(no subject)
Jun. 9th, 2009 10:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsSo I liked the first two of Catherine Jinks' Pagan books a lot . . . but I kind of fell in love with the second two, Pagan's Vows and Pagan's Scribe, in the way where I actually had serious difficulty putting them down to go do other things.
Pagan's Vows has squire Pagan following his Super Noble - and now seriously emotionally damaged - knight Roland to a monastery after they decide that whole way of the sword thing is not working out so well for them. For the first time in the series we get an actual cast of semi-sympathetic characters in the rest of the novice class, though Pagan is so used to forming a Me And Roland Against the World bond that it takes him a while to accept a friendship with anyone else, which is a really interesting dynamic to watch occurring. Also there is a mystery! That Pagan must solve! While dragging around with him at all times an enormous book of rhetoric to teach him about Logical Arguments!Also this book rachets up the slashiness to a kind of hilarious level, especially in the scene where Pagan drags Roland outside to try and talk about his feeeeeeeeeeeelings.
Sidenote: it is possible that reading this book and realizing just how much Latin I had forgotten was one of the spurs to actually put Project Relearn Latin into action.
Pagan's Scribe, on the other hand, takes place twenty years later and is told by a new character, bookish, bitchy Isadore who becomes Pagan's new scribe. And I - okay, I loved pretty much everything about this book. I loved how realistically narrow-minded Isadore was at the beginning, and how angry he was; I love that Pagan basically grows up to be a more ethical version of Joseph from Kage Baker's Company books; I loved that Catherine Jinks does not shy away at all from the utter brutality of late medieval politics. But most of all, I loved the complex dynamics between Pagan and Roland and Jordan and Isadore, and Pagan and Roland's continued codependence, and Pagan and Jordan's weird fraught friendship, and Isadore's growing respect for all three of them.
I was really really worried that when Jordan's squire made that comment about Ganymedes that it was going to be foreshadowing for Jordan getting drunk and hitting on Isadore, but, awesomely, it was just foreshadowing for the fact that Jordan is still RIDICULOUSLY IN LOVE WITH PAGAN. And I love that they all know that, and just sort of live with it, and have been doing so for twenty years without spending a lot of time pining and angsting and centering their lives around it. And, on a more general note, I love that Pagan actually stays within the church and finds advancement and career fulfillment there - because I have a feeling that there is this trend in medieval YA novels for the protagonists to rebel against having to enter the church, rebel! because celibacy is no fun and obedience sucks and modern youth doesn't want to read about religion! So it's really nice to see it actually show up in a book as a means for someone of intelligence to gain a scope for their talents and achieve political power.
Pagan's Vows has squire Pagan following his Super Noble - and now seriously emotionally damaged - knight Roland to a monastery after they decide that whole way of the sword thing is not working out so well for them. For the first time in the series we get an actual cast of semi-sympathetic characters in the rest of the novice class, though Pagan is so used to forming a Me And Roland Against the World bond that it takes him a while to accept a friendship with anyone else, which is a really interesting dynamic to watch occurring. Also there is a mystery! That Pagan must solve! While dragging around with him at all times an enormous book of rhetoric to teach him about Logical Arguments!
Sidenote: it is possible that reading this book and realizing just how much Latin I had forgotten was one of the spurs to actually put Project Relearn Latin into action.
Pagan's Scribe, on the other hand, takes place twenty years later and is told by a new character, bookish, bitchy Isadore who becomes Pagan's new scribe. And I - okay, I loved pretty much everything about this book. I loved how realistically narrow-minded Isadore was at the beginning, and how angry he was; I love that Pagan basically grows up to be a more ethical version of Joseph from Kage Baker's Company books; I loved that Catherine Jinks does not shy away at all from the utter brutality of late medieval politics. But most of all, I loved the complex dynamics between Pagan and Roland and Jordan and Isadore, and Pagan and Roland's continued codependence, and Pagan and Jordan's weird fraught friendship, and Isadore's growing respect for all three of them.
I was really really worried that when Jordan's squire made that comment about Ganymedes that it was going to be foreshadowing for Jordan getting drunk and hitting on Isadore, but, awesomely, it was just foreshadowing for the fact that Jordan is still RIDICULOUSLY IN LOVE WITH PAGAN. And I love that they all know that, and just sort of live with it, and have been doing so for twenty years without spending a lot of time pining and angsting and centering their lives around it. And, on a more general note, I love that Pagan actually stays within the church and finds advancement and career fulfillment there - because I have a feeling that there is this trend in medieval YA novels for the protagonists to rebel against having to enter the church, rebel! because celibacy is no fun and obedience sucks and modern youth doesn't want to read about religion! So it's really nice to see it actually show up in a book as a means for someone of intelligence to gain a scope for their talents and achieve political power.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 04:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 05:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 05:19 pm (UTC)And hee hee hee. I have gone through pretty much all of my fiction library books, so I am relaxing my no-new-requests-yet policy and have just requested the first one! And a couple other books. They will alternate nicely, I think, with the stuff about rice cultivation and the random memoirs.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 05:25 pm (UTC)Eeeexcellent. *beams* They are a nice alternation! And they go very quickly - I got through each of them in a workday.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 05:36 pm (UTC)Ooh good to know! Sometimes a quick fun read is precisely what one wants. :D
no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 06:40 pm (UTC)(if I can do this then you can do that!)
Yes indeed! Though, uh, as I said in the post, warning for legitimate medieval brutality. Fun they are but fluffy they are not.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 10:41 pm (UTC)JORDAAAAAAAAAAAN.
That is all.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 10:50 pm (UTC)Fahye I kept being so nervous that Catherine Jinks was going to make him the Sketchy Gay Guy and fill the books with accidental homophobia, because I have seen that happen way too many times. But instead she just kept making him awesomer. stupid tragic epilogue D: D:
no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 12:05 am (UTC)JORDAN!
And, yes, your comment about Pagan staying in the Church is very interesting - I hadn't thought about it like that. I mean, in the wider context of medieval YA novels. In the sense that it suits Pagan, I've always liked.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 02:49 am (UTC)Yeah, it really does suit him - and, I don't know, I just think it is cool when books recognize how much of a massive social institution the church was at the time, and not necessarily in a bad way! If you were smart and lower class, it was a good place to be. And books recognizing that fact pleases my inner history dork. :D :D
no subject
Date: 2009-06-12 05:26 pm (UTC)Way too often, it seems like portrayals of the Church are overly influenced by current sensibilities (pro or con) and/or by the author's personal baggage.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-12 05:58 pm (UTC)