Month: October 2012

Blog Hop: Banned Books

On By cherylmahoneyIn Blog Hop, Ruminations20 Comments

As regular readers know, I tend to bounce between different features on Fridays.  This week, I’m trying something new–the Book Blogger Hop, inviting book bloggers to answer a book-related question each week, and “hop” amongst the other blogs that are participating.  Normally hosted at Crazy for Books, this week it’s traveling to Soon Remembered Tales.  Today’s question is:

Banned Books Week ends on the 6th. How do you feel about books being challenged to be banned from libraries or schools? Have you read any banned books?

I have to admit I have never got all that worked up about banned books.  Of course I’m against censorship, but banning a book just seems pointless–especially now when you can get anything you like on Amazon, and banning a book usually just gives it more publicity.  I’ve never read a banned book because it was banned, although of course I’ve read books that have been banned at one time or another.  The Giver and Huckleberry Finn both come to mind.

My favorite topic in relation to banned books is the silly reasons books get banned.  If someone wanted to ban Huckleberry Finn for language, I wouldn’t approve but at least it would make some kind of sense.  But I’ve actually heard of it being banned for nudity (because one line mentions Huck and Jim aren’t wearing clothes on the raft–because they’re on a raft).  Or I’ve heard of it being banned because Huck rejects God.  Which has to be a complete misread of the beautiful moment when Huck decides he’ll go to Hell if that’s the consequences of rescuing Jim from slavery.

My favorite banned book story…some librarian wanted to ban Tarzan because Tarzan and Jane are living together in the jungle without being married.  And that isn’t even correct!  I’ve no idea what the details are in various adaptations, but in the original Edgar Rice Burroughs book, there’s a wedding on the last two pages–to quote, Jane’s father “was an ordained minister in his younger days.”  I find this all particularly funny because one of the hallmarks of Edgar Rice Burroughs books are completely chaste romances.

I know a lot of people have much stronger feelings about banned books than me.  Thoughts?  Stories?  What’s the stupidest reason you’ve ever heard for a book being banned?

Austen and Bronte and Magicians

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Reviews11 Comments

My next book for the R. I. P. Challenge is The Magicians and Mrs. Quent by Galen Beckett, which mostly comes into the category in the book’s second part.  I became interested because this was described as a blending of Austen and Bronte, in a fantasy world–and that’s exactly what it is!

The book is divided into three sections.  Book One is told by three narrators in rotating chapters.  We meet Ivy first, a young woman fascinated by magick [sic].  Her beloved father was a magician who has gone out of his mind; Ivy comes to realize that magick may relate to the cause, and also that he left her a riddle to solve, relating to vital work she must do.  Rafferdy is another narrator, a bored and cynical nobleman interested only in amusement and determined to do no harm by having no meaningful effect on the world at all.  Our third narrator is Eldyn, who is striving to create a better life for himself and his sister, but in the process falls into the power of a ruthless highwayman and revolutionary.

The personal stories of all three characters roll out against a backdrop of brewing revolution and a growing magical threat, which Ivy in particular must find a way to combat.

Book One has us very much in Austenland.  Book Two takes a dramatic shift towards Bronte, when Ivy accepts a position as governess at Heathcrest Hall, a gloomy manor out on the moors.  There’s a not too subtle resemblance in the premise to Jane Eyre, and Heathcrest Hall is presided over by Mr. Quent, who bears a not too subtle resemblance to Mr. Rochester.  Book Two is strictly about Ivy, and told by her in first person.  The book takes on a gothic feel, out on the misty moor where strange magick is afoot.

Book Three takes us back to the setting and narrative structure of Book One, as all the characters’ plotlines come to a head.

This book started slow for me, but I ended up really enjoying it.  In the first section, I was mostly only drawn into Ivy’s chapters.  Rafferdy and Eldyn are interesting, but they weren’t engaging me that much. The book picked up in the second section, when the plot gets more focused, and we get much more magick.  (And I have no idea why it’s spelled with a K, but it is.)

