strange and random happenstance

High Rising by Angela Thirkell
Published by: Virago Modern Classics
Publication Date: 1933
Format: Paperback, 276 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Laura Moreland is off to her cottage in High Rising with her son Tony for the winter holidays. Her three other boys are all grown up and flung to the far reaches of the earth after she ably raised them alone as a widowed author. In fact she ended up with quite a following for her fun and frivolous tales told in the world of high fashion staring Madame Koska. In fact many of her fans are right on her doorstep, with her assistant Anne Todd being a neighbor who nurses her ailing mother but has a penchant for couture. Fellow author, though of a historical and biographical bent, George Knox lives in nearby Low Rising with his daughter Sibyl. In fact the holiday season is bound to be interesting by a new arrival at the Knox's house, because it's sure not going to be enlivened by Tony's litany of train facts. George Knox has a new secretary, a Miss Una Grey. Miss Grey, while competent, seems to have her eye on her employer for a precipitous rise in her station. The locals aren't having any of this and soon the gossip over this "Incubus" has both High and Low Rising talking. But George Knox is an honorable man and he can't send a poor, defenseless orphan out into the world, no matter how ambitious and amorous her attentions. Though perhaps Miss Grey isn't as she has presented herself and that might just turn the tables and perhaps give Laura an idea for a new book.

How would it feel to write all your books in a world created by another person? I guess a good author to ask would be Gregory Maguire whose "Wicked Years" are set in the world created by L. Frank Baum in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Though Maguire expanded and parodied the world that Baum created making it very much his own. The reason I bring this up is that most of Angela Thirkell's books are set in the fictional English county of Barsetshire created by Anthony Trollope in his six book series that make up The Chronicles of Barsetshire. I'm of two minds with this. One is that it's an interesting experiment freeing the author in this case from onerous worldbuilding. The other mind is going: lazy, plagiaristic hack, and seeing as she often quoted from other authors without attribution, leaning towards plagiarist. But I knew I'd have to come to a conclusion on my own by reading the books, despite the enthusiastic recommendations of my many friends. And seeing as they are set in a world created by Trollope, I felt I'd have to read those first. It's not like I have anything against Trollope, in fact I quite love him, I just wasn't enamoured of his first Barsetshire book The Warden. But having at least nominally dipped my toe into the world created by Trollope I felt I could take a plunge into this world that Thirkell expanded on.

What struck me most about this book is why did she bother to set it in Barsetshire? This could have been any little small British town anywhere, so why did she frame it within someone else's work? Was it her desperate need for a map? Maps are easy to come by, you pick them up anywhere. Get them while you get your gas! It's not like there was a wicked witch with green skin that needed to be her antihero, so why do it? Because, in all seriousness, by co-opting the world of another author she is doing a great disservice to herself and her work. Going into the book I had prejudices against it's originality because of this. Yet it is so original, minus the county. There's a freshness to it, a world weary snark that spoke to me so deeply that I just wanted to be a part of this story. High Rising has an honesty that makes the misanthrope in me happy while at the same time creating a cast of characters that are in a happy place; which makes me wonder if it was maybe love versus laziness that made Angela Thirkell set her books in Barsetshire. Maybe she loved the world so much that deep down in her bones she didn't want to leave and set out to spend her life there? If this is the case then perhaps her books are some of the very first fan fic there is. Now that would be an interesting topic for a dissertation, "Angela Thirkell, the Origins of Fan Fiction."

The character of Laura Morland is now my literary heroine. I seriously adore her. In a time when parents are always PC in books and television shows like The Slap make headlines it's so refreshing to have a heroine who loves her children but knows that they are annoying brats. Laura will willingly hate on her child, but not vindictively. She points out that which aggravates one in the young but never is mean spirited about it. Ah, to have children in a book that aren't precious or precocious! Laura is just honest. She knows herself, she knows the world, she just seems to know everything, including the perfect put-down for an ill-advised yet ardent suitor and seriously, can I be her when I grow up? She is not deluded, she knows she's not the best writer in the world, she knows where she belongs. To read about a person who knows their place in the world so well is interesting. Because so often the world doesn't make the least sense and we can never quite fit, always feeling like the last puzzle piece that obviously doesn't go where it is supposed to. Yet here comes Laura, self assured, self deprecating, self reliant, and true to that self. So many books are about characters finding their place, trying to fit in, the struggle is all, to read a story with a heroine who is past all that is a luxury. To me, this is the ultimate comfort read. I, like Laura, will chose my bed and a gruesome book over King Lear any day.

