose is broken. I loved the gods and their easy intervention in human life, the hidden temple, the isolation of Eddis, the friendliness of Sophos, the myths told by Eugenides and the mage. I loved the delicate, gentle love affair which slowly unfolds before the reader's eyes without ever being acknowledged. And above all, the figure of the Thief, sitting high above the city, shrouded in the darkness of the night.


Which books do you love whose story, characters, or landscape carry you far far and away like this?

The Winds of Change

A few days ago I finished reading Karma, a teen novel in verse by Cathy Ostlere. Karma follows a few months in the life of Maya, a young Indian girl who grew up in Canada to a Sikh father and Hindu mother. Maya visits India with her father and finds herself adrift in India after the assassination of Indira Gandhi and the anti-Sikh riots that followed. Her father disappears, and Maya, after waiting for him at the train station, finally leaves Delhi by herself.

On her way Maya meets all kinds of people. She discovers kindness in unexpected places as well as self-interest and cruelty in others. It is a time of upheaval which brings out either the worst or the best in people, and in a country like India the extremes are in plain sight for Maya to see. As she summarizes: “There is/ so much life here. And too much death.”

The landscape Maya navigates in the novel is predominately dominated by males, all of whom feel entitled to control her fate. The few women she meets are either disinclined or unable to fully assist her. Maya must learn to tap into her strength, to speak up for herself, assert her independence and her own wishes in order to survive. Like the Buddha, she needs to face her own suffering as well as mankind’s so as to grow both emotionally and spiritually and begin to understand the confusing world in which she lives.

Maya passes, phoenix-like, through fire, silence and a desert storm in order to be reborn an older, wiser Maya. After witnessing the murder immolation of a Sikh on the train she says: “sometimes there’s nothing left/ to say to another human being.” She is struck mute by her feelings of guilt and horror. For over one hundred and fifty pages, the story is turned over to Sandeep, a young man who tries to become Maya’s protector in her silence. But Maya is the only one who can save herself, and she must speak up in the end.

Toward the end of the book, Maya discovers the confidence to assert herself: “...I take a deep breath and explain/ what it all means: I have learned what love is.” And later she says: “...I have proved that I am/ more than just a daughter in this/ world.” Maya grows beyond her roles as a girl, daughter, and female to become Maya, the goddess of change, able to see the wind as it blows across the story of her life.

I was fascinated by the symbolism of Maya’s birth as daughter to a Sikh and a Hindu, the unresolved religious disagreements between her parents, and the anti-Sikh killings by Hindus which followed Indira Gandhi’s assassination by her Sikh bodyguards. None of these conflicts is resolved by the end of the novel, and I found this so very real. Sometimes conflicts just are. But a hope remains: Maya’s love for Sandeep and the possibility that the hostilities will in the future end with them.