The book is set in Invarel, which is a very obvious parallel to England.  All the names are changed, but there are frequently details that are clear analogs; for instance, the brewing revolution centers around an obvious Bonny Prince Charlie equivalent.  There is the difference, of course, of the presence of magical forces, which exist in a few different varieties.  There are magicians who can work certain complex spells.  There are illusionists, who mostly work their marvels in theatres.  And there are witches, who have an affinity for the Wyrdwood, an ancient forest spread throughout the country and which, legends say, will fight back against its enemies.

All the magick is intriguing, although in a way what grabbed me the most was scientific (sort of).  The other biggest difference between Invarel and England is that Invarel’s planet is in a solar system which operates very differently from ours.  The crucial result is that they don’t have days and nights of set length.  People have to constantly check their almanacs to see how long the day will be–maybe four hours of daylight, maybe twenty-eight.  I was fascinated by the concept, and by all the details about how society can function under those circumstances.  I kind of wish there had been more of that!  I’ve seen at least one reviewer complain that it didn’t make sense and that’s probably true–but that didn’t worry me.  It was just so interesting!

The world of The Magicians and Mrs. Quent is an intriguing one, and I was also drawn into the characters.  As mentioned, it started slow for me, but Rafferdy eventually gains some depth and Eldyn’s plotline gets more intense.  I enjoyed Ivy from the beginning; her family circumstances and her character are both reminiscent of Elizabeth Bennet.  She’s a capable, intelligent, well-read young woman who is nevertheless constrained by her position in society.

I was essentially playing “spot the Austen character” all through Book One.  Ivy’s parents and two younger sisters all seem drawn from the Bennet household, and you can also find Lady Catherine de Burgh, Mr. Collins, and even Mr. Palmer from Sense and Sensibility.  There may be more–I’ve only read three Austen books.

I suspect this book is more fun if you’re familiar with both Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre, although I don’t think it’s essential.  It draws from them for the characters, and the circumstances those characters find themselves in (Ivy especially), but the plot goes in a different direction from either book.  If you don’t have the background knowledge, you could probably just take this as-is and be interested.

The style of the writing is also drawn from Austen and Bronte, although rarely in a heavy-handed way.  You can see it right in the first sentence: “It was generally held knowledge among the people who lived on Whitward Street that the eldest of the three Miss Lockwells had a peculiar habit of reading while walking.”  A few times I thought Beckett was trying too hard to make the dialogue sound Austenish and it came out stilted, but most of the time it’s a nice flavor in a very readable book.  Except, that is, when Beckett picked up Austen’s teeth-gnashing habit of skipping lightly past romantic declarations without any dialogue!  I always want to know what they said, not just the narrative fact that they said it!  Sigh.  On the plus side, near the very end of the book we get a little more Bronte-style adorable romantic teasing dialogue, so I was somewhat mollified.

All in all, I’d say, be warned that this may take some effort at the beginning, but it really is worth continuing.  I recommend this if you like fantasy, and highly recommend it if you like Austen and Bronte.  I know I’ll be going on to read the next two books!  This one gives us resolution, but there are still mysteries to be explored.  I may also be rereading Jane Eyre soon…

Author’s Site: http://wyrdwood.net

Other reviews:
Fyrefly’s Book Blog
Kid Lit Geek
Stewartry
Things Mean a Lot
Stella Matutina
Anyone else?

Quotable Somerset Maugham

On By cherylmahoneyIn Quotable1 Comment

“To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.”

– Somerset Maugham

Sailing Back to Treasure Island

On By cherylmahoneyIn Historical Fiction, Reviews2 Comments

I think we all know that pirates are kind of an interest for me.  So naturally I was intrigued by the prospect of a sequel to one of the great classic pirate stories, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island.  Often I have big objections to sequels to classics, but this particular classic falls into a nice middle area, where I’m interested, but I’m not so attached that I hold it too sacred for a new author to attempt a story.

