Brene’s gone corporate. The 99% of us who latched onto her as a hardworking mom and smart researcher who thought hard and fought her way through to soBrene’s gone corporate. The 99% of us who latched onto her as a hardworking mom and smart researcher who thought hard and fought her way through to some amazing, amazingly put insights... well, in my opinion, that lady is gone. In her place is a motivational speaker who is most interested in selling herself as a guru to the 1%, or the slightly larger percentage of those who can afford to expense her to the company account. She’s just rehashing her old stuff and twisting it’s wording slightly to apply to the boardroom- and she’s not hiding it, either, I’ll give her that. The phrase, “As I already told you in Daring Greatly/The Gifts of Imperfection/Rising Strong...” pops up pretty frequently. Her forward literally states her aim for this book is that it be just as long as a flight from NY to LA. The book is just riddled with stories about the fancy people she’s given talks to, I assume to build up her cred with the C-levels reading this (a term I now know bc she repeated it so often). The book is filled with cheery posters and slogans you can print out and hang on your office wall, and despite her insistence that “teachers are some of our most important leaders,” at the start, we somehow never left the conference room in the half of the book I forced myself through. I saw this pattern start to happen in Braving the Wilderness, which was deeply meh but sort of had a logical progression of previous thought there- at least a tiny attempt at one. Not so here.
And that’s fine, she’s a CEO now herself, and that’s her truth now. And no doubt we do need people to help leaders with emotional skills they were never taught.
But it isn’t my truth. And it’s sucks to fall out of love with another author.
Who the flying fuck even are these people? Everyone involved is the absolute worst or flattened by the absolute worst or precious in a nauseating absoWho the flying fuck even are these people? Everyone involved is the absolute worst or flattened by the absolute worst or precious in a nauseating absolute worst way. It’s one of those status-and-clothes-substituting-for-meaningful character-development books that I hate hate hate and have written too many essays about why I hate to subject you to them again once more but I haaaattteeeee. This doesn’t even pass for a witty satire “but oh so true!” of the Upper East Side, because the writing isn’t good enough half the time and the other half it isn’t quite as cute as it thinks or nearly as insightful/in the know as it was likely sold to be. Like omg did you know that rich guys marry younger women and rich couples are entitled and rich little kids have trouble seeing outside their privilege? Ugh it’s all so boring and childish and if I were the kind of person to call a book’s imaginary world/worldview #basic, I would. Why did it have to be the boy candidate she interviews who was into sports and bullying people and the girl who was a “scary” rehearsed perfectionist? Wtf even with that French guy’s accent? What year is this? I’ve worked in the environments in this book, y’all and the truth is always more complicated than the stereotype and don’t even @ me with “turn your brain off, it’s fun!”
It’s really not.
Why is this popular again? I can’t imagine anyone seeing themselves in this with any satisfaction. It’s not quite smart enough to make people who hate these people be satisfied either. So like... again, why?
That’ll teach me to go in the Amazon store....more
I know Possession. I’ve read Possession. You, madam, are no Possession.
Do not name drop unless you know what you’re doing, book marketers. In this casI know Possession. I’ve read Possession. You, madam, are no Possession.
Do not name drop unless you know what you’re doing, book marketers. In this case, you set the bar far too high and honestly never convinced me I was at the right bar to begin with. Never mind the truly, madly, deeply overwritten metaphors that absolutely blossom from nearly every page. The historical part seemed interesting, but I can just as easily read, you know, an actual history on the topic, so you’ve gotta have something more than that for me. I will admit that I decided I was done no more than a quarter of the way through so perhaps she got her act together later, but I somehow doubt it. I’ve been at this particular rodeo of purple prose and Dramatic Foreshadowing one too many times before. It seldom surprises me.
I wish publishers understood better what people liked about the biggest best sellers. We could all avoid a lot of needless disappointment in the “Let’s Find Or Manufacture a Copycat” mill that follows. Don’t make the cookie when you don’t know the secret ingredient. That’s all I’m saying....more
I didn’t actually finish this but I did get to 3/4 through and every time I try I fall asleep. I can’t with the precious kids storyline and very interI didn’t actually finish this but I did get to 3/4 through and every time I try I fall asleep. I can’t with the precious kids storyline and very interesting adult storyline isn’t written well enough. I’m out. ...more
I didn't finish this one. Sorry guys, I don't think I will anytime soon. Maybe I'll try again in winter? Right now it seems rather precious, a whole lI didn't finish this one. Sorry guys, I don't think I will anytime soon. Maybe I'll try again in winter? Right now it seems rather precious, a whole lot of wise teenager against the world of evil adults, lots of overdrawn metaphors, you know the sort of thing. I might have liked this in college, but now it seems pretty exhausting in the wrong ways....more
I didn't finish more than half of this, but from what I saw, this is poor man's Kay, mostly. Same beats, similar characters and interests, same fascinI didn't finish more than half of this, but from what I saw, this is poor man's Kay, mostly. Same beats, similar characters and interests, same fascinations, some stylistic influences... just not as good. It's just close enough for everything to ring false. I might finish it later, but putting it aside for now. ...more
I am sorry to report that after the initial coverage of Sylvia's background and the initial drawing together of the major characters around her shop..I am sorry to report that after the initial coverage of Sylvia's background and the initial drawing together of the major characters around her shop.... things got very tedious. Especially as things became more and more focused on Joyce and the publishing of Ulysses. God, his histronics got old fast- there was the odd good anecdote, but it was absolutely buried in a mound of details that were not edited for readability or use. It was like she was reporting every. single. last. thing that she could possibly have found in her research in a really long list. And it got worse after the initial year of Ulysses- it was all, this person was here in June and signed up for subscription in July and sent a letter in August, at the same time as this person was in Paris but for a totally different reason, oh and then there was a dinner party- not a lot of detail, but happened, and then there was another book that came out... There was no narrative. No story any longer- just the dreary comings and goings of various somewhat or not-anymore famous writers mixed in with Joyce and Hemingway and Stein (who hated the shop, by the way, because she hated Joyce taking attention away from her).