Another aspect of Laura that I love that extends outwards to the whole of High Rising is this love of the literary, books within books. We have a handful of authors as our main characters and they run the gamut from poets to scholars to cozy mystery writers. I love how Thirkell is able to convey their personalities through their chosen mediums. Adrian Coates was a published teenage poet, and has therefore the right level of demureness coupled with a desire to forget his opus that you would expect of a languishing poetic soul. George Knox is verbose and preachy, which you would expect of a historian. Laura, well, Laura I think is the author in disguise, all honest about her work being their to pay the bills. Laura in fact shares a kindred spirit with another of my favorite literary character, Ariadne Oliver, who, as anyone knows, is Agatha Christie in disguise in her own Poirot mysteries. Perhaps there's just something about authors "secreting" themselves into their own stories that lends something extra, something jovial to the story that is addictive. The ability for anyone to laugh at themselves is key to a good personality, in my mind, so therefore an author who can do the same and then incorporate that into their work, well, that just tickles me. It is rare to find a book that so tailors with what I value in life and in literature, and High Rising is definitely a book written for me.

The most interesting fact of this entire book is even the character I hated, aka Miss Una Grey, aka the Incubus, I loved to hate, and rarely have I hated a character more. I totally disagree with Alexander McCall Smith's statement in the introduction that Miss Grey should have our sympathy. Doesn't he see that she is a total sociopath? She's not a poor lonely girl who is misunderstood, she is a lying, manipulative, she-devil. Yes, sure, occasionally working with someone you might develop feelings, but she takes it to stalker levels. In fact she takes everything too far. She does her job flawlessly, but this is balanced by her doing her crazy flawlessly too. Everything is done to the perfect extreme. When I tried to think of other characters that you are meant to love to hate, Caroline Bingley, Blanche Ingram, Loki, yes, I had to work Tom Hiddleston in somehow, never have I had such a visceral reaction where I longed for the moment everyone would have the definitive proof of her wrong doing and she would be sent packing. This was up there with the childish glee I got when watching The Parent Trap for the first time and the upstart Vicky was sent packing, bear cubs and all! I almost want to re-read the whole book again just to see Miss Grey get what's coming to her.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Angela Thirkell, Barsetshire, Caroline Bingley, Fan Fic, Gregory Maguire, High Rising, Jazzy July, L. Frank Baum, Laura Morland, Lauren Willig, Loki, The Other Daughter, The Warden, The Wizard of Oz, Tom Hiddleston

The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King
Published by: Picador
Publication Date: 1994
Format: Paperback, 346 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

Mary Russell one day literally walks into Sherlock Holmes on the Sussex Downs. She has just recovered from a horrific accident and has moved to England to be looked after by her aunt. The war is raging across the channel and there's not much to do but wander the Downs and read, hence the walking into Sherlock Holmes. She is intrigued by this man who is intensely studying the bees and soon an unlikely friendship forms. Mary is smart and underfed, the perfect companion for Holmes and his erstwhile housekeeper, Mrs. Hudson. Holmes slowly starts to inform Mary's education, choosing her reading material and her course of study, though he will never fully understand her love of theology. While Holmes might be filling his retirement with Mary, the truth is he's never been fully retired, and one day he finally lets Mary help in a case. The daughter of the US Ambassador has been kidnapped while on holiday in Wales. Dressed as gypsies Russell and Holmes find the young girl and return her to her parents. But this case brings them more forcibly onto the radar of Holmes's arch-nemesis. While Mary goes off to Oxford and Holmes stays in the Downs tending his bees, a web is being spun around them, tighter and tighter, until one day it explodes, much like the beehive that Holmes tends that was rigged with a bomb. Russell, Holmes, Watson, Mrs. Hudson, and even Mycroft are all in danger from this intelligent, resourceful, and determined foe. Holmes decides to take the unexpected step of removing himself from the game with Russell, but this only delays the inevitable. There will be a reckoning, and there will be casualties.

Books that start off slow and build to a climax are a lovely surprise. Books that start off fun and slowly chip away at you until you can't wait to be finished, well those are a different kind of surprise all together. The Beekeeper's Apprentice is of the second kind, sort of. A good solid start was had after an initial wobble, but by the end I was just like Holmes listening to the raving denouement from his tormentor, politely bored. I should have guessed from the beginning that Laurie R. King was the kind of author who would devolve into self-indulgent crap, but I had hopes. Why should I have guessed? That "Editor's Preface" my dear which I tried SO HARD to forget about. That little wobble that started the quake that would bring this book down. In this preface, King sets out to make it seem as if the events we are about to read are real, due to the arrival of a trunk stuffed full of mementos from the life of one Mary Russell. While there's the part of me that got a frisson of excitement thinking how wonderful it would be if such a trunk showed up on my doorstep, it's what King sets out to do with this trunk that baffled me. I mean, obviously as a half-way intelligent reader you've realized you're holding one of the "manuscripts" that reside at the bottom of said trunk, what I don't get is the implications this casts on King herself. King is not only devaluing what she has done in writing this book, claiming it to be Russell's, but there's the plagiarism accusation. An accusation she is willing to embrace. In other words, King is proudly proclaiming herself to be a plagiarist and her publisher a willing accomplice. Um... what now? I'm about to read an entire book by an author who will tear herself down in order to make a joke that falls completely flat? Seriously? I am baffled. It sets the book on a weird footing and no matter how hard you try to forget this, there's a part of you that remembers and cringes and knows, this could all go very pear shaped, very fast.   

