So here we prove three points. The first, that my system of “read only what has been recommended to you” only works insofar as I have established some significant congruence between my tastes and he who does the recommending. The second, that I am not quite so compulsive as to complete a book when it is offering me no apparent reward in doing so. The third point is two-fold, if that’s not overly belaboring my already overloaded address, in that I am both not afraid to pan a book in this log and that not even not completing the book will prevent me from offering an assault upon it. This book is a sad waste of its setting and premise. Amongst the forests, fields, and fortresses deep in the Dark Ages of England, Follet paints a color-blind portrait of priests, peasants, and princesses whom no amount of alliteration could make interesting. Tom the Builder dreams only of constructing a cathedral someday, and makes not a single sensible decision that we the reader are exposed to in pursuit of this dream. His loved ones die and are driven away because he is too blind to see the circumstances that will lead to their loss. Ellen, the hyper-competent and over-educated yet-still-strikingly-beautiful witch woman of the forest should be highly motivated with the background ascribed to her, and yet she seems to be willing to let events carry her along, making rash decisions for no apparent reason and acting like an impulsive child. Aliena the Earl’s daughter is beautiful, independent-minded, and nearly as interesting as a colorful fungus growing on a fallen tree. Philip, prodigal young monk with a troubled childhood, is the only vaguely interesting character, yet he manages to spoil that with a truly unbelievable level of naivete, being nearly foiled at every turn by the simplest and most transparent of plots and maneuverings. Here we have a story set in interesting times, with at its center an interesting construction (the building of a new cathedral to replace one that has burnt down), and with a cast that should have interesting stories to tell, and yet 400 pages into it I find myself uttering the eight deadly words of fiction review: “I don’t care what happens to these characters.” The plotting is transparent, except where the heavy doses of Deus Ex Machina are administered, the characterization is miserable (we are treated to dark-haired villains with names like “Waleran Bigod”), there is an entirely too vivid rape scene, and I cannot muster a reason why I should continue reading this instead of re-reading Kay’s similar but much more interesting “Sarantine Mosaic.” So I recommend that instead.
The Pillars of the Earth
January 16th, 2005Tooth and Claw
January 9th, 2005Jo Walton is one of those many people that I’ve observed from a distance for some time. She posts to newsgroups I read and occasionally post at, and likewise blogs. She’s one of those fandom success stories, I suppose…folks you see around for a while and then *bam*, hey, they’re published. I wasn’t overwhelmed by Jo’s first book (Koz pretty much sums it up), but the premise of this one sounded right up my alley. What could be done to a world to make it so that the ridiculously over-complicated rigors of idealized Victorian society made sense? Change the species. Make these creatures gain significant strength from consuming the flesh of their foes and their lessers to explain the fiercely delimited class distinctions. Make the covetousness of wealth an actual necessity of their comfort and lifestyle. Invent a delicate mechanism whereby females can be “married” simply by allowing a male to be too physically close to them, thus calling for constant chaperoning of unwed maidens. Walton’s solution, in short, is to make this a world populated by dragons. I remember that I used to find books to read by going through the library’s card catalog and just picking out everything that matched certain keywords and was over 200 pages (anything less than that I would have finished too quickly for it to hold my interest, which seems like an odd, inverted side-effect of ADD, but there you go). I could easily see this coming up in one of those searches, and the joy it would have given me to find it that way. This is an excellent light-reading book, with enough depth in the world building that you don’t feel like you’re reading absolute trash. The two young maidens whose fate is one of the primary plot-drivers would be depressingly simpering and maudlin for most of the book (some development is seen towards the end, at least), if it weren’t for the perfect reasonableness of that behavior in their world. It also helps that most of the other females presented are either strong matrons or one impressively assertive “fallen” maiden, thus leaving one with some hope for their future. Chad and Koz both asserted that the end of the book felt rushed or a little too pat, but I felt rather that it was thoroughly forecast, and perhaps overly so, but I suspect that is a convention of the genre which Walton is paying an homage to/parodying. In any case, for something that is mostly light and fun, I wouldn’t look for a lengthy ending or lots of untied ends to hold one’s interest. I hope it’s a good omen to start a booklog with such a pleasant book. Highly recommended.