I can see this being useful to someone doing research on the interactions of these individual people and how that might have affected their work, or not. I can see Joyce devotees really liking this (I mean serious devotees). But oh my god, for anyone else.... yeah, I'm out, guys. Sorry to disappoint....more
Okay, ladies, we need to talk. The review space for this book is going to get the brunt of something it probably doesn't deserve, but is a good examplOkay, ladies, we need to talk. The review space for this book is going to get the brunt of something it probably doesn't deserve, but is a good example and there there is something that I just don't understand that we need to clear up. Dudes, I suppose that you can offer your opinions, but I'm not sure that you'll have as many answers to all of my questions.
So I've read a lot of romance novels over the course of my life. Starting far too early, I've been reading the fantasies of grown-ass women written in the 80s and 90s, fantasies that came out the other end of many years of life lived, gendered, sometimes historically fucked up and repressed in a way that I couldn't begin to understand as a pre-teen, with no exposure whatsoever to this sort of shit. It was a weirdly post-modern experience in the most literal sense- I turned on the porn in the fourth act without any idea of the beginning or end of it and how we got there and thought that this was the way that it was. It took me a lot more time than it should have to figure out that this was not the only way it was or possibly should be. It was pretty much a ragefest when I slowly, and then all at once, figured all of that out.
It's been a number of years, but I've got another ragefest simmering, and once again, its over a group of books written by women, I would imagine largely for women (sadly), rooted deeply in the imagination of women. I may be slightly more equipped to understand it, but still find myself sputtering. I'll try to articulate as best I can, though.
Here goes:
I have read a large, but growing group of books with female protagonists who make my skin crawl in a growing, but then finally undeniable way, to the point that I am forced to put the book down. The Lantern was the first example where I was able to put a finger on it. But there have been more. This book was a huge example. I just tried to read The Husband's Secret and it was exactly the same shit. Whitehouse's House at Midnight had it blatantly at the beginning and then was run through with a more sinister, belowground version of it through the rest of the book. Jane Green's books do it, some of Emily Giffin's do.
The major thing that all these books have in common a female protagonist who opens the book trying to prove herself to us, from the first page. She will insinuate or outright tell us, over and over again over the course of the first few chapters (and throughout the book in case you forget) that her heroine is superior to those around her.
Well sure, you might say. All books need to get us connected to their heroes and make us interested in their story. That seems reasonable.
And I agree with you- but not in this case. Because the way these books establish this connection is through this nasty, gendered way that's sometimes perfectly blatant and straightforward, and more awfully, done largely through the use of code words and subconscious dog whistles that I would sometimes imagine that the author isn't even aware they are using. They are the sort of words that you absorb and feel eager to repeat because you know they gain approval and are a natural part of the landscape of the kind of books you write- like how good female characters' "eyes dance" and sympathetic protagonists always "arch their eyebrows" to show their sardonic, likeable humor in fantasy novels. It's an instantly recognizable, subconscious code to anyone who has ever read the genre- relax around this character. Breathe easy. This is one of us.
And it's these books' horrible idea of what "one of us" means that is just killing me. The code for "one of us" that these books push is wrapped up in this deeply fucked up mess of capitalistic, traditional feminine, societal and high-school-code status symbols that would be fascinating to untangle if they weren't so awful.
Here's a typical mix of how it goes:
Capitalistic: In the first few chapters, we'll be treated to a demonstration of the characters' wealth and status. Usually this involves a recitation of various expensive, luxury brands and expensive objects that she has access to. Usually there is some Puritan excuse about how she married into this wealth, or got it from someone else, or how she has worked her whole life in comparison to her layabout family. If she doesn't have wealth, either she will spend the whole book being superior to those characters who do have wealth, or will appreciate it in a nice "if only I could have it" wistfully annoying way- and be sure she will be awarded it by the end of the novel, all the while protesting that she "would rather have had....." (blah blah blah morally superior thing). I have no literal idea what books want to accomplish with this- giving us the aspirational fantasy we want, but still ascribing to its reader the work ethic that will reassure us that it is okay for us to want it? Is this a "celebrities they're just like us!" moment- we're delighted to be brought into the orbit of such a high status woman and, like the popular girl on the playground choosing to talk to us, we'll be so delighted to have the privilege to be inside her mind, we'll attach to her immediately because she gave us that honor? I'd say maybe it was an American thing, but I've seen it in British novels as well- sometimes even more blatantly.