This faux whimsy of King's backfires to the extent that you start to question everything she writes. She obviously doesn't take herself seriously, which I will admit is something more writers need to do, but she isn't just lighthearted she denigrates herself with a knowing wink, like her writing isn't good enough. Because of this we don't think her writing is good enough, and it is sadly brought home on every single page. Just look to how she handles Holmes. The way Holmes is different as filtered through the perception of Mary Russell versus Watson rings false again and again. He is different, and this story needed him to be, but he is TOO different. He is the Holmes of the daydreams of a fifteen year old girl with serious daddy issues. He is oddly more romantic and sentimental than Watson would ever have dared say lest a vicious tongue-lashing was to come. His desire to solve crimes isn't based on boredom but a deep seated love of humanity. In other words, he's a big old cuddly teddy bear and Mary Russell is the first one to ever really get that. If there had been some ring of truth to this description than it might have been believable, instead I felt like this book was nothing more than fanfic masquerading as fiction, or faux nonfiction as King would have us "believe." Here's the thing about fanfic, it's fine, it's good to have it in the world, it's just not good if you're book exudes it. This way does Casandra Clare and other such hack writers lie. Your book can have it's birth in fanfic, it just must rise above. It must become something more, something new. While Mary Robinette Kowal's Glamourist Histories could technically be considered Jane Austen fanfic, or Marissa Meyer's Lunar Chronicles Sailor Moon fanfic, neither reads as such, because they have become something more. The Beekeeper's Apprentice isn't something more.

In fact, it goes all the way to hetfic, with Mary and Holmes being set up to eventually "get it on." And this is where my head goes boom. Just no. No no no. First, Holmes is of the asexual variety of humans. He can not be concerned with the workings of the heart, it takes up space needed in his brain for other things, much like he doesn't know the earth goes around the sun. But then again, here we have the overly sentimental Holmes of Russell's imagination. It's like Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory, there is nothing I hate more than his relationship with Amy, largely to do with casting, which was just consummated as I write this. It's out of character. These are people above hanky panky, thank you very much. Cerebral over physical. But it's so much more than that. There's the creep factor. Holmes is fifty-two when he meets just turned fifteen Mary. This would make him a pedophile people. Sure nothing "happens" for years, but look what he's doing during those years? He's training her, he's helping her learn his secrets, he's grooming her. Child grooming: IE, what pedophiles do! This is the elephant in the room. It's not the thirty-seven year age difference, it's when the relationship started that is all manners of ew. It's like the current Doctor on Doctor Who getting it on with one of Clara's students, and yes, the age difference is exactly the same! Yes Mary claims she views him as a father figure but doesn't that just make this even more creepy? Am I the only one calling ick? And I'm not even getting into the whole dressing like a boy factor! Looking to see what my friends thought I can't understand how they are all praise and no, hang on a minute this is creepy. Just no. I can definitively say that I won't ever be picking up another book in this series if just for the ew factor.

Though the icky fanfic aspect of this book isn't the only problem I have. King said she set out to write this book to show what Sherlock Holmes would be like if he were born a she in the 20th century. OK, interesting concept to think about. OK, I've thought about it, and I think not. Russell is NOT the 20th century's answer to Sherlock Holmes. Not even going into the whole "Mary Sue" of it all, she can't be the new Sherlock Holmes because he was self-formed and she is obviously formed by Sherlock. She might have had the raw material to become him, but had to have him do it for her. She wasn't going around analyzing dirt at a young age. She wasn't trying to decipher different cigarette ash in her spare time. All she is is a smart girl who is opinionated, religious, had a traumatic incident in her life, and stumbled into Sherlock Holmes's life and was cooed over till she became irreversibly his creature. Not a woman of her own making. If we take out the Jessica Jones backstory and use the actual Sherlock mold, self-made genius, sibling, etc, who we get isn't Mary Russell, it's Flavia De Luce! Alan Bradley who is obviously a far more well honed Sherlockian than King could ever hope to be, understood the nuances needed. This is all just bold brushstrokes. In fact I think I could pick out anyone from literature at random from the "bright young people" and they would have the necessary spark, the dazzling wit, and the intelligence that Mary seems to so "uniquely" have. Ugh. Just. Ugh. Why couldn't Mary have been blown to bits again? Oh yeah, because she's the "star" of this book.

