(no subject)

[skygiants]

genarti lent me her copy of Patricia McKillip's Cygnet like a year ago, which I have finally gotten around to reading.

I can't tell whether Cygnet is more McKillip-y than most McKillip or just a totally standard amount of McKillip, because I can never remember anything that happens in McKillips for more than a month or two after I've read the McKillip in question. The last time I read McKillip was in - according to my records -- 2010, when I reread the entire Riddle-Master of Hed trilogy. That was at least my second time reading the trilogy, probably my third, and I carefully documented the plot on DW, and I still have no idea what actually happens in Riddle-Master of Hed except that there are a lot of riddles in it and the main character comes from Hed.

Cygnet is actually two books -- The Sorceress and the Cygnet and The Cygnet and the Firebird, and HOLY WOW, I just got distracted by the 80s-ness of the cover in that first Goodreads link. That's ... beautiful.

For the record, the sorceress Nyx probably does not look like the cover of that book, nor is she possessed of a giant pet flamingo. Nyx is, however, a fantastic character -- the cool-headed, knowledge-obsessed, semi-amoral heir to a Holding who starts out the books living in a swamp dissecting small birds in pursuit of KNOWLEDGE and POWER and earning incredibly dubious looks from everybody she knows.

Nyx is one of the protagonists of the duology; the other is her cousin Meguet, a loyal and taciturn warrior who learns over the course of the story that she has mythologically convenient powers. However, it takes a little while to realize this because The Sorceress and the Cygnet starts out with a decoy protagonist named Corleu who accidentally becomes entrapped in a complex mythological plot engineered by sinister star constellations which Meguet's mythologically convenient powers are destined to stop, or else bring to fruition? It's very beautiful and numinous and also VERY UNCLEAR.

Then in the second trip everyone (except Corleu, because he was only a first-book decoy protagonist) goes on a field trip with dragons which are also mythologically destined to mythologically threaten the mythological powers of Nyx and Meguet's family somehow even though they live many thousands of miles away and possibly in an entirely different time period, ALSO UNCLEAR. An enchanted firebird turns up and eventually explains that he's there because he was drawn to Nyx for her combination of power and ethics and innate goodness, to which Nyx responds 'I SPENT THE LAST YEAR DISSECTING SMALL BIRDS.' The climax of this one makes slightly more sense to me, although Meguet's choice to pick up a rose at the beginning of The Cygnet and the Firebird was apparently the most deeply significant thing she did in the whole book and I still don't actually understand why.

However, Nyx and Meguet were both great! So is their entire family of royal women, including Nyx's constantly-fuming mother and her mysterious and dreamy library sister and her long-suffering practical-minded sister who does her best to be patient with the fact that everyone else she knows is driven by overwhelming numinous mythological forces. (Unsurprisingly, she was my favorite.) I enjoyed the book tremendously. I expect it will stay in my head for at least two weeks.

Comments

[davidgillon]

Boggles at the idea of decoy protagonists!

(Though I suppose a lot of Cherryh is sort of along those lines as the viewpoint character usually turns out to be one step removed from the person who actually gets things done).

[skygiants]

I love decoy protagonists! Especially my favorite variant, the books that start out 'hey here's a Hero's Journey about a young man who goes on a quest to PSYCH, LOOK OVER THERE AT THAT WOMAN DOING AMAZING THINGS, ISN'T SHE GREAT!'

[the_rck]

It's actually kind of reassuring to know that I'm not the only one who finds McKillip challenging to hold onto. I know I've read several of her books and that they were beautiful, but I can't remember characters (not just names-- I always forget those-- but personalities) or events or anything at all really. Most of what I remember about the Riddlemaster books actually comes from remembering Yuletide fanfic based on them.

I keep thinking I should read more McKillip because I remember enjoying her stuff, but I can't for the life of me remember which books I've already read. That's not very motivating.

[skygiants]

Forgotten Beasts of Eld sticks pretty well for me, but for whatever reason it's the only one. Every year I read the Riddlemaster fanfic in Yuletide and I'm like 'I....really should remember who these people are and why they're acting in this manner.......' but I NEVER DO.

...they're always beautiful, though.....?

[varadia]

I remember Rommalb and Blammor very clearly. That's . . . about it.

[skygiants]

Yeah, it's like, "OKAY, the central metaphor of this book makes sense! I got this! I CAN REMEMBER THIS." Which is way more than I can remember of any of the others.

[ambyr]

I can remember The Changeling Sea, but nothing else.

[skygiants]

I cannot remember ONE SINGLE THING about The Changeling Sea. Including the fact of whether I read it or not!

[lnhammer]

I can remember The Changeling Sea because I've read it so many times, including once out loud on a road trip. We, ah, rather like that one.

We also have a print of the cover in the bedroom hallway.

---L.

[skygiants]

Many of her covers are BEAUTIFUL.

(....and also many of her covers are hilarious.)

[lnhammer]

YES, and oh yes.

---L.

[allchildren]

Oh. hmm. I did read that when I was a kid (I think? maybe just part of it?), and promptly forgot everything about it and so decided it and her writing was probably Not My Thing. But now you are making me think maybe I should be more open to the mystery of the mysteriousness.

[skygiants]

EVERYONE FORGETS EVERYTHING ABOUT HER BOOKS, is the takeaway from the comments on this post. I don't understand how or why. She writes perfectly respectable words, there's no reason they should float away pretty much immediately....

Anyway I think you would probably love Nyx from Cygnet, is what I actually meant to say here.