Ah, and then there's the misogynistic, high-school-mean-girl shit. Even worse. We are constantly treated to descriptions of what these girls look like and what they are wearing- we are told about it every time they change clothes- every time their hair is out of place. And I guarantee you we're going to get words like "slender"/"thin"/"she didn't have a perfect body but she'd never had trouble attracting a man"- and, of course- "she wasn't model thin like those blonde girls who sat at the popular table in high school, but she was...." (blah blah blah morally superior). It's all about the girl on girl crime. In The Husband's Secret, within twenty pages, the main character had bitchily taken down most of her friends with one catty swipe of claws and established her and her family's superiority to them. Often this is done by sheer comparison of description and the adjectives chosen, added up. Like... I don't know... this is supposed to speak to my deep-seeded sense that I am really better than all my friends? Especially if they are pretty- if we have to have the almighty crime of admitting that they are prettier than us, then they have to suffer. They will be dumb, mean, selfish, ambitious, rude, sexual in a "distasteful" way (probably coming on to your husband or being "indiscriminate" in her tastes), have a difficult personality that "only appeals to some", be an actual angel come to earth that all of us can make fun of in our heads for thinking unicorns exist or whatever. How fucking DARE they be prettier than us- don't worry, we'll provide you with a reason to hate them. That is if any other woman is allowed to have an image at all. Get off the stage, I am the fairest of them all.
But most of the time other women are on stage- because these books- it's like a constant game of one-upsmanship in a very specifically female way. Our protagonists have to come out on top in comparison to other females, even if only by implication (and of course the protagonist would never think of it that way! But she's rewarded with that victory anyway). Everything that happens- the plot she's involved in, her observations and interactions with other women and especially her romance- all read like points on a scoreboard. These are not books about personal transformation except on the most surface level, and usually only in the service of getting one of these status-y things. These books read as competition, like some sort of fantasy of jealousy, of being the person that others envy- all with the excuse of moral superiority that just happens to grant you all the high status stuff that you wanted.
It's gross. It so often reads like a shy girl's fantasy come to life- someone who would have wanted to be queen bee and be just as bitchy as that blonde girl, but never had the balls to actually do it, and so constructed an idea of themselves based around being morally superior to it, while all the while wishing they could be part of it. It's sick- it's the worst feelings that girl-on-girl envy can produce, and what's worse, I am expected to identify with them. It's a martyrdom complex taken to an extreme. It is a childish emotional depth that I cannot accept.
What the actual fuck, ladies? Like... is this a genre thing? Is this still the leftovers of all the competition that women felt they had to do for men, because they thought they were the key to survival in the world (and still think this)? Is this something we're going through the motions of and have gotten to the point where we fill in an out-of-date formula and don't even realize what we're doing?
It's like women still trying to prove how "normal" and "likeable" they are by spitting out a bunch of words that they think do that- isn't this what I'm supposed to want?? Do you love me yet?? Do you approve of my totally normal, not weird beautiful character who is better than everyone?? Is this what you wanted from me? Why are we still trying to please men and judgmental women who were never going to like you anyways??
It's sad and gross all at once.
And no, I don't think that this is a case of really good characterization. I see this too much. Either something has infected this genre- too often and grossly called "middlebrow" fiction- or there's something going on that we haven't confronted. I don't accept that this is what we honestly want out of our protagonists, ladies. It can't be. Can it?
Especially because it is so desperately fake- that's what I saw in the Lantern. There was a fascinating person with interesting ideas (or the start of them anyway) behind that woman who put on a fake feminine voice and flashed her diamond ring and big house-porny house at the beginning to let us know we should envy her. Why the eff are we leading with that diamond flashing woman all the time? House at Midnight did it too- I haaaaattteeeed protagonist at the beginning. Could we talk more about how middle class she was and how all her friends were super rich and classy and amazing and went to Oxford?? Oh please, can we?? And then the rest of the book, her relationship with her boyfriend was basically just a show to generate jealousy, and based on an attraction that seemed to be based on nothing at all that we're actually shown. But, again, there were some moments of truth in the book- again, towards the end, once she seemed sure that she had us and we weren't going anywhere. They peeked out here and there. I couldn't even get past this lead-in with Before We Met- maybe it would have been the same here.
Why do we think this is what we need to get women to invest in other women characters? Why do we need to envy them or hate them? Or at the very least be super smug about relating to them? (I'm not talking about identifying- which is different and more truthful. I'm talking about blatant ploys for readers to insert themselves like talking about how they were never one of the popular girls or can't believe they ended up with this gorgeous husband, surely he will leave me.)
I've sort of noticed this for awhile, but I think that part of my anger about this was that I thought I had discovered a subset of the genre where I was safe from all this. I have since discovered that it has a name- "chick noir." Which I HATE. Please let me be clear about how much I HATE that. But at least it put together a group of books that I was almost invariably interested in. As far as I can work out, the label seems to mean that the book is probably some type of psychological thriller, focused on a woman, probably having a lot of domestic backgrounds and settings, probably involving a romantic relationship of some kind. (Hence the horrible "chick" I assume.) But my favorite part of the genre has absolutely been the amazing main character females and the fact that we get to spend a whole lot of time inside their heads because of the psychological thriller part. Gone Girl and Gillian Flynn's other novels are probably the best examples of this fledgling drama, but there are other ones. Tana French's The Likeness would count as one of them, too. I just finished Sacrifice by SJ Bolton, I'd put it in there too. I found them an honest relief. Barely a flicker of the tangled mass of handed down feminine horror show shit that had characterized these other books (unless it was briefly organic to the plot or character development)- sometimes I didn't even know what the woman looked like! And guess what? it couldn't matter less to the plot if I did or not. And I was totally enthralled with being inside their heads- usually they were smart, smart-alecky, and smartly constructed messes of actual human beings.