And Mary is a stupid little idiot. Yes, that is redundant, but she's so freakin' stupid that I CAN NOT mention it enough. OK, let me highlight the number one reason why she is stupid. Yes, there are many, many examples, but one in particular made me psychically wince at the stupidity of it all and the laziness of the writing. Especially because it's shown as an example of how much smarter she is than everyone else, someone save me. In my mind it shows how f'ing stupid everyone else is. So the evil villain mastermind what-have-you slashed a message in roman numerals into the seat of Holmes's cab. Holmes and Russell don't really get around to deciphering it until they are on their way back from the holy land and they are stumped. Some two months later while sitting in the Bodleian, Russell has a eureka moment and realizes that it spells out "Moriarty" using the most simplistic alpha numeric code ever devised. First let's take into account that all along the two crime solvers were musing about how this new mastermind was so like Moriarty. Wouldn't you just, I don't know, see if the word carved into the leather was Moriarty first and foremost? I know I would! And if they had, well, I guess the book would have been a lot shorter. Instead this "mystery" is strung out for MONTHS. I have read oh so many Sherlock Holmes inspired books at this point and several of them went into code breaking and ciphers. Many concentrated on the Vigenère cipher because it's hard to crack without the keyword, but is still easy to understand if you're not into cryptanalysis. But here A = 1 and B= 2, oh yippee, let me get this first grader to solve it for you Russell. Well, personally, I'm not stupid enough to pick up any more of this series. Be on your merry way Mary, never shall we meet again. Stupid bint.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 3 comments  

Labels: Alan Bradley, Code, Doctor Who, Fan Fic, Flavia De Luce, Laurie R. King, Mary Russell, Mary Sue, Moriarty, Pedophile, Sheldon Cooper, Sherlock Holmes, Sherlocked, The Beekeeper's Apprentice, The Big Bang Theory

High Rising by Angela Thirkell
Published by: Virago Modern Classics
Publication Date: 1933
Format: Paperback, 276 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

"If you haven’t read Angela Thirkell yet, you’re in for a treat! I’ve always described her books as a cross between Waugh and Wodehouse. They have the kindly good humor of Wodehouse and the satirical eye of Waugh. What they really do brilliantly, though, is showcase a timeless (and idealized) image of village life, in which vicars are always daydreaming over their pipes and muddling over the annual fete, the bossy grande dame of the village throws amateur theatricals, young men just down from Oxford go into sulks, and everyone, in the end, goes merrily on their appointed ways.

There are aristocrats in Thirkell’s Barsetshire books (Lord Pomfret, for one, or Lady Emily, for another), but it isn’t primarily an aristocratic world. This is the province of the gentry, of gentlemen farmers, lady novelists, schoolmasters in tweed jackets, and rising young barristers. It’s a very restful and charming sort of world and provided the foundation for my image of my heroine, Rachel’s, childhood in just such a small village." - Lauren Willig

Laura Moreland is off to her cottage in High Rising with her son Tony for the winter holidays. Her three other boys are all grown up and flung to the far reaches of the earth after she ably raised them alone as a widowed author. In fact she ended up with quite a following for her fun and frivolous tales told in the world of high fashion staring Madame Koska. In fact many of her fans are right on her doorstep, with her assistant Anne Todd being a neighbor who nurses her ailing mother but has a penchant for couture. Fellow author, though of a historical and biographical bent, George Knox lives in nearby Low Rising with his daughter Sibyl. In fact the holiday season is bound to be interesting by a new arrival at the Knox's house, because it's sure not going to be enlivened by Tony's litany of train facts. George Knox has a new secretary, a Miss Una Grey. Miss Grey, while competent, seems to have her eye on her employer for a precipitous rise in her station. The locals aren't having any of this and soon the gossip over this "Incubus" has both High and Low Rising talking. But George Knox is an honorable man and he can't send a poor, defenseless orphan out into the world, no matter how ambitious and amorous her attentions. Though perhaps Miss Grey isn't as she has presented herself and that might just turn the tables and perhaps give Laura an idea for a new book.

How would it feel to write all your books in a world created by another person? I guess a good author to ask would be Gregory Maguire whose "Wicked Years" are set in the world created by L. Frank Baum in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Though Maguire expanded and parodied the world that Baum created making it very much his own. The reason I bring this up is that most of Angela Thirkell's books are set in the fictional English county of Barsetshire created by Anthony Trollope in his six book series that make up The Chronicles of Barsetshire. I'm of two minds with this. One is that it's an interesting experiment freeing the author in this case from onerous worldbuilding. The other mind is going: lazy, plagiaristic hack, and seeing as she often quoted from other authors without attribution, leaning towards plagiarist. But I knew I'd have to come to a conclusion on my own by reading the books, despite the enthusiastic recommendations of my many friends. And seeing as they are set in a world created by Trollope, I felt I'd have to read those first. It's not like I have anything against Trollope, in fact I quite love him, I just wasn't enamoured of his first Barsetshire book The Warden. But having at least nominally dipped my toe into the world created by Trollope I felt I could take a plunge into this world that Thirkell expanded on.

