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Mar. 5th, 2016 07:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsI kind of wish I'd read Melina Marchetta's Jellicoe Road BEFORE the Lumatere books like everybody else. Retroactively, having now read Jellicoe Road, I am COMPLETELY UNSURPRISED by the ludicrous amount of parental backstory trauma in Lumatere! Alas, it doesn't work in reverse because, like a fool, I assumed that the backstory of a novel set at a contemporary Australian boarding school would be at least somewhat less over-the-top than the backstory of a novel set in a Gormenghastian fantasy kingdom.
In fact, however, I'm pretty sure Melina Marchetta wrote Jellicoe Road and then was like "well, that was fun, but you know what would make it better? If I did it all over again, but with HIGH FANTASY STAGE SETS."
I mean, Jellicoe Road really is quite thematically similar to the Lumatere books: both feature angry, traumatized teenagers with terrible childhoods that start out as enemies, but reluctantly grow to understand and support about each other through the process of a.) learning about the five million tragedies that plagued the Previous Generation b.) reconciling with the survivors of the Previous Generation and the mistakes that they made and c.) hooking any estranged couples from among the survivors of the Previous Generation back up.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Jellicoe Road a lot! I like reading about angry, unlikable children reluctantly finding support and strength in each other. However, I do think that the thematic stuff she's trying to do does work slightly better for me when you upgrade the war games to real war and the backstory trauma therefore to the kind of incredibly messed-up stuff that does happen in war, as opposed to a series of unfortunate events that all just happen to happen to the same collection of nice but tragic kids in suburban Australia, including:
- a tragic, unpredictable car accident that kills all the members of two families except for three teenagers
- followed several years later by a tragic, unpredictable, completely unrelated GUN accident in which the teenager who rescued the other three teenagers from the car crash the first time around then accidentally SHOOTS AND KILLS one of them
(it is the confluence of these two tragic, unpredictable accidents that gets me -- either one of them leading to a great deal of trauma for all the survivors makes sense to me! but was it really necessary to have both???)
- anyway, this leaves the dead teenager's girlfriend, who is another one of the three survivors of the first accident, pregnant! after which she becomes a drug-addicted hooker!
- meanwhile, the kid who accidentally shot the other kid goes insane, but then becomes sane again long enough to get married and have a kid with the love of his life ...
- who then dies tragically young of CANCER!
- after which he goes insane AGAIN, becomes a hermit for several years, and then shoots himself!
- RIGHT IN FRONT of the child of the dead teenager that he shot!
Also somewhere in between all the tragedies the kids have time to accidentally start a war game that will lead to a generation's worth of bitter enmity between various factions of teenagers, but given all the rest of what's going on that's basically just incidental.
I kept thinking of that one line in Froi of the Exiles when a survivor of the Previous Generation, attempting to describe the backstory to a confused Froi, explains: "It's far more complicated and tragic than you can imagine." All right, Melina Marchetta, I understand now. It's ALWAYS far more complicated and tragic than I can imagine. I will not underestimate you again.
In fact, however, I'm pretty sure Melina Marchetta wrote Jellicoe Road and then was like "well, that was fun, but you know what would make it better? If I did it all over again, but with HIGH FANTASY STAGE SETS."
I mean, Jellicoe Road really is quite thematically similar to the Lumatere books: both feature angry, traumatized teenagers with terrible childhoods that start out as enemies, but reluctantly grow to understand and support about each other through the process of a.) learning about the five million tragedies that plagued the Previous Generation b.) reconciling with the survivors of the Previous Generation and the mistakes that they made and c.) hooking any estranged couples from among the survivors of the Previous Generation back up.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Jellicoe Road a lot! I like reading about angry, unlikable children reluctantly finding support and strength in each other. However, I do think that the thematic stuff she's trying to do does work slightly better for me when you upgrade the war games to real war and the backstory trauma therefore to the kind of incredibly messed-up stuff that does happen in war, as opposed to a series of unfortunate events that all just happen to happen to the same collection of nice but tragic kids in suburban Australia, including:
- a tragic, unpredictable car accident that kills all the members of two families except for three teenagers
- followed several years later by a tragic, unpredictable, completely unrelated GUN accident in which the teenager who rescued the other three teenagers from the car crash the first time around then accidentally SHOOTS AND KILLS one of them
(it is the confluence of these two tragic, unpredictable accidents that gets me -- either one of them leading to a great deal of trauma for all the survivors makes sense to me! but was it really necessary to have both???)
- anyway, this leaves the dead teenager's girlfriend, who is another one of the three survivors of the first accident, pregnant! after which she becomes a drug-addicted hooker!
- meanwhile, the kid who accidentally shot the other kid goes insane, but then becomes sane again long enough to get married and have a kid with the love of his life ...
- who then dies tragically young of CANCER!
- after which he goes insane AGAIN, becomes a hermit for several years, and then shoots himself!
- RIGHT IN FRONT of the child of the dead teenager that he shot!
Also somewhere in between all the tragedies the kids have time to accidentally start a war game that will lead to a generation's worth of bitter enmity between various factions of teenagers, but given all the rest of what's going on that's basically just incidental.
I kept thinking of that one line in Froi of the Exiles when a survivor of the Previous Generation, attempting to describe the backstory to a confused Froi, explains: "It's far more complicated and tragic than you can imagine." All right, Melina Marchetta, I understand now. It's ALWAYS far more complicated and tragic than I can imagine. I will not underestimate you again.