What a fucking relief.
But you know what I've discovered, reading reviews of these books? That people seem absolutely offended by these characters' refusal to perform the usual feminine rituals of self-hatred, self-abnegation, to provide us with words that are supposed to make our brains light up with envy, of giggling behind our hands at some other woman, telling us how beautiful the character is to give her currency when she does bad things. Of course, especially in the Gillian Flynn novels, the main characters ARE deeply fucked up, and often this is in direct engagement with their feminine societal roles, or in direct reaction to it. I'm not asking anyone to like these characters- but what I was shocked by were reviews calling characters "sociopathic" for refusing to perform these rituals.
Is anyone else watching that show UNreal, yet? About the backstage drama at a "Bachelor" like show? If not, I don't know if I can recommend it- but I can assure you that it is among the most fucked up shit I have ever seen. The whole show is about women doing horrible things to each other, often in the service of a male presence who is barely even there, but they are always aware of in the back of their mind- they only make their presence felt occasionally, but that's all they need to do to send these women back into the most horrible spirals. They don't even need to be there for women to act on their behalf. And the women running the show KNOW what the worst things they can do each other are. It's the worst gendered horror I've seen in awhile.
I don't get it. Why do we like watching other women, fictional or not, do this? Why are we reading books about it? Why do we allow ourselves to subconsciously code characters in this way and reject characters who don't follow it?
I think this is part of the reason I've loved, to no end, Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels so much. For not a second, for not an actual second, does that narrator of those books put on a pose for me, the reader. Oh, she does to those around her and a lot of what she goes through is about feminine role construction, but not to me. not to me the reader. It feels like these characters that I complain about are doing it to me, the reader. That's, in the end, I think what infuriates me the most. It's like these books, these authors, stopped halfway. Yes, all these things these characters do and say happen and people feel this way- but why? And please stop, please stop giving me those stupid pop psychology answers and easy outs like we always get.
And I'm not just citing pretentious European literature and trying to compare apples to oranges. Emily Giffin's Something Borrowed tried to engage with this status fight thing by at least acknowledging it- her character was the embodiment of this female status envy. She bought into it a bit in a way that was not helpful, but it was transfixing to watch because of it. There are others that do the same- even Plum Sykes' Bergdorf Blondes, which was all about labels and brand names at least had an honest heart to it that made the labels all so much comedy.
A line I will never forget from a romance novel, written in the early 2000s- it's from the fourth or fifth in one of those family romance series, where there are several siblings and each book is about one member of the family finding their true love or whatever. The love interest is being introduced to the wider family for the first time and the love interests from the previous three novels appear to pick up their children and kiss their men after some sort of Christmas performance. The character observes something to the effect of:
"Here they were, three shining angels, each one more beautiful than the last, sunbeams shining in the eyes of women who have found their true places in the world."
It's said with envy and longing, and is the occasion for the new protagonist to go into the depths of self-hatred and darkness and turn around all the more determined to prove herself to her big, handsome man and prove to him, and to us the reader, that she is just as worthy of love as those "beautiful angels". And she totally does- putting herself in unreasonable mortal danger with her PTSD diagnosed paramour for no reason whatsoever other than the deep feelings of inferiority these women inspired.
I'm just so over it. Maybe someone can explain it to me and tell me why the sorts of books I'm describing are appealing. I mean, is it in the same way that celebrity gossip sites and fashion police shows after red carpets are? Okay- but then come out with the cattiness. What I can't stand is this thing where we wrap it up in sanctimonious moral superiority and pretend like it's something else so that we can feel better about ourselves. Like... is this really the fantasy we like? We actually want to be these women? Surely not.
More than anything else, I feel like it is a waste. An utter and complete waste- because just like that woman in The Lantern- there are so many more interesting things that we could talk about if we let down our guard for approximately two seconds. Stuff that slips out between the cracks, stuff that we only get to long after you're sure that I won't leave you. It's like the fucking cocktail party with work acquaintances that won't end. Can we do the shots of tequila like two hours earlier to give us all the excuse to be silly and be normal people? Can we stop looking around furtively and looking for the person we're supposed to be impressing?
This is fiction, forgodsakes. Do you really think your readers are like all those people who were mean to you in high school? Do you really think, have you really absorbed that lesson, that this is what people are like?
Let it go. That's what books are for. We get to get away from things and show our true selves.
Otherwise it's not worth it.
Ladies, talk to me. Let's discuss. Explain this shit to me. Because I have had it.
I don't think I'm going to finish this, guys. I just... I've read this before. In a few different places, sewn together for this book. I don't think II don't think I'm going to finish this, guys. I just... I've read this before. In a few different places, sewn together for this book. I don't think I'm going to get anything new out of this. It's hard to do anything new in WWII literature, I think. It's all been stripmined to the point where it's hard to be surprised into making a connection- we all go in too prepared for certain things- and this book gives me a lot of them. It all felt a bit maudlin, a bit safe, littered with strained metaphors. Granted, I only got halfway through, but I couldn't see the point in going farther. It didn't seem likely to surprise me.