What struck me most about this book is why did she bother to set it in Barsetshire? This could have been any little small British town anywhere, so why did she frame it within someone else's work? Was it her desperate need for a map? Maps are easy to come by, you pick them up anywhere. Get them while you get your gas! It's not like there was a wicked witch with green skin that needed to be her antihero, so why do it? Because, in all seriousness, by co-opting the world of another author she is doing a great disservice to herself and her work. Going into the book I had prejudices against it's originality because of this. Yet it is so original, minus the county. There's a freshness to it, a world weary snark that spoke to me so deeply that I just wanted to be a part of this story. High Rising has an honesty that makes the misanthrope in me happy while at the same time creating a cast of characters that are in a happy place; which makes me wonder if it was maybe love versus laziness that made Angela Thirkell set her books in Barsetshire. Maybe she loved the world so much that deep down in her bones she didn't want to leave and set out to spend her life there? If this is the case then perhaps her books are some of the very first fan fic there is. Now that would be an interesting topic for a dissertation, "Angela Thirkell, the Origins of Fan Fiction."

The character of Laura Morland is now my literary heroine. I seriously adore her. In a time when parents are always PC in books and television shows like The Slap make headlines it's so refreshing to have a heroine who loves her children but knows that they are annoying brats. Laura will willingly hate on her child, but not vindictively. She points out that which aggravates one in the young but never is mean spirited about it. Ah, to have children in a book that aren't precious or precocious! Laura is just honest. She knows herself, she knows the world, she just seems to know everything, including the perfect put-down for an ill-advised yet ardent suitor and seriously, can I be her when I grow up? She is not deluded, she knows she's not the best writer in the world, she knows where she belongs. To read about a person who knows their place in the world so well is interesting. Because so often the world doesn't make the least sense and we can never quite fit, always feeling like the last puzzle piece that obviously doesn't go where it is supposed to. Yet here comes Laura, self assured, self deprecating, self reliant, and true to that self. So many books are about characters finding their place, trying to fit in, the struggle is all, to read a story with a heroine who is past all that is a luxury. To me, this is the ultimate comfort read. I, like Laura, will chose my bed and a gruesome book over King Lear any day.

Another aspect of Laura that I love that extends outwards to the whole of High Rising is this love of the literary, books within books. We have a handful of authors as our main characters and they run the gamut from poets to scholars to cozy mystery writers. I love how Thirkell is able to convey their personalities through their chosen mediums. Adrian Coates was a published teenage poet, and has therefore the right level of demureness coupled with a desire to forget his opus that you would expect of a languishing poetic soul. George Knox is verbose and preachy, which you would expect of a historian. Laura, well, Laura I think is the author in disguise, all honest about her work being their to pay the bills. Laura in fact shares a kindred spirit with another of my favorite literary character, Ariadne Oliver, who, as anyone knows, is Agatha Christie in disguise in her own Poirot mysteries. Perhaps there's just something about authors "secreting" themselves into their own stories that lends something extra, something jovial to the story that is addictive. The ability for anyone to laugh at themselves is key to a good personality, in my mind, so therefore an author who can do the same and then incorporate that into their work, well, that just tickles me. It is rare to find a book that so tailors with what I value in life and in literature, and High Rising is definitely a book written for me.

The most interesting fact of this entire book is even the character I hated, aka Miss Una Grey, aka the Incubus, I loved to hate, and rarely have I hated a character more. I totally disagree with Alexander McCall Smith's statement in the introduction that Miss Grey should have our sympathy. Doesn't he see that she is a total sociopath? She's not a poor lonely girl who is misunderstood, she is a lying, manipulative, she-devil. Yes, sure, occasionally working with someone you might develop feelings, but she takes it to stalker levels. In fact she takes everything too far. She does her job flawlessly, but this is balanced by her doing her crazy flawlessly too. Everything is done to the perfect extreme. When I tried to think of other characters that you are meant to love to hate, Caroline Bingley, Blanche Ingram, Loki, yes, I had to work Tom Hiddleston in somehow, never have I had such a visceral reaction where I longed for the moment everyone would have the definitive proof of her wrong doing and she would be sent packing. This was up there with the childish glee I got when watching The Parent Trap for the first time and the upstart Vicky was sent packing, bear cubs and all! I almost want to re-read the whole book again just to see Miss Grey get what's coming to her.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 2 comments  

Labels: Angela Thirkell, Barsetshire, Caroline Bingley, Fan Fic, Gregory Maguire, High Rising, Jazzy July, L. Frank Baum, Laura Morland, Lauren Willig, Loki, The Other Daughter, The Warden, The Wizard of Oz, Tom Hiddleston

City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments Book 1) by Cassandra Clare
Published by: Margaret K. McElderry
Publication Date: March 27th, 2007
Format: Hardcover, 496 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

Clary's life has been turned upside down. One night her and her best friend Simon are at a club when she sees something no one else can. There's apparently a shadow world in New York and for some reason Clary is starting to see it. After this shocking discovery Clary's mom Jocelyn is kidnapped and this new world of demons and angels and vampires and werewolves holds the key. There is a group of humans known as the Shadowhunters, and they protect the world from the demons from the downworlds. They keep all of humanity safe and ignorant. Clary has spent her life safe and ignorant, but only at her mother's behest. Jocelyn was once a Shadowhunter, part of the elite Circle lead by her husband Valentine to overthrow the Clave, the organizing body of the Shadowhunters. Jocelyn came to hate the purity of blood the Circle demanded and fled her husband and that world to raise her daughter as a mundane, safe from the dangers of this shadow world. But everyone's past comes back to haunt them. Valentine isn't as dead as everyone hoped and his ideals haven't changed in the fifteen years he has been in hiding. Can Clary, a girl just thrust into this other world, be able to help stop history repeating itself?

