spinning something out of nothing
Oct. 24th, 2007 01:12 amI had some free time today (slow day at work), so I walked over to the student union, studied for a bit, then pulled out The Lions of Al-Rassan. In the eight days I've had this book, I've managed to read 38 pages. ^^; SAD, I know. Partly it's because my copy is an inconveniently large hardcover. But also it occurred to me, today, as I was slowly and with a lot of distractions making my way through the second chapter, that another reason I hadn't made much progress was that I'd been thinking of the author as the enemy. And Guy Gavrial Kay is Definitely Not the Enemy.
...He has a thing about powerful men. And I, uh, don't. ^^; And he's a man, so I'd been associating him with the male half of an obvious romantic subplot: Ammar ibn Kairan, whose aptitude for command is matched only by his amusement at the antics of the less powerful (the heroine, for example). And, you know, one character of this type could be explained statistically, but there's also Captain Rodrigo -- an obviously good man, whereas what Ammmar is probably supposed to be is a mystery, though I'll be very surprised if he doesn't turn out to be a good man too, but nevermind: the point is, Rodrigo is another one of those self-assured types.
But it is a mistake to identify Guy Gavriel Kay with these men, because if anything, he is more easily identified with Alvar de Pellino, the fresh-faced army recruit who hero-worships Captain Rodrigo.
...You can't quite say the heroine, Jehane bet Ishak, although she is the one who gets the romantic subplot (with Amar).
In conclusion,
1. There are much worse things to read than psuedo-historical, borderline-romance fantasy novels whose leading males are not of my preferred type (to put it mildly).
2. I swear I don't spend all my time reading novels psycho-analyzing the author.
3. I'm also not the kind of reader who will automatically fail an author for lazy worldbuilding, but: moon-worshiping Jews? Star-worshipping Muslims? Sun-worshiping Christians? While I don't want to descend to Sigmund Freud levels of wank (he wrote a book near the end of his life about how the Jewish emphasis on abstract argument makes the Jews uniquely suited for careers in law), I really don't think you can alter the central tenants of a belief system and still expect the practitioners of that belief system to occupy the exact same rung on the socio-economic ladder. It's like he changes what he wants, without thinking about the consequences, and then borrows from history to make the world feel "real". (But it amused me that the Christians are the horse-riding barbarians.)
4. I reserve the right to change my opinion on this book at any time. (For example, after I've read more than the first fourty-five pages...)
...He has a thing about powerful men. And I, uh, don't. ^^; And he's a man, so I'd been associating him with the male half of an obvious romantic subplot: Ammar ibn Kairan, whose aptitude for command is matched only by his amusement at the antics of the less powerful (the heroine, for example). And, you know, one character of this type could be explained statistically, but there's also Captain Rodrigo -- an obviously good man, whereas what Ammmar is probably supposed to be is a mystery, though I'll be very surprised if he doesn't turn out to be a good man too, but nevermind: the point is, Rodrigo is another one of those self-assured types.
But it is a mistake to identify Guy Gavriel Kay with these men, because if anything, he is more easily identified with Alvar de Pellino, the fresh-faced army recruit who hero-worships Captain Rodrigo.
...You can't quite say the heroine, Jehane bet Ishak, although she is the one who gets the romantic subplot (with Amar).
In conclusion,
1. There are much worse things to read than psuedo-historical, borderline-romance fantasy novels whose leading males are not of my preferred type (to put it mildly).
2. I swear I don't spend all my time reading novels psycho-analyzing the author.
3. I'm also not the kind of reader who will automatically fail an author for lazy worldbuilding, but: moon-worshiping Jews? Star-worshipping Muslims? Sun-worshiping Christians? While I don't want to descend to Sigmund Freud levels of wank (he wrote a book near the end of his life about how the Jewish emphasis on abstract argument makes the Jews uniquely suited for careers in law), I really don't think you can alter the central tenants of a belief system and still expect the practitioners of that belief system to occupy the exact same rung on the socio-economic ladder. It's like he changes what he wants, without thinking about the consequences, and then borrows from history to make the world feel "real". (But it amused me that the Christians are the horse-riding barbarians.)
4. I reserve the right to change my opinion on this book at any time. (For example, after I've read more than the first fourty-five pages...)