I did appreciate some of the rendering of the main character, and I would imagine that the opening setting of the Museum of Natural History would make a beautiful setting in a movie version. But that just wasn't enough to keep me going.
I may pick it up again later in the summer, but it seems unlikely....more
I didn't recognize any of these people. They seemed like such dated types- the sort that even when they were contemporary were more symbols and composI didn't recognize any of these people. They seemed like such dated types- the sort that even when they were contemporary were more symbols and composites of societal resentments and anxieties than actual people.
I read an interview of her that was so good it made me want to immediately buy it. I got about 2/3rds of the way through before I gave up, disappointed. Where did the insight from her interview go? I just can't find it in this book. Which is such a shame....more
After a pretty riveting opening, things really bogged down around 250 pages in and I couldn't get going with it again. Pacing just tossed me right outAfter a pretty riveting opening, things really bogged down around 250 pages in and I couldn't get going with it again. Pacing just tossed me right out of the narrative.
Maybe I'll try again at some point, but I think I have to admit I'm done reading this for awhile....more
It isn't the fault of this book. I've just read all this before- depths of European mourning of the past, the freezing of the present, the absurditiesIt isn't the fault of this book. I've just read all this before- depths of European mourning of the past, the freezing of the present, the absurdities that go along with ancient cultures. I only got to the first two chapters and I didn't feel that I needed to go any farther. The first chapter was a straightforward metaphor with one or two grotesque images and nothing surprised me in the second.
Just read Gormenghast instead. You'll get the same message, less nationally specific, and with even more grotesquely fascinating imagery to go along with it....more
Not going to happen right now. I think I will return after I've read a Bronte book or re-read a favorite. I just don't have the motivation for it righNot going to happen right now. I think I will return after I've read a Bronte book or re-read a favorite. I just don't have the motivation for it right now....more
I left it on the bedside so long that my husband eventually picked it up one bored day and read it instead of me. I'm afraid his frustrated exclamatioI left it on the bedside so long that my husband eventually picked it up one bored day and read it instead of me. I'm afraid his frustrated exclamations at the Pretentiousness of This Nonsense has put me off it for awhile. I may come back when I can forget his face while he said it and accordingly, stop bursting out laughing at the thought of this book....more
What is it to fall out of love? It is has been a long time since I’ve done it and so I don’t remember. From what I recall, it was something unconsciouWhat is it to fall out of love? It is has been a long time since I’ve done it and so I don’t remember. From what I recall, it was something unconscious for a long time. Something in your turn of phrase, in the explanations that you seek out and find, the articles you share and how often you choose to go to bed early. I remember it being full of protestations, a passion that was stronger than I felt and heavy with tears. The music I remember is always on constant repeat and probably confused by memories of soundtracks that sound like what I thought I ought to have felt. Then the crazy part: the whole story collapsing in a rush, like a child running through the bricks of a castle they have painstakingly constructed, and then, at the last minute, had doubts about. It’s the sort of threatening story that needs to be buried, and forgotten until years later when you can bear to look at the ruins that you’ve (of course) saved one more time.
In Persuasion, Anne argues with a sailor about the constancy of men and women’s love and claims for her sex the privilege of loving longest, long past when all hope has gone. I have no interest in making generalized assumptions about female kind, but I will say that I do this. I do this for the sake of what has come before. I do this with people, with friendships that have long since failed to be anything but pantomime and re-enactment and with formerly awe-inspiring idols who turned and showed me their zippers a long time ago.
I also do this with art, music and especially with books. It’s been a long time since I’ve fallen out of love with a person, book, movie or thing that has been a long standing favorite. At least, that is, become disenchanted with it in a way that is a conscious, deliberate process when I wasn’t quite sure that was what I wanted, rather than a slow, natural and gentle falling away that makes total sense and offers no conflict of understanding or sense of having the rug pulled out from under me. But that streak is over.
*** Kay’s books have been on my favorites pile for over a decade now. In and of themselves, they are not perhaps worth this depth of feeling now that I reconsider them. They are comfort reads, things I reach for when I want a tale told by a fireside on a winter’s night or on a lazy summer afternoon. But they are one of those names. An immediate touchstone when I’m asked for favorites, something that hit me at the right time and lead me a lot of other places. There's a lot to love in his books. He is a writer who always wanted to be a poet, and that shows, positively in his writing. The imagery can be beautiful and his settings lush and detailed. His habit of drawing from archetypes and connecting each of his books in a dream alternate universe of history serves him well. Since he stated his worship for the Old Stories in his first trilogy (Fionavar), he’s done a lovely job deconstructing each legend or tale down into the parts that matter. What I have loved about his writing is what I thought the point of this exploration was: to take the importance off the words and events and put it back where it matters- on the humans involved. Who are the people whose names turn up in history’s famous and turbulent times? Why do they make the choices that they do? Are they another race of “heroes” and Great Men or people in a particular situation who decided to be brave that one time? He did a great job making things make sense from a more everyday, practical angle, while still keeping the mystery, awe and adventure that makes these stories fun to hear to begin with. He added to the experience.
