Latecomers and The Awakended Mage reviews
Jan. 27th, 2011 02:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearAnita Brookner's Latecomers is very much more a series of character studies than it is an actual story, but they are beautifully drawn character studies, presented in Brookner's exquisite language, which hooked me from the very first page.
My favourite quote actually appeared on Page 2 - "a mundane task supremely devised and carried out - the buying of cheese, for example - filled him with a sense of completion for which many more metaphysically inclined men might envy him." Fabulous stuff!
Its odd - the book contravenes pretty much everything in my Creative Writing Coursebook - there's almost no dialogue, it's told entirely in retrospect, taking each character in turn and telling their background, it's almost all stasis and no drama, almost all telling and no showing - and it it's completely absorbing. It's a rich, incredibly detailed and multi-layered presentation of six people and their intertwined lives.
The ending is very quiet and unassuming, very much in keeping with the tone of the rest of the book. In fact, nothing earth-shattering happens all the way through - but I loved it and will definitely be getting more of her books.
The Awakened Mage, by Karen Miller, on the other hand is dialogue-heavy and action-packed. It's the sequel to The innocent Mage, but I think a better description would be that it was really a 1250 page book that was summarily chopped in two, rather than actually two separate volumes. The second book carries on directly from the end of the first, to the very scene.
I mentioned the stylistic irritations of the first book, which are obviously repeated in the second. I also found it annoying that a lot of the chapter endings came mid-scene, with the following chapter continuing straight on with the next sentence - this made their placement rather arbitrary and annoyed me, as I like a chapter end to provide a convenient stopping place.
The story was still good, and the characters still very likeable, but I found my expectations of what would happen somewhat thwarted. The fact that the book is called The Awakened Mage suggested to me that it would be all about Asher coming to terms with his destiny and waging war against the evil encroaching upon his homeland. In fact, he doesn't find out about the prophecy or his role in it until the last hundred pages, after which everything concludes in rather a hurry. The incredible doom suggested by the prophet's visions doesn't manifest until right at the very end and is then dispatched rather abruptly, which undermined the sense of danger somewhat. I can't really complain about some of my favourite characters dying, since it would have been ridiculous if they'd all survived unscathed, but it was still a bit of a shame. There was also an unanswered question about the continuing survival of the evil, which seemed rather whitewashed over, and the epilogue describing the aftermath of the crisis was very brief and uninformative.
Overall, the plot rattled along at a goodly pace, the story was exciting and kept me reading, but I was glad it concluded in this second part, rahter than continuing on to a third, since I'm not sure it would have maintained my interest through another volume.
My favourite quote actually appeared on Page 2 - "a mundane task supremely devised and carried out - the buying of cheese, for example - filled him with a sense of completion for which many more metaphysically inclined men might envy him." Fabulous stuff!
Its odd - the book contravenes pretty much everything in my Creative Writing Coursebook - there's almost no dialogue, it's told entirely in retrospect, taking each character in turn and telling their background, it's almost all stasis and no drama, almost all telling and no showing - and it it's completely absorbing. It's a rich, incredibly detailed and multi-layered presentation of six people and their intertwined lives.
The ending is very quiet and unassuming, very much in keeping with the tone of the rest of the book. In fact, nothing earth-shattering happens all the way through - but I loved it and will definitely be getting more of her books.
The Awakened Mage, by Karen Miller, on the other hand is dialogue-heavy and action-packed. It's the sequel to The innocent Mage, but I think a better description would be that it was really a 1250 page book that was summarily chopped in two, rather than actually two separate volumes. The second book carries on directly from the end of the first, to the very scene.
I mentioned the stylistic irritations of the first book, which are obviously repeated in the second. I also found it annoying that a lot of the chapter endings came mid-scene, with the following chapter continuing straight on with the next sentence - this made their placement rather arbitrary and annoyed me, as I like a chapter end to provide a convenient stopping place.
The story was still good, and the characters still very likeable, but I found my expectations of what would happen somewhat thwarted. The fact that the book is called The Awakened Mage suggested to me that it would be all about Asher coming to terms with his destiny and waging war against the evil encroaching upon his homeland. In fact, he doesn't find out about the prophecy or his role in it until the last hundred pages, after which everything concludes in rather a hurry. The incredible doom suggested by the prophet's visions doesn't manifest until right at the very end and is then dispatched rather abruptly, which undermined the sense of danger somewhat. I can't really complain about some of my favourite characters dying, since it would have been ridiculous if they'd all survived unscathed, but it was still a bit of a shame. There was also an unanswered question about the continuing survival of the evil, which seemed rather whitewashed over, and the epilogue describing the aftermath of the crisis was very brief and uninformative.
Overall, the plot rattled along at a goodly pace, the story was exciting and kept me reading, but I was glad it concluded in this second part, rahter than continuing on to a third, since I'm not sure it would have maintained my interest through another volume.
