Clariel by Garth Nix
Apr. 19th, 2015 09:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lightreads3/5. Later written but chronologically long ago prequel to the Old Kingdom books. So the usual – a teenager flung into magic and court politics.
This book fooled me nearly to the end. I assumed I had it figured out from page 1. Our protagonist was immature and self-centered, willfully disinterested in the justice or injustice of the struggle she is dropped into. But she'd grow up quick enough and take up the responsibilities thrust upon her, and blah blah blah, I thought. And then I was kind of bored, because she wasn't doing that, and she wasn't doing that, and the whole book was sort of shallow and blinkered and angry, and not what I've come to expect from Nix. Did he lose his form, I wondered?
And then around the 85% mark I sat up and said oh quite loudly, because I'd suddenly realized what book I was actually reading. And that book uses its shallowness to fool you – under the surface, it is sad and frightening. And – not compassionate. But kind, in a clinical 'this, too, shall be told' kind of way.
Not the story I thought it was at all. Did I enjoy it? Sort of. But I wasn't supposed to, not exactly. Or my unthinking enjoyment was supposed to have the rug yanked out from under it in favor of something much more complicated.
This book fooled me nearly to the end. I assumed I had it figured out from page 1. Our protagonist was immature and self-centered, willfully disinterested in the justice or injustice of the struggle she is dropped into. But she'd grow up quick enough and take up the responsibilities thrust upon her, and blah blah blah, I thought. And then I was kind of bored, because she wasn't doing that, and she wasn't doing that, and the whole book was sort of shallow and blinkered and angry, and not what I've come to expect from Nix. Did he lose his form, I wondered?
And then around the 85% mark I sat up and said oh quite loudly, because I'd suddenly realized what book I was actually reading. And that book uses its shallowness to fool you – under the surface, it is sad and frightening. And – not compassionate. But kind, in a clinical 'this, too, shall be told' kind of way.
Not the story I thought it was at all. Did I enjoy it? Sort of. But I wasn't supposed to, not exactly. Or my unthinking enjoyment was supposed to have the rug yanked out from under it in favor of something much more complicated.
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Date: 2015-04-20 03:59 pm (UTC)And somehow it managed to do it in a way that wasn't all tropey and tragic and schmoopy (you know, the fannishly-friendly way of doing this premise). I think that is tied into how she was fairly annoying.
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Date: 2015-04-20 11:15 pm (UTC)Yeah. On the one hand, I was impressed with the job he did and the thought involved. On the other hand, well. See above re not actually enjoying a lot of it. I feel like this is the YA fantasy version of a lot of lit fiction.
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Date: 2015-04-22 05:19 am (UTC)