But not anymore. At least, not with his last couple of books. Since Ysabel, it seems like the focus has shifted. The lens is no longer as much about bringing out the characters from the tapestry and giving them three dimensions. It seems like now he’s decided his deconstruction is about the structure of the tale itself. He uses his usual methods of looking at an important time through the people who lived it, but the point no longer seems to be to illuminate these characters as they are and where they are. Now it seems like it’s about telling me a tired old story and sing it to comment on the nature of storytelling and its differences from history, myth and legend. We’re not being taken inside the depths to see what it’s like living there anymore. We’re back on the outside again, just like Fionavar, looking in at people we don’t understand, who make no sense in their context, and are shaped to fit the tale rather than the other way around. People are gone and story is back.
So what, you may say. Authors are allowed to and should evolve and explore different things. I agree with you. This doesn’t sound, necessarily, like a bad evolution in and of itself. If you spent that much time exploring stories through your characters, you might have found out some things that you wanted to share too. Isn’t that the point of writing? Sure. But only if it works and tells you something new. Unfortunately I think that this new tactic has ultimately gotten rid of everything he’s good at and brought into sharp relief the things that have never been his strong suit.*
To start with, since I am no longer looking at and involved with his characters or involved with the loveliness of his writing (I’ve seen enough of it to be past the first blush of that, especially since a lot of it can be repetitive), I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about his message and the ultimate point of what he says. That is: what is the function of what he writes? What is the function of this character’s thoughts, of that character’s arc? Why is it that women smile and die and men hang their heads in sorrow and live? Most importantly, why are we singing an elegy for this moment that we’re experiencing? Why do we care that one era is dying and another is about to be born? How is this enriching my understanding of why these sorts of conflicts happen or those decisions are made? Kay found his answer to this through people before. I was on board with that. That makes sense to me. People screw other people and their morals for the sake of their children. People make decisions that are hazardous to their health because they think they have nothing left to lose. People keep secrets to protect others and people hold pointless grudges because they are bitter about the way their life turned out.
Not anymore. Now characters are now a function of the plot and it shows. For example, in this book we’re exploring the nature of what makes a hero and how his legend is made after his death. This is a common theme in Kay’s writing. He’s done it well before, exploring the ambiguity of a figure like El Cid and his motivations, or a true believer in nationalism who ends up forging a country from battling fragments through twenty years of work. Now, in this book, we have a hero who we are just asked to believe is a hero because Kay says he is. Instead of proving that to us and showing us a person earning his way to the top, the man inside the legend, he (view spoiler)[ decides to skip all that and just get to the good stuff. In order for his hero to be as young and successful as he wants him to be, he has him rapidly promoted from being a boss of a swamp gang to a commander of a fifty thousand strong army and more and assumes that it all goes pretty well along the way. His hero never falters and oh by the way goes on front line dangerous expeditions all on his own. In case we still doubt, he has him marked by a sex goddess. And seriously, I kid you not, he shows the goddess mark on his back to prove to everyone how Special he is. There’s a whole lot of “I was born to do this,” nonsense going on, too, as a reasoning for his motivations. Really? Because people who constantly make statements like that are someone whose hubris I would be wary of tripping over. Seriously, Kay, what are you even talking about? (hide spoiler)] It seems he’s abandoned the theory that every hero is a person and returned to the Great Man theory once more.
Same goes for his main female character. Instead of showing us a strong woman who has grown up naturally out of her particular circumstances, we get (view spoiler)[ a father who is supposedly quite shy and likes to avoid notice but believes in very modern co-ed equal child rearing techniques and then a woman who anachronistically shares most of the stances, attitudes and modern strength of women without peculiarities or differences like we got with Jehane or Catriana in the other books. She’s supposed to be this awesome poet and foil for the hero, but their attraction makes little sense- born out of him attempting your fake assassination, really?- and we’re asked to believe she’s awesome based on one deduction she made that one time which repeats the whole book. The poetry we’re asked to venerate is terrible, and she makes no other decisions that make sense for a woman of her position and time period. She makes the decisions she does because that’s what she needs to do to be a poignant set of eyes for us to look through and see Important People of the day through Everyman Eyes and what she needs to do to connect her to the hero. And of course- of course!- she is the only Enlightened, Special female surrounded by a lot of inferior specimens who fulfill that ridiculous stereotype that rarely exists and is completely not useful- dumb and pretty and naïve, or otherwise Lady Macbeth. (hide spoiler)] Other supporting characters are barely there- with the possible exception of the main lady’s husband who is the sort of well drawn minor Kay character I remember. We spend time with a lot of other people, but (view spoiler)[ the women are there mostly to be beautiful and deadly in a sexy way or stupid, as mentioned above, and the men are there to be noble or not and then die themselves. (hide spoiler)] If he’s not giving me rich character development and complex scenes to evaluate, then the weaknesses he’s always had in his character creation (most of which are listed above) are going to be that much more obvious and not worth overlooking for the sake of the overall picture being painted.