[rymenhild]

I remember Riddle-Master, but that may be because I've read it through at least a dozen times. (Sometimes I almost wish I would forget it, because then the surprises would be surprises to me. But since it took me at least four readings of a few important pages in Book 3 to figure out what happened there, it would probably be unnecessary extra work for me to have to figure it out again.)

The McKillips I've read repeatedly are more likely to stick. That also includes Forgotten Beasts of Eld, Ombria in Shadow, and Song for the Basilisk. I've read, I believe, almost all of McKillip's other books too, but I couldn't tell you a thing about the Cygnet books now.

[skygiants]

I keep thinking I'm going to remember Riddle-Master, because I'm pretty sure it was the first McKillip I read and surely something should stick? And every time I close it very optimistically and am convinced I'm going to remember, and then Yuletide comes around next year and I pop optimistically into the fanfic archive and then I'm like '....nope, don't have a clue.'

[percysowner]

Another person who McKillip doesn't stick for. I see her name and think, I remember liking her books, but I can't remember anything about them. At least I'm not alone.

[skygiants]

She's a very beautiful writer! It's a very special talent to write books that ephemeral!

[ceitfianna]

I've read two McKillip's, the slightly Russian one and a collection of short stories and neither of them really held either. I was kind of reminded of Valente's writing, fairy tales are being treated and the language is beautiful but that's what holds on. Also they always have the best covers so I see them and go, oh, I should read that.

[skygiants]

I don't remember which one is the slightly Russian one! DOES IT INVOLVE FIREBIRDS

[ceitfianna]

Yes, firebirds were definitely involved and a forest and I think a Baba Yaga figure. According to goodreads, I read In the Forests of Serre and really liked it and I think the Bards of Bone Plain and Wonders of the Invisible World. I liked the bards one but the others I don't recall. Also I think the firebird one I'm recalling is actually Lackey's take on that myth which was a book I don't think I finished.

[skygiants]

Hah, I thought the Firebird might have been the Lackey one! VERY DIFFERENT book (which I also don't remember much about, though I do think I enjoyed it when I read it.)

[shati]

I feel like I've read one McKillip book I remembered some of the plot of for at least a week, but...I forget which book...

[skygiants]

The elusive lost McKillip...which sounds like a McKillip plot in and of itself. Maybe it is a McKillip plot which I've read. I WOULDN'T KNOW.

[thistleingrey]

Heh, yes, I remember very clearly that I loved both books (there was no omnibus at that time), but hell if I know how they went. There was a labyrinth, maybe, because I became irrationally dissatisfied with a Lisa Goldstein book that I read soon afterwards which had a similar feature for different reasons (and which I felt was less well managed).

I do remember Ombria in Shadow fairly well, and Fool's Run because it's SF and sufficiently unlike her other work. Oh, gosh, I'm ten years behind in my reading, according to her bibliography.

[skygiants]

There is a labyrinth! It features prominently in the first book. Mythological things ... happen there .....?

I remember a little of Ombria in Shadow because the Latin puns pleased me enough when I read it the first time to make an impression.

-- I am however pretty sure I've never read Fool's Run. McKillip wrote SF?!

[thistleingrey]

I'm just relieved that I haven't lost one of my few tangible bits of memory!

Ombria is the book that convinced me that despite my not-good drawing ability, I'd inherited the artist's eye of my father (and uncle and grandmother) after all. The book is kind of synaesthetic for me, and I'm waiting a few more years before attempting a second reread. I mean, Alphabet of Thorn is supposed to be the one I glommed onto, but no.

Oh YES. I remember it as decent, but it made very little splash upon release; she was typed somewhat already as a writer of simultaneously ethereal and gritty fantasy, even before those squarish Craft cover-art editions began. For Books That Aren't Typical McKillip, there are also the semi-autobiographical House on Parchment Street and Stepping from the Shadows. (I don't remember much about those, either, although for the reasonable cause of having read them circa 1990.)

[skygiants]

I thought I'd made a pretty decent swathe in McKillip's oeuvre one way or another, but apparently there's a big chunk that I just ENTIRELY missed. I had no idea she'd stepped so far off her well-beaten ethereal fantasy path!

[genarti]

My entire memory of both halves of this book: "Nyx! That first scene in the swamp with the bird dissection! There was somebody else I liked who was... warriory? And there was a prince or something unless that's the same person. Wasn't somebody trapped in an enchantment? An enchanted house, or maybe a dream metaphor house, or maybe there were two enchantments. And a desert! And some cool set pieces! Maybe a chess set full of metaphor, or something like that? I liked it! Stuff... presumably happened??"

Sadly, this is actually quite a lot of memory of a Patricia McKillip book for me. As we've discussed, I have the same difficulty you do in remembering anything that happened later.

Now I kind of want to read it again. It will be a voyage of plot rediscovery. (Your summarizing does ring some bells!) And Nyx and Meguet are both great, as I recall. And all the sisters whose existence I'd, uh, totally forgotten.

[skygiants]

I'm pretty sure there isn't a chess set full of metaphor UNLESS I'VE ALREADY FORGOTTEN IT, which is entirely possible.

You should do it! Do it ... within the next month so that I still remember enough to talk about it with you!

[lnhammer]

My impression when I read them was they're more McKillip-y than most McKillip to date [ETA: meaning, until then], and I was glad when shortly after that she started writing more accessibly with The Book of Atrix Wolfe and Winter Rose. I liked the Cygnet books, mind you, but I've never reread them and have no memory of plot or character (aside from the existence of numinous mythological forces, which was a given at the time for McKillip).

---L.

[skygiants]

I actually sort of kind of remember Winter Rose! Mostly because it's a Tam Lin book and I collect those. I own it; I should probably reread it.

[lnhammer]

Yes, you should. (So should I.)

---L.