The concept of plagiarism is horrifying to me, yet in our society it is oddly pervasive and somewhat accepted. As a creative person who has artistic output the thought that someone would take my work, my blood, sweat, and tears, and claim it as their own, it makes my blood boil. I am so wary of the taint of plagiarism that I have this obsessive self-policing instinct that recoils at the thought that I would cut corners to get a faster or better end result even using just the bones of another person's idea. Plagiarism in any form is abhorrent to me. Yet there were many instances at school where students would get caught showing the work of others as their own. They would lift artwork straight off of deviantART and an observant student or teacher would call them out. Why you might be wondering am I ruminating on artistic copyrights? Well, even if you've only been half aware of the controversy, Cassandra Clare is an author who has, apparently, been rightly tarred as a plagiarist. She is an author who, while the taint has stuck, has also been accepted by the YA community and become very successful. An odd conundrum of our times where theft and unoriginality are king.

While the roots of the story start in fanfic, I want to make it clear that this is just one cast against one person and that fanfic is a thriving and interesting genre that uses pre-existing characters in new ways and isn't being denigrated by me. The bones (haha) of the case against Cassie is that in her fanfic trilogy devoted to Draco Malfoy she basically was ripping off not just witty dialogue from Buffy to Pratchett to Red Dwarf (classified by her as "an obscure British sitcom" and yes, in my mind she should go to hell for saying that) but full scenes and settings from other authors. She was called out, her work was categorized as plagiarized and was pulled from the site it was on. Yes, there was also a lot of name calling, Cyberbullying, and other horrid stuff you can read all about elsewhere, but the fact is she got a book deal from this. This alone disgusts me. But with the eyes of the world on her she wasn't able to rely on the witticisms of Joss Whedon anymore, she took her plot structure from her fanfic trilogy, stripped it down, rebuilt it, and what is left is boring. Even if you were unaware of all this controversy swirling around her you could not help but notice that this book lacks originality, it lacks that spark that's needed to make it more then just a mish-mash of other tropes and plot devices as old as the written word. Cassandra Clare, in my opinion, is a bad writer, not to mention morally corrupt and a bad human. She used the reflective glory of other "true" writers to give her work a shiny allure, that while tarnished, is still there.

But I can't ignore the fanfic roots of City of Bones mainly because this is so obviously Harry Potter from Draco's point of view. And even if I didn't know about the Draco Trilogy, once a flying motorcycle shows up, there's no doubt it's Harry Potter. This book is giving us front row seats to life with the Death Eaters, with a little more Nazism thrown in, sieg heil! In fact it's just too much of everything thrown in, too much borrowed and re-interpreted in a flat way. Here's some Harry Potter (a stele is so a wand no matter what Clare says), add some Rick Riordan, a little Piers Anthony/Bill Willingham (mundies, really, Fables much?), an aroma of Celtic mythology, a dash of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, just have at it. But never once does all this thisness convert into something it's own, something cohesive and original. All this translates into major worldbuilding issues. I'm ok with a magical world coexisting alongside a mundane world, as long as it makes sense. Whether it's willful ignorance on the part of the mundanes, or spells and wards keeping them away, something has to be explained as to how this ignorant coexistence works. Having carriages going over cars and slipping in and out of traffic with not an eyelid batted, please.

The laziness in the worldbuilding though is never so obvious as in the characters that inhabit this world. City of Bones has this feeling of one epically long night of party crashing, much like the aforementioned Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, a book and movie I detest. When you go to these parties you meet people, you get vague impressions, and then they're out of your life forever. That's how I felt about all the characters. They are flat two-dimensional people who will maybe have a defining characteristic, but overall, they are forgettable. After almost five hundred pages with Clary all I know about her is she's a short red-head who draws. Seriously, this is ALL I KNOW about the protagonist of this book? Um... major flaw here. While I know people will jump down my neck for this, but I actually think Bella Swan has more of a personality then Clary. There, I said it. I do think that this issue would have been fixable it there was some buildup before throwing us into the action of the book. How about a few days spent with Clary living her normal life? Some way for us to identify with her and the world she's about to lose. A way for the reader to forge a connection, because without this bond I have no conduit to help me in this book's world, and it makes me care about nothing. Valentine could kill them all for how much I care about them and perhaps I would help him, especially with Jace.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Cassandra Clare, City of Bones, Clary, Draco Malfoy, Fables, Fan Fic, Harry Potter, Jace, Joss Whedon, Mortal Instruments, Nick and Nora, Plagiarism, Shadowhunter, Vampires, Werewolves

