Archer's Goon by Diana Wynne Jones
Jun. 19th, 2021 07:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lightreadsArcher's Goon
3/5. The one about Howard, whose father is supposed to produce 2,000 words every quarter for a mysterious personage, or else, and the or else gets his family entangled in a set of seven mysterious alien siblings controlling the town.
This is a weird one. It's making a subtle but strange point about the difference between unpleasant people who are sympathetic and interesting, and unpleasant people who are not. The difference being self-awareness. Howard knows he has the potential to be a twit, and he definitely sees the dark road his sister* (named Awful, just in case you missed it) could go down. But his father is a raging twit and has no idea, and is rendered insufferable thereby. That's some complex stuff for a kid's book, which is typical DWJ. But it's not all that much fun to read about.
*I gloss her as genderqueer, btw. You can make a pretty good case for it in the text, though it's clearly not what DWJ actually intended.
3/5. The one about Howard, whose father is supposed to produce 2,000 words every quarter for a mysterious personage, or else, and the or else gets his family entangled in a set of seven mysterious alien siblings controlling the town.
This is a weird one. It's making a subtle but strange point about the difference between unpleasant people who are sympathetic and interesting, and unpleasant people who are not. The difference being self-awareness. Howard knows he has the potential to be a twit, and he definitely sees the dark road his sister* (named Awful, just in case you missed it) could go down. But his father is a raging twit and has no idea, and is rendered insufferable thereby. That's some complex stuff for a kid's book, which is typical DWJ. But it's not all that much fun to read about.
*I gloss her as genderqueer, btw. You can make a pretty good case for it in the text, though it's clearly not what DWJ actually intended.
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Date: 2021-06-20 04:35 am (UTC)I have always liked it so much for the way that some of the most selfish people are some of the best without necessarily becoming less selfish: Torquil, Awful, Hathaway. They're not selfish-horrid like Venturus or Shine, but they don't have reformation arcs. They're selfish people who can feel love and make sacrifices for others, as opposed to nothing but self-glorification.
no subject
Date: 2021-06-20 11:00 am (UTC)Yes, I think that thinking only of the self is the great unforgivable in this book. See Quentin, who is notably oblivious of the abortive love triangle that is screamingly obvious to absolutely everyone else.