Memory & Dream

[kyrielle]

Still reading this. For reference, I normally finish a book in 2-4 nights, if reading steadily. Often if reading and doing other things. For reference, I started this on September 4, a week and a half ago. Books started on weekends are often finished the same day; this one has survived two weekends.

It's uncomfortable, sometimes annoying, and it tries to play on sympathy you don't yet feel for the main character too early - it's harsh, for want of a better word, and very annoying. I find myself flipping ahead, even when I don't need to stop soon, as I try to see if it's a short distance to the next stopping-point, so I can force myself to read more. It is easy to stop at the end of a chapter - I will not pick it up again tonight; I am at the end of a chapter and the cliff-hanger details annoy me as much as they draw me in. I simply do not want to face the new chapter. The story is now interesting to me and I do want to know, but it is still wearying even if de Lint has finally built the empathy he was trying to claim on early on.

So far, I do not like this book, although after 170-some pages I no longer feel the antipathy I did for it at first. Since about page 100 or 150, I can imagine finishing this book, which was inconceivable at first. I kept forcing myself to read a bit further, because people had told me it was good, and more, because this character is somewhat like my idea for a character in a game, and I wanted to see what it was like, how it played out.

I do not say it is a bad book. I suspect it may even be that I will think it good by the end. But it is not a book I can recommend to anyone; the start of it is pure torture, and even now I find it irritating at the same time that I find it interesting. It draws me in because I want to know the answers, not because I am enjoying the story itself; not that it's a bad story, but I find myself convinced that I do not want to know what is around the next page, because the author has spent quite a bit of time convincing me that it will be painful, upsetting, or at best, neutral. The pull of the story lies in the desire for answers, and it creates a disjoint thing that might not work if cast normally, and is annoying for how it is done.

Which is to say that, yes, I'm obsessing over the story, and even the book; I want to know; and because I find the tone, pacing, presentation, and material of the story dissonant and annoying, I am frustrated with the fact that I nonetheless now really want to know what happens. I still hope that by the end of the book, I shall be converted and like it. But I also fear that, because it might cause me to recommend it to others and, really, I do not believe it could be worth the price of to claw past those first pages, nor, even if it is, do I believe that others might not give up and wonder at my sanity, on facing them. I nearly did, and I am somewhat impressed I did not.

Comments

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Interesting. My objection to the book is rather different -- let me know when you finish it.

I think my favorite of his at present is Someplace to be Flying.

I do recommend a completely different book, The Great Good Thing, by Roderick Townley. Also Gene Wolfe's The Knight, but Wolfe is kind of an acquired taste. I like him, but many don't.

[kyrielle]

Finished; wrote up commentary in a new post (don't know if you are following or skimming, and I tend to talk a ton, I know).

I'd be curious to hear your objection, and whether it matches with any of the ones I ended it with. :P

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

I thought that the rhetoric of the book positively demanded tragedy. There's so much emphasis on how the dead character wrote stories that Didn't Always Have Happy Endings. And the ending of this book was all sweetness and light.

Now, de Lint didn't cheat. The one rabbit he pulled out of a hat, the painting over a painting trick, he set up fair and square. But nothing is lost, not even the dead woman, who gets to go off with a ghost of Izzy. Too cutsy.

Mm, also, when I was reading it, I thought Jillian was coded as sinister. She's not; she's one of de Lint's favorite characters, and she's a bit of a problem for me in that she delivers whatever moral de Lint holds at the moment, never mind whether it's consistent with anything else. I don't think she's in Someplace to Be Flying, which is one of my favorite of de Lint's.

[kyrielle]

*nods* I didn't really register Jillian, except as fluff, honestly. The ending was a cheat, in my opinion - he betrayed the very tone of the story he'd set up, and he also shot holes in any attempt to justify what I feel was an unacceptable bending of believability in order to get Izzy into worse and worse trouble...which is DOUBLY indefensible when he then gets her OUT of it in completely unbelievable fashion!

I want to crawl into the book and stab Izzy a bit harder at the end, just to make sure it ends right. That, and she really, REALLY got on my nerves. :P