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
Published by: St. Martin's Griffin
Publication Date: September 10th, 2013
Format: Hardcover, 448 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

Cath Avery is off to a rough start at college. Not only does her twin sister Wren not want to be roommates, but she's saddled with the sarcastic and cynical Reagan as her roommate, and Reagan's ever present Levi. Plus she doesn't know where the dining hall is. All Cath wants to do is bury herself in school while working on her Simon Snow fanfic, Carry On Simon. Simon Snow might just be one of the reasons Wren is distancing herself from her sister, as that young wizard and there made-up stories are their juvenile past, not their adult future. But Cath doesn't care, she just wants to write about Simon and Baz. Though her Professor doesn't think that fanfic is anything other then plagiarism. Add in a crush on Levi, the girl's father Arthur having a breakdown, and Wren developing a drinking problem, and it's not surprising that Cath might not "carry on" but move back home and hide from the world.      

I had read online about this new book coming out and I dutifully went to Barnes and Noble and picked it up and brought it home and watched as it was subsumed into my "to be read" pile. The book was getting good reviews, why else would I buy it? And then my friends started reading it, and that's when the real pressure started. You must read this book, the author is the one true successor to John Hughes! The perfect book for Harry Potter fans, and you're a Harry Potter fan so get on it! The five star and occasional four star reviews started littering my goodreads page and I realized that the time had come to bite the bullet. The time had come to read Fangirl. 

I can see why Fangirl has been so recommended to me, but there's another part of me that thinks, naw, it wasn't all that. The book is banking on nostalgia, and it all really depends on if you are in the mood to look back. Do you want to remember what those first few months of college were like? Do you want to remember when a book's release was your entire world? Sometimes yes. Yes I do. Other times? I don't. I waffled while reading Fangirl, part of me was revelling in the past, while another part of me was thinking things struck a little too close to home and that perhaps reading it while in the darkest depths of holiday melancholia is not the way to enjoy a book. 

One thing though I will dispute till my dying day is this book isn't John Hughes, this book is Pauly Shore. No seriously, think about it. John Hughes, in his classic films, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Some Kind of Wonderful, all deal with the high school experience. Whereas Paul Shore in Son in Law is all about the harsh realities of adjusting to college life and dorm life in particular till you finally just embrace the weird. Just swap out Nebraska for it's neighboring state of South Dakota and viola! Pauly Shore is the voice of a generation just as John Hughes was. A slightly more annoying version, but I defy you to not watch a few minutes of Son in Law if you find it on television late one night. And I double dog dare you to not find some kindred link between the movie and this book.

Getting back to topics more directly related to the book and not involving Pauly Shore, I would say that I strongly identify as a "Fan Girl." Look at my office and you'll find Doctor Who and Firefly and Red Dwarf and Harry Potter. I go to Wizard World Comic Con and "stalk" stars. I go to book signings and covet books from my favorite authors. You will get my signed copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince when you prize it from my cold hands! Yet I am not of the fanfic Fan Girl variety. I fell between the gaps on this. I didn't stay home as a kid writing new Doctor Who episodes in lined journals hoping to be a writer on the show. Yeah, I drew the occasional TARDIS on my notebooks, but that's as far as that went.

As for the true fanfic generation, they are younger then me. Kids that were actually kids when Harry Potter was released. Kids who were web and Internet savvy in the womb who went straight home from school to log on and write about Draco and Harry and what their newest adventure was. Or if you're Cassandra Clare, steal it from one of those kids. I know about this culture, I'm just not a part of this aspect of it. Plus, well, I'm not without issues to this either. I've been known to write in the voice of others, it's a talent that some people possess, and obviously Cath excels at it. But I'm with her teacher, Professor Piper, it's not a substitute for real writing. It's an exercise in writing but it can never be anything more. Unless you somehow land a book contract with BBC Books and end up writing official Doctor Who books... then we'll talk.

But did this book wow me? Did it dazzle my eyes and make me sing it's praises. No, it kind of let me down. It embraces my geeky nature, but an offshoot to which I don't belong. It calls to the graphic designer in me with the depiction of Arthur Avery, but his obsessive nature and mental instability was just too real for me. I've come very close to the precipice that he lives on and I like to be entertained when I read, not to look in a warped mirror of might-have-been or might-still-become. Plus the sacrifice of life versus caring for a parent? Yeah, that stung. And little details eventually started to get under my skin till I wanted to scream. Had Levi ever heard of Audible? Seriously, if you "can't read" you find a better way then someone reading aloud to you. Also, little Britishisms! Um, does Rainbow Rowell know about the "Carry On" franchise? Cause that's all about music hall and lowbrow comedy. It's all about the bawdy and all I can think of is if the characters in any of those productions heard about Simon and Baz there response would be "Oh, er, naughty!" My response to this book's hype? "Er, whatever."