Silver: Return to Treasure Island by Andrew Motion is told by a different Jim Hawkins, the son of the original.  This Jim is eighteen years old and thoroughly sick of his father’s stories about his glory days on Treasure Island.  Nevertheless, he can’t resist following when he’s approached by Natty, the daughter of Long John Silver.  Natty’s dying father has prepared a new expedition to Treasure Island.  Jim steals his father’s map, and he and Natty set off, hoping to find a cache of silver that the last expedition left behind.

What they find are ghosts of the past–the nephew of a man the original Jim Hawkins killed; three pirates marooned by the last party, now inflicting barbarities on a group of castaways; and always the looming memories of the first Jim Hawkins and of Long John Silver.

This story stands largely on its own, with almost the entire cast consisting of new characters, and an entirely new plot.  The events of the previous book are obviously essential, though, so I wouldn’t read this without any knowledge of the original.  That said, I think even a small knowledge would be enough, such as a familiarity with a retelling (and while we’re on that subject, Muppet Treasure Island is my favorite version!)

The writing is excellent here.  There’s a formality to it that harkens back to the original book, without going too far and sounding stiff to a modern audience.  There are wonderful descriptions, particularly of nature, which is described not only in terms of appearance but very much in mood, sometimes being almost anthropomorphized.

Jim (the younger) is a thoughtful character, who explores his own feelings and motivations, and makes interesting observations on other characters as well.  Natty is a wilder character and harder to read, but there are glimpses that make her engaging and demonstrate her complexity.

We only get a little of Jim the older, and of Long John Silver, but something interesting happens with them.  I feel I have to give a little context here–in almost every adaptation I’ve seen, there’s a complicated relationship between Jim and Long John, a love-hate situation where Long John plays almost a fatherly role.  In the original, Jim pretty much sees Long John as a devious pirate and it’s all much simpler (and less interesting).  Here, Jim describes the relationship as the book tells it–but Long John seems to remember it as the more complex relationship that we see in adaptations.  It’s an interesting balance.

The adventures in the book are tense and exciting.  There are stretches that are quieter, but the action is good when it comes.  This gets pretty dark in spots, but never quite goes too far.  It’s obvious there are very horrible things happening on Treasure Island, and there isn’t much doubt about what–but we never got it in such detail as to be too awful.  It does edge up very close to a disturbing area though, so reader beware!  There are also some hints at the very beginning of something quite odd in Natty and Long John’s relationship, but that’s never elaborated on–which to be honest, I thought was just as well!

I did think the book mis-stepped in other places by not elaborating, as Motion mostly avoids the thornier issues.  Long John Silver is married to “a colored woman,” I think based on a reference in the original book, which means Natty is mixed race.  In 1802, she would have faced enormous prejudice because of that; here, it’s skated right past.  When Jim finds out, he remarks once that it doesn’t change how much he’s drawn to her, and that’s all.  While that’s certainly admirable of him (by modern standards), it feels anachronistic.  History’s attitudes may disturb a modern reader, but this reaction in a young white man of the early 1800s makes Jim almost impossibly progressive.

The situation is similar when slavery comes up (and it plays a significant part in the plot).  All the good characters are apparently abolitionists, with no need to even discuss the question–even though this is five years before England ended the slave trade, and 30 years before slavery was outlawed in the British Empire.  Of course I don’t think the immorality of slavery is a complicated question, but it should have been a complicated one for characters living in 1802, and I think Motion oversimplified.

I won’t say that the simplification spoiled my reading of the book by any means–but I think this was a good book that had the potential to delve a little deeper, and in a way that would have been more realistic.

This is definitely worth the read if you like historical fiction about pirates and buried treasure, and especially if you enjoy the original.  Which I also recommend–along with Muppet Treasure Island. 🙂

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book for free from the publishers in exchange for an honest review.

Other reviews:
Minding Spot
A Bookworm’s World
Man of La Book
The Literateur
Anyone else?