Book Talk (Light)

Not 'lite', at least, but not regular-strength book babble either, as I'm feeling pretty essence-of-dregs physically and mentally. But I have read some fantastic books lately, and one that is universally acknowledged to be the winner for every Austen fan which wasn't for me - at all - though I'll save the latter and some of the former until I can write a bit coherently.

First, I want to say a little about Martine Leavitt's The Dollmage, which was a truly lovely loan on the part of emmaco. (Not only did she loan me a hard-to-get-hold-of and treasured book, she remembered that I hadn't read it and brought it with her when we met up. That's impressive!) (I can only barely remember what I have read these days, let alone what my friends have read.) She told me I was free to say whatever I felt about it, even if I hated it. (More generosity of spirit!). I didn't hate it at all. I loved the magic, which was very different, and thought the story was also original and interesting. Yes, there IS a 'but' coming, but it may not be the type of 'but' that's expected. Without naming any names or lists, I remember the first time I heard about this book, when someone not at all prone to hyperbole said she felt as if her heart had been torn out and handed back to her, gift-wrapped, after reading it. And virtually everyone else who's read it (well, that I've seen talk about it) has described strong emotional responses, if not necessarily that strong. My puzzle is that it seems to me to have been written in a manner which deliberately forces a bit of distance, rather than a huge emotional engagement. Because it's not written through the POV of the heroine, Annakey, but through the old dollmage's narration of the story - of her village and people, as well as of Annakey, we're told a lot about Annakey's behaviour and responses to her ill-treatment. Although the act of telling the story honestly is the Dollmage's redemption, she's never a sympathetic character, and seeing the shining purity of Annakey through her resentful and bitter view actually made me like Annakey less. Admittedly, I can be a cranky old bat, and clearly my response wasn't the typical one, but there it is. I could see why people think it's very good - I had a harder time seeing why they fell in love with it...

Conversely, I started Emma Bull's Territory pretty much grumbling - though not aloud - that if it had been almost anyone other than Emma Bull writing about Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday in Tombstone I'd have happily avoided it, thank you very much. And it did take a certain amount of time for me to get into it - couldn't keep the characters straight for the life of me, especially the Earp brothers and their wives - but then I was totally hooked. The way the fantasy was mixed in with the real historical -> mythic story was wonderful, and I loved the two main (fictional) characters, Jesse Fox and Mildred Benjamin. Mildred is a young Jewish widow who works for a newspaper as a typesetter and secretly writes sensation stories for magazines. Is that enough detail to convince everyone this is wonderful stuff? It should be! Jesse Fox came to Tombstone 'answering' a call from a Chinese doctor/magician, determined to avoid accepting his own magical abilities, for very understandable reasons, which gradually become clear. Mildred becomes friends with the Earp brothers' wives - ostracized by the good people of Tombstone and treated miserably by their husbands, under the domineering lead of Wyatt, and they're the first people she tells of her writing.

Even after I'd finally caved in and done a Wiki-aided brush-up on who the historical characters were, and where their story might head, I was still surprised time and again - and moved, and intrigued and convinced. Perfectly good ending, in the sense that it's not a cliff-hanger with 'Buy the Next in Three Years to Find out if Our Hero/ine Survives the Fall' plastered after the last page, but I so. Want. More. And - huzzah! - there's more to come.