I just watched the Doctor Who Christmas Special.
Once again, Stephen Moffat has made me cry, laugh, be amazed, awed, horrified, and scared all in under an hour. I don't know how he does it. I shall have to watch it again to catch completely the cleverness and the lovely dialogue, but at first watch it might be one of my most favorite Doctor Who episodes to date.
I also just finished reading Water Shaper by Laura Anne McCaffrey. I had previously read her first novel, Alia Waking, and was surprised to see how wonderful her first novel was (I do not believe your first novel will always be crap - if you have a wonderful editor, your book could be amazing - see Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling, The FolkKeeper by Franny Billingsly, and Water Shaper by Laura Anne McCaffrey) and...wow. Her second book is a) quite different from the first in many ways, b) even better (which I wasn't sure if that was possible, as it is her second), and c) left me with a cloud of thoughts I haven't had since...well, since reading novels like The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi or The Giver by Lois Lowry.
I once heard someone say (Oscar Wilde wrote the line), "The good ended well and the bad, badly. That is what fiction means." I think what that says is that we don't like uncertainty in stories; we have so much of it in real life that we adore 'happy' endings - the prince gets the princess, good triumphs over evil every time completely, etc.
Except that isn't real life.
Laura Anne McCaffrey does a wonderful job retelling some old Irish/Welsh/Scottish legends mixed in with her own story, of a cowardly story-teller named Bird and a would-be courageous but often uncertain heroine. I hate uncertainty. I'll be the first to tell you if I don't like the way a book ends, I continue the story in my brain until it resolves to my satisfaction. I like ending things neatly and tying everything together, but again...that isn't real life.
I was unsure of what was really happening while reading the first half of McCaffrey's book; the 'hero' seems too good to be true (which he is) and I wasn't sure what to think of the cowardly yet intriguing young man who wanted the king to fail in his vow to bring about complete and good change to the kingdom.
The heroine I could definitely identify with - she longed for somewhere to fit in. She didn't fit in at 'home,' being a half-blood; but when she reached the Sea she found its people did not accept her either, and her once-protector only wanted something from her.
In the end...she didn't find the perfect place or perfect man to live the rest of her days out perfectly.
It irks me, but I respect it. I see that McCaffrey doesn't want a young reader to think that life will always end so beautifully and neatly, and that life is a messy, if sometimes wonderful thing.
I loved the rest of the book. I wish one more thing had been nicely resolved at the end, but there, I know myself and the romantic I am. I shall just continue the ending to my satisfaction and enjoy the beautiful and haunting story about story-telling and finding your place in the world that is Water Shaper.
No comments:
Post a Comment