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Carry On, Carry on Simon, Cassandra Clare, Doctor Who, Fan Fic, Fangirl, Harry Potter, John Hughes, Paul Shore, Pretty in Pink, Rainbow Rowell, Simon Snow, Some Kind of Wonderful, Son in Law, The Breakfast Club

One of Our Thursdays is Missing by Jasper Fforde
Published by: Viking
Book Provided by Viking
Publication Date: March 8th, 2011
Format: Hardcover, 384 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy
The written Thursday Next has a lot to handle. Since the destruction of Thursday1-4, Thursday5 has become the only written Thursday Next with five books falling to her. She views it her duty to due justice by the real Thursday Next, which none of her fellow book characters like. Under the regime of the previous Thursday they were allowed to run whatever scams and deals they felt like, secure in the knowledge of a strong reader base due to the amounts of sex and violence. That reader base is gone. There are now only a few die hard readers, leading the books to become more in danger. But the Bookworlds love of the real Thursday should keep their place at the far end of speculative fiction and fantasy. Of course, all these changes would be easier if the real Thursday would stop by and give a thumbs up to quell the rising discontent, especially at the arrival of Thursday's new understudy, Carmine.

Sadly, the understudy is a must, because while failing to be a Jurisfiction agent, Thursday has managed to get a little power investigating Bookworld accidents... one of which takes her across the remade Bookworld to conspiracy, where she not only finds something fishy, but she realizes people are thinking she's the real Thursday, not the written one. To add further confusion, she has ended up with the real Thursday's Jurisfiction badge, because the truth could be stranger than anything those conspiracy nuts could dream up. With doubt lingering as to where the real Thursday is and if the written Thursday might only think she's written and actually be real, Thursday, whichever she might be, views it her duty to get to the bottom of things with her trusty new sidekick, Sprocket, the automaton butler. But there are people who don't want the truth uncovered, mysterious Men in Plaid, and there's the peace talks with Racy novel coming at the end of the week that if Thursday isn't there for, could mean all out war. Sneaking off to the real world, Thursday finally meets the love of her life, Landen, omitted from the books for copyright reasons. It would be so tempting to stay, blue fairy it and become the real Thursday, whether she is or not. But the "Thursday" in whichever Thursday she is, won't allow questions to be left unanswered. So back in the Bookworld, secrets must be uncovered, the truth found and Thursday's identity solved.

Jasper Fforde books are usually very meta, but I think I've reached my threshold. This book was a Thursday Next book without Thursday Next. Instead we follow around the written Thursday, who, while thankfully is not contemplating her navel too much, is still just not Thursday enough. Even if she's able to confuse the other characters in the book, you could tell she wasn't the genuine article. There was just too much that bothered me in the book to make this an enjoyable read. The major gripe I have is the entire reinvention of the Bookworld. Instead of the Bookworld we knew and loved with the great library and jumping from book to book, now we have an actual world, there's even a map. Couple this with Thursday not really being Thursday and it's like Fforde is starting back at the beginning. I don't want to start back at the beginning! I have grown to know and love the characters and the world he has created, only to have him completely destroy it. Characters we cared for are now through the looking glass and act as vapid and self obsessed "actors." Turning everything on it's head we get too much Bookworld and not enough real world. You need grounding to make something this far out there work, and without Laden and the kids, there is no grounding. Plus the whole reason for the Racy Novel war, which has been brewing for a long time, seems to only work within the new world structure with a globe and geography... which leads me to wonder, why was there a war looming before the reinvention? But worst of all? The cliffhanger from previous novel is still unresolved with this "filler" book. There was no tying up of loose ends, just a lot of jokes and asides that led nowhere.

Now, my mini-rant above, doesn't mean that there wasn't things that I enjoyed. There was a through plot, which some of his previous books have lacked, it just wasn't the one I wanted. I also love how he is will to take the piss out of himself with the self mocking tone indicating that his books have an inherent crappiness that leads to them being remaindered. Of course he also hints, that these are almost proto novels, his books aren't done, and it will take written Thursday's intervention for the books to evolve into the books we know and love. The Thursday Next books aren't "there" yet, but one day, they will be. I also liked the little Agatha Christie Death on the Nile parody as well as Jenny's existence being established. It was also nice to see Fforde reaching out to currently popular genres like Steampunk and Fan Fic, which, while Fan Fic does verge on the line of plagiarism, I like that the island was a fun and happy place, if lacking depth. It kind of reminded me of a Con. But at the end of the day, the little things didn't help the big things. I hope that the next Thursday Next book actually has Thursday and not some pale imitation. Each book has been a little weaker, and a little more a shadow of the initial genius of The Eyre Affair, and maybe it's time to put Thursday out to pasture, because if this "reinvention" was a way to try to invigorate the series, it failed. If given the choice though, I still think he should focus on writing the follow up to Shades of Grey, the best book he's ever written and one of my favorites of all time.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Agatha Christie, Bookworld, Death on the Nile, Fan Fic, Jasper Fforde, Jurisfiction, Landen, One of Our Thursdays is Missing, Racy Novel, Shades of Grey, Steampunk, The Eyre Affair, Thursday Next