So, now plot is king and the compensation that we get for this two things: the first is bigger, longer and more frequent action sequences and talk about the movement of armies. Which is tiresome in the best of circumstances and no more so than when it goes on for hundreds of pages and is centered on either really groan worthy stuff like: “OMG! ‘Barbarians’ are so good at war! It’s a shame we let our army go and have no superpower to look after us and prop up our dignity! We should have listened to Winston Churchill after all.”...or the upshot of this which it sounds like is a message about how you never evolve past the need for force and you should always Support the Troops. Which, argh. Thanks for that. Appreciated.
The other thing we’re given in exchange is intermittent musings and pauses (just like in Under Heaven) where Kay talks about the nature of the legend that gets built up around these people, how they are remembered in the history books or not remembered at all. He spends ten pages building up a character we’ve never seen before and then kills him off to make a statement about Life or something and the tales that never were. He goes through a pivotal moment in a character’s life and then tells us all about how that tale was passed down. Unfortunately, removing himself from his characters and telling me things in his narrator voice is not something that I think is a strong point for Kay. When he makes his points that way they sound obvious, trite, clichéd and hackneyed, pick your adjective. As an example, their gist boils down to: “It is sad when people die young and their potential is wasted.” “Sometimes there are unsung heroes who don’t get into the history books.” “Did you know that sometimes there’s a difference between what history says and what actually happened?” and that old favorite, “City people are corrupt and decadent and Everymen or people with a connection to the country or serious education are totally virtuous.” Which, I am happy for you to uphold education as awesome, but if we’re spending the whole book judging characters and situations based on how “smart” people are and then telling us we should be in awe of how smart they are (and of course their insights are not always worth this breathless worship) then you’ve got a fetish not a strong belief in education.
Kay's suddenly quite impressed with the Deeper Meaning and Message behind the stories and wants to make sure you know about it. It's like that thing I read once in an article about Springsteen- his music suddenly got kind of lame when he decided he was a "bard of the people" as opposed to writing great songs about specific moments, situations or places and letting the meaning precede from that.** Preaching will never beat good character development. Metanarration on your points will never beat illustration of your points. It seems like Kay has forgotten that in his last several books, or he’s made the conscious choice that he disagrees with me. He’s revealing the framework of his structure to be weaker than I wanted to know that it was, and I have no way to look away anymore or to decide that I’m crying so much right now that I can’t possibly bring myself to care. Kay has always wanted us to mourn for things that are lost, to understand why he speaks with such delicate nostalgia about things that will never be again, and why History and its making are wonderful, beautiful, brutal and sad. But he’s skipping forward to the nostalgia part without doing his groundwork first. He’s assuming we're on board before we even start, impatient to get to the emotions he loves to indulge in at a fever pitch without making them worth it. This is not the kind of story that you want to ask a whole lot of questions about. But I can’t stop asking them with these last couple of books, and not in a good way (most of them brought to you by the letters W T and F.)
And so I didn’t even finish it. I wasn’t even interested. I knew where it was going and how we would get there and I couldn’t have cared less. Unfortunately, I think that means I’m done with Kay for now. That’s a weird sentence to write, but I just don’t see that there’s anything else here on offer for me. It’s a shame, because this is one of the last reliable fantasy genre places I could go and be assured of a positive experience. Maybe the upshot of it all is I’ve just outgrown this or read enough and it’s just time to look in new directions. Sad to let it go, though! That’s all.
*An alternative to this analysis is that he’s still doing what he’s always done, especially since the form and structure are still there, and just not doing it as well. But I am going to assume for the purposes of this review that the changes are intentional. ** Please understand, unlike Kay, nothing will kill my love for Springsteen's music, and he will always be a fabulous performer, but the point is what I'm after here! ...more
I’ve written before about why I love Nancy Mitford’s biographies so much. First off, she writes exactly the sort of narrative history that floats my bI’ve written before about why I love Nancy Mitford’s biographies so much. First off, she writes exactly the sort of narrative history that floats my boat: history that treats the past as, first and foremost, an endless, rich vein of gold to be mined for storytelling yarn, fascinating characters and plots so good that you need the excuse of Hey-It-Actually-Happened to get people to suspend their disbelief.* Secondly, her writing has, for the most part, exactly the right touch for the upper class social histories she chooses to cover: a light, witty tone and a focus on the day-to-day human foibles of the rich and powerful she covers. She’s more than able to achieve this due to my absolute favorite thing about her: She’s an ultimate Insider. A Gossip Girl in a timewarp back to the eighteenth century: at times a welcoming, warm Serena, and sometimes, deliciously, a cutting Blair at her worst.
