Fire and Death
Oct. 31st, 2019 02:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearI finished the audiobook of Fire by Kristen Cashore this week. It's set in the same universe as Graceling, but takes place a couple of decades before that book and is about an almost entirely different set of characters. Instead of the protagonist having a particular enhanced skill and being one among many people who do, Fire is one of a kind, a human 'monster' who bedazzles people with her beauty and charisma.
The prologue to the book connects it to Graceling by following that book's main antagonist as a child growing up across the mountains. It has a fable-type quality to the prose, much more telling than showing, and seems an odd place to start the story. Then, once we are introduced to Fire, the plot seems quite slow and repetitive, with very little actually happening apart from Fire having to deal with the problems of her heritage over and over again.
Whereas Graceling touched on the issue of domestic violence from the point of view of a female character having little control over her temper and physial reactions to things, Fire looks at the way women are blamed for provoking abuse against them due to their appearance and/or behaviour. The character of Fire does have a demonstrable effect on the way people treat her - but since some are able to defend against it and some react with devotion rather than violence, the implication is that she is not to blame for those who attack her.
Not much actually happens, but it's a story of self-discovery and self-acceptance rather than action. The subplot involving the antagonist from Graceling felt very tacked-on to me, as if it's only purpose was to connect this book to the previous one, rather than actually having much impact on the plot.
There's a satisfying amount of emotional resolution after the climax to the main story, though, which is always good, in my view. Plus, I liked a lot of the characters and the devlopments of the various relationships was interesting. I'll definitely listen to the third in this series, as it's about my favourite character from the first book, though this second one didn't engage me all that much.
I also read Life After Life by Kate Atkinson this week, which is very engaging and masterfully contstructed. It tells the story of Ursula, who relives her life over and over again, starting in February 1910 and progressing to various points throughout the 20th century, depending on how long she survives. She doesn't really know it's happening, other than experiencing a sense of doom when she approaches previously dangerous situations, which allows her to avoid her prior deaths and move on the next time around. She also experiences a lot of what she believes is deja vu, resulting in her parents sending her to a psychiatrist in several looops.
The lives Ursula lives are not extraordinary in any way other than there being many of them - but her various different navigations of both Worlds Wars, her relationships with her family and friends, and her romantic liaisons are all very involving and immersive.
I particularly like the sections where she gets essentially stuck at various points and it takes her a few goes around to find a way past those incidents. I also like the way the books sets up its format and then subverts expectations in various ways, by telling one life in a lot more detail or by Ursula avoiding what initially looks like an obvious death. The first time she gets past the age of sixteen, her subsequent life is desperately sad - I kept waiting for her to die but it just went on and on, and got worse and worse, until I was actually hoping for her death so she could start again and avoid those tragedies the next time around. Her sense of self-blame at the unwanted attentions of various men in some of the loops is horribly believable and very well written.
The book goes to some very surprising places and is also extremely grim at times (particularly in the sections during the Blitz). I was wholly invested all the way through and very intrigued to see where it would end up. I found the conclusion a bit disappointing, though, as I was hoping for some kind of definitive or significant end point, and didn't get it. But perhaps the point of the story is that you just have to do the best you can with the time you have, and that it's impossible to 'get things right' in any sweeping way in life.
I will definitely be looking for other books by this author - highly recommended.
The prologue to the book connects it to Graceling by following that book's main antagonist as a child growing up across the mountains. It has a fable-type quality to the prose, much more telling than showing, and seems an odd place to start the story. Then, once we are introduced to Fire, the plot seems quite slow and repetitive, with very little actually happening apart from Fire having to deal with the problems of her heritage over and over again.
Whereas Graceling touched on the issue of domestic violence from the point of view of a female character having little control over her temper and physial reactions to things, Fire looks at the way women are blamed for provoking abuse against them due to their appearance and/or behaviour. The character of Fire does have a demonstrable effect on the way people treat her - but since some are able to defend against it and some react with devotion rather than violence, the implication is that she is not to blame for those who attack her.
Not much actually happens, but it's a story of self-discovery and self-acceptance rather than action. The subplot involving the antagonist from Graceling felt very tacked-on to me, as if it's only purpose was to connect this book to the previous one, rather than actually having much impact on the plot.
There's a satisfying amount of emotional resolution after the climax to the main story, though, which is always good, in my view. Plus, I liked a lot of the characters and the devlopments of the various relationships was interesting. I'll definitely listen to the third in this series, as it's about my favourite character from the first book, though this second one didn't engage me all that much.
I also read Life After Life by Kate Atkinson this week, which is very engaging and masterfully contstructed. It tells the story of Ursula, who relives her life over and over again, starting in February 1910 and progressing to various points throughout the 20th century, depending on how long she survives. She doesn't really know it's happening, other than experiencing a sense of doom when she approaches previously dangerous situations, which allows her to avoid her prior deaths and move on the next time around. She also experiences a lot of what she believes is deja vu, resulting in her parents sending her to a psychiatrist in several looops.
The lives Ursula lives are not extraordinary in any way other than there being many of them - but her various different navigations of both Worlds Wars, her relationships with her family and friends, and her romantic liaisons are all very involving and immersive.
I particularly like the sections where she gets essentially stuck at various points and it takes her a few goes around to find a way past those incidents. I also like the way the books sets up its format and then subverts expectations in various ways, by telling one life in a lot more detail or by Ursula avoiding what initially looks like an obvious death. The first time she gets past the age of sixteen, her subsequent life is desperately sad - I kept waiting for her to die but it just went on and on, and got worse and worse, until I was actually hoping for her death so she could start again and avoid those tragedies the next time around. Her sense of self-blame at the unwanted attentions of various men in some of the loops is horribly believable and very well written.
The book goes to some very surprising places and is also extremely grim at times (particularly in the sections during the Blitz). I was wholly invested all the way through and very intrigued to see where it would end up. I found the conclusion a bit disappointing, though, as I was hoping for some kind of definitive or significant end point, and didn't get it. But perhaps the point of the story is that you just have to do the best you can with the time you have, and that it's impossible to 'get things right' in any sweeping way in life.
I will definitely be looking for other books by this author - highly recommended.
