Books read, January 2015

[swan_tower]

This is belated on account of Own Book Eating Brain. This is also rather short on account of Own Book Eating Brain. And possibly shorter still on account of Own Book Eating Brain and Making Me Forget to Record Things. What I’m trying to say is, I didn’t read much in January (apart from some research stuff I’m not listing here), and I don’t remember half of what I read, so I’m having to recreate this post facto.

The King of Rabbits and Moon Lake, Eugie Foster. Last of Foster’s short story collections that I picked up after she passed away. Many of the things in here are folktale-ish, but not all; there’s one story (“The Adventures of Manny the Mailmobile”) about a robot, that doesn’t quite fit in tonally with the rest, and the others show a broader range in both tone and cultural source than Returning My Sister’s Face did. Since the folktale-ish stories are what I like best of Foster’s work, I was less pleased with this one than the other, but it still had some material I quite enjoyed.

The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss. I talked about the gender aspect here, but didn’t really say much about the book itself. I’m not sure how to say this without it coming across as a condemnation, which I do not intend, but: dear god Kvothe is the Mary Suest Mary Sue to ever Mary Sue. From now on, every time somebody complains about a female protagonist being an unrealistic Mary Sue, I want to hand them a copy of this novel with a post-it note on the cover saying “Your argument is invalid.” There is nothing wrong with occasionally wanting to enjoy a story about a hypercompetent super-genius; the wrongness or rightness of it should not change based on gender.

. . . I just went back to the gender thing, didn’t I. Um. I like Rothfuss’ world; the stuff with sygaldry and sympathy and naming is intriguing, and I am a sucker for that kind of thing. So ranting aside, I did enjoy this. (I wouldn’t have finished reading it if I didn’t.) Ranting once more calculated into the equation, though, I’m not sure whether I’ll read the second book or not.

Unbound, Jim Hines. Third of the Magic Ex Libris series, and ye GODS do not start here, because this is the culmination of a bunch of stuff from the first two books, Libriomancer and Codex Born. I do recommend it, though, if you like the kind of series that first presents you with an idea and then starts looking at it from different angles and breaking it and gluing it back together in new ways. Also, Hines deserves cookies for the single most awesome cipher concept I think I have ever seen. Watching Isaac work his way through that thing made me really wish I could see the text itself, just to appreciate the beauty of its design.

. . . that’s all I can remember, anyway. That may be all there was. Not a lot of spare brain in January, is what I’m saying.

Originally published at Swan Tower. You can comment here or there.

Comments

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I think that the whole point of Kvothe is that he absolutely is the Mary Sue-est Sue who ever Mary Sued -- and his life sucks. The whole point of the books, in my reading, is that being a Mary Sue actually doesn't make you happy.

There are a few books I like to point to to go, "Well, sure, but look at THIS book whose main character is a Mary Sue and is awesome." Tammy Pierce's SONG OF THE LIONESS, for instance -- both the King and the Head Rogue Who Is The Rogue-iest Of The Rogues want to marry her and she has a violet-eyed psychic magic cat. But, even if the Lioness Quartet are her weakest books, they STILL rise to the level of "awesome". And the Mary Russell Sherlock Holmes Is Actually Really Hot And He Totally Fell In Love With Me Because I'm The Only Person Who's Even Smarter Than He Is books. Again, awesome.

So, yeah. "Kvothe is a Gary Stu" is totally true and is generally accepted by fans of the book, but we put him in the "Alanna" and "Mary Russel" category of "it's a good book, and, indeed, it wouldn't work if the main character WASN'T a Mary Sue/Gary Stu."

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

I read it more as "he thinks he's a Mary Sue but he is unreliable as all hell anbd there are plenty of clues to how much he's not", fwiw.

Also, I'd add Francis Crawford of Lymond to your list, and his life sucks in some major ways, too.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

There are SO many fun discussions to be had about how unreliable he is, and what differences that makes to both the plot, and to the preponderance of men in the story, and to issues of male gaze, and all sorts of things.

Personally, I feel that he's GOT to be unreliable, and yet the bits which can be independently confirmed more-or-less check out, mostly...

I'm going to have to look up those Francis Crawford books. I'd not heard of them, so I just looked up the series in Wikipedia, and it looks fun.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

The Lymond Chronicles are amazing. I always provide a caveat, though, which is that Dunnett's style is rather opaque; don't be surprised if it takes you a little while to get into the rhythm of things.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Lymond is absolutely a Gary Stu. I have said elsewhere that the reasons I can tolerate him are a) he's also an ass sometimes, and other characters can and do call him on this fact, and b) despite all his brilliance, he still fails sometimes. Even sometimes when it really, really matters.

Kvothe's unreliability, as xiphias said, is a mixed bag. There are definitely places where he's talking himself up but the events he describes don't bear that out . . . but that usually applies to the small stuff, the incidentals, not the big deeds. I'm less concerned with him saying "I'm great at bargaining!" and then doing a mediocre job of it, and more concerned with him being the Youngest Student Evar and then being promoted in Even More Record Time, which seem to be objectively true. Or him spending years as a beggar on the streets, suffering multiple brutal beatings, and yet coming out of it with all his teeth apparently intact and no damage that can't be removed with a good bath. The narrative tries to undercut him, but it never seems to aim for the big points.

[landofnowhere]

I agree that Kvothe's a legit child prodigy -- and also lucky to have an excellent mentor when he was very young. His academic progress does also slow down later. (As I think I mentioned in a previous thread, the last time I reread NoTW, I was working at a summer camp with a lot of very smart kids, so I was probably less impressed by Kvothe's smarts than I should be.)

With Tarbean, there might well be some supernatural protection going on there, but I don't really know.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

The thing is, a lot of the female characters who get called Mary Sues are a) less unrealistically awesome than Kvothe and b) also have kind of sucky lives. I mean, yes, Alanna has three men in love with her and a violet-eyed psychic magic cat -- but she also works really hard to acquire her skills, and she suffers losses along the way, too. So she's much less of a Mary Sue to me than Kvothe, who basically masters everything in a blink. ("But he's an unreliable narrator" falls down when it seems to be confirmed fact that, for example, he was admitted to the University at a stupidly early age, and promoted within its ranks, too.)

[beccastareyes]

I really like Hines's cypher in Unbound because it was a mix of understanding the culture of the writer (and his intended readers) and astronomy. (I also figured out the astronomy bits, but for different reasons, though Hines primed me pretty well.)

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Yes, all the layers were just phenomenal.

[marycatelli]

I gave up on Name of the Wind because of the Mary Sue-ness.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

As others have said, there are places where you can see that you're meant to be taking this as Kvothe's version of the story, not necessarily objective reality. But even with that weighed in . . . yeeeeeeah.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

Have you read Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series? I've heard Richard there is pretty badly Mary Sue-ish.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I read the first book years ago; I don't remember it very well. Richard registered on me as a hell of a cliche, but not so much of a Mary Sue as Kvothe.