Mitford is able to offer a unique understanding of her biographies’ subjects precisely because she, unlike so many other historians, refuses to put her subjects on any sort of pedestal. Having been brought up an aristocrat herself, knee-deep in history and family and traditions up to her eyeballs, she treats courts, celebrities, great nobles and great historical personages with absolutely no deference whatsoever- unless, for her own reasons, she feels that they have earned it. (Louis XIV gets a grudging and not-entirely-complete pass, but only because he created her personal dream heaven come to earth- Versailles. Seriously, lady needs the Tardis to land on her doorstep, STAT. I can’t even imagine the unholy sums she would have paid to be a part of that Madame de Pompadour episode.) She has no self-consciousness and no hesitation in pronouncing with authority on the way that X lady of the court handled a rival, or how Y lord of the realm should have responded to the traitorous actions of a friend. (My favorite example comes from this book when she takes the actions of a barely-tolerated visitor of Voltaire and Madame du Chatelet as an excuse to give well-bred parasites who live off a career of constantly visiting their richer, country-house owning friends a piece of her mind.) Their characters are drawn, cut up and pronounced Good For Nothing or quite the best fellow who ever lived without the slightest hint of the temporizing and presentation of both sides that professional historians think appropriate- all without ever descending into any sort of Victorian moralizing. Oh no, her verdicts are of a very practical, no-nonsense, English sort. This person understands how things are done and that one does not. One of her biggest pet peeves with the female consorts of powerful men is when they just do not understand how to properly manage them in order to keep their high-status companions at their side and grateful to be there. (La Pompadour, a personal hero of hers, earns plaudits for her savvy when she personally sets up and manages a whorehouse for the king after the sexual aspect of their relationship grows cold.) The manors, townhouses, courts and palaces of these eighteenth century folk are where she lives, mentally, if not physically. These biographies are written, often, like Richelieu, Madame Pompadour and Louis XIV are her personally known contemporaries whose various episodes she dissects with perfect, witty, dry detachment.
Voltaire in Love is another great example of this trend. Mitford had written biting, ironic asides about Voltaire before (“apt to bite the hand that fed him” is the one I remember being repeated), another example of those side characters you could tell she’d really rather write about that I wrote about in my review of the Sun King . So it wasn’t surprising to find that she’d chosen him as a subject.
What was interesting is that she chose, rather than making herself responsible for doing a biography for his whole life, to focus on only the part of his life that interested her: His nearly twenty year-long love affair with Emilie, the Marquise du Châtelet. I really liked that she did that- it let her talk about all the stuff she loves (illustrious, vaunted men and women creating their great works…. and committing very human acts of folly along the way), without giving herself the obligation to follow through with the conventions of biography if she doesn’t want to. Voltaire’s early life is got through rather quickly, with only the fun highlights to give us the broad brushes of his character and the atmosphere he grew up in. It’s clear that Arouet (his birth name- he gave himself the name Voltaire) was an irresponsible, narcissistic sort, who thought rather a lot of himself. Selfish, disinclined to work, thoughtless- he once tried to elope with a girl after he’d been packed off to The Hague as an unpaid attache so that he wouldn't cause any more scandals. In short, the sort of boy nobody wants their sons to hang out with. In the negative column, he was also the sort who dished it out but had a problem taking it back (something that would make him ridiculous socially and get him in trouble with the law repeatedly. Nancy does not approve of this, which makes sense- it does not fit her code of what the Right Sort Does). But he was, as we know, also smart, talented, perceptive, and determined- a fan of the Enlightenment, logic and scientific advances. He was a great proponent of Newton in France- something quite controversial in those Cartesian times. He repeatedly got into fights with other writers and critics, was easily offended, and went in and out of jail all of his life...
Oh, I can't. I'm so sorry, Mr. Aciman, but I just cannot sit with you right now. Your world is not mine, and you make absolutely no effort to welcome Oh, I can't. I'm so sorry, Mr. Aciman, but I just cannot sit with you right now. Your world is not mine, and you make absolutely no effort to welcome me to it. You must understand that I want nothing more than do let you guide me, but you don't want to do that. You want to tell me about how pleased you are that you are in this world, and you are not interested in relating to anyone who is not already inside it. Aside from the first essay about lavender (in which I found something true enough to make me want to keep reading), this was a book of status symbols disguised as travel essays. Even his essay on Monet and his love for a particular painting, which, I love essays about peoples' obsession with art- even that was really about how he had a better travel experience than you. He could speak the language, and met Real People who led him, coincidentally, to what he wanted. Complete with musings about how all travel should be random and spontaneous to truly fulfill us. He wrote about the Place des Vosges in Paris and name dropped some of my favorite French historical figures, but the real point of the essay was the fact that he was in Paris, and knew things that you didn't. He would move to Paris, you know, but there is just no TIME for that in his busy life of writing essays at ritzy resorts and traveling. Yes, that's why most of us don't move to Paris, Mr. Aciman. I sympathize.
Am I just envious? I don't know. I sound like I am a bit, don't I? I was thinking maybe I just resent reading about a man who's biggest problem is that he thinks he may have given erroneous directions to his gondolier in Venice, but doesn't want to sacrifice his cool pose enough to fix it. There's probably some element of that. But I think its really more about the purpose of these essays as contrasted to their presentation. This is a book about the reflections of a middle-aged man on the delicate nostalgia of his youth and the nuances and fleeting moments of meaning he seems to grab between plane flights and dinners on the Riveria. This is NOT a Fantasia of passions and European landscapes. It's about him. Which I thought would be fine after the first essay. I was even okay with that one about his childhood in Rome, as a kid who loved books and was too shy to talk to girls. But the rest of it where he tries to pretend that it is about travel, that's a problem because I think he gets what is important about travel wrong. I think he misses the good stuff. I do not care whether you went swimming at noon while tourists were out seeing things in Venice, thus making you like the native people who don't have to sightsee. Why on earth would you choose staying at your hotel and swimming to tell me about when you are in Venice, unless it was about how cool you are that you don't have to go see Venice? Lot of performance that I have no patience with. The priorities were off here, and I did not like it.
I don't know. I might revisit it later and try again. ...more
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