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[skygiants]

After reading Ann Leckie's new book Provenance I went on Twitter and asked what you call a screwball plot if it isn't necessarily a comedy.

Like, Provenance, while frequently funny, is not a non-serious book -- it concerns itself with classism, wildly unhealthy family relationships, interstellar warmongering, fetishization of cultural artifacts, and inhumane conditions of incarceration, not to mention murder -- but the structure of the plot is very classic screwball. Misunderstandings! Mistaken identities! Brilliant[ly ill-advised] schemes colliding with each other and blowing up in everybody's face! The faint air of Yakety Sax playing frequently in the background!

Honestly it feels a lot like Ann Leckie channeling Lois McMaster Bujold, with less intense character dynamics but also fewer moments of side-eye.

Our Heroine Ingray Aughskold is the foster daughter of an elected official who has been locked in competition with her foster-brother since they were both small for the eventual goal of inheriting their mother's position. Ingray comes from a public orphanage, while her asshole abrother is the son of a wealthy family, which gives him an edge that Ingray has never quite been able to best.

CUE: Brilliant[ly ill-advised] scheme! Ingray decides to attempt to break a fellow political foster-kid, Pahlad Budrakim, out of Compassionate Removal (i.e. terrible jail) in order to learn the location of the highly important cultural artifacts which Pahlad has hypothetically stolen.

Complication: Pahlad is possibly not Pahlad, and is certainly not inclined to be cooperative.
Complication 2: The space captain who Ingray hired to get them back home is wanted for theft by an alien ambassador, who Does Not Understand Humans, and whom everyone is panicked about offending due to some Very Important Alien Treaties.
Complication 3: Meanwhile, what Ingray's mother would actually like her to be doing with her time is shepherding around some other ambassadors, human ones from a different planet, who want to do politically-motivated excavations in a local nature preserve
Complication 4: Also, someone is about to get murdered!
Complication 5: And the cop in the case has a crush on Ingray!
Complication 6: And MANY OF THE HIGHLY IMPORTANT CULTURAL ARTIFACTS HAVE DISPUTED PROVENANCE AND IT'S VERY DISTRESSING (for everyone but me, because the minute I heard that title I was like 'this had better be about cultural heritage' and LO AND BEHOLD)

((...though I did want to see a little more documented archival paperwork and process surrounding the question of the authenticity of the artifacts, but I mean, ignore me, it's good, it's fine.))

My favorite character was definitely possibly-Pahlad, with their bitter cynicism and constant challenges to everyone else to do better; wanting More Pahlad all the time was probably my biggest complaint about the book.

My other favorite character was the almost entirely useless Radch ambassador, who just did not want to be there that day. Everything about the treatment of the Radch in this book delights me. "So weird to hear this totally clueless woman speaking with the accent we're used to hearing from villains on the TV!" You definitely don't need to have read the Imperial Radch books to enjoy Provenance, but I suspect it does probably make the few Radch cameos five times funnier.

Comments

[conuly]

Great recap, definitely sums it up and gets all the highlights.

[skygiants]

Thanks! Probably not quite all the highlights, some of them are pretty spoilery >.> (SPIDER PURSE)

[raven]

This is an amazing review. As mentioned before the thing where the Geck ambassador RANDOMLY ASSAULTS PEOPLE was my fave but, srsly, it's a lovely vibe.

[skygiants]

I LOVE THE GECK AMBASSADOR and I love all the wacky Geck ambassador mistaken-identity hijinks, she is an earnest and helpful delight.

[dimestore_romeo]

I definitely wobbled a bit on this one, but the fed-up Radch ambassador was definitely a delight.

"So she said - no? -" squint "he? em? Okay, I'm going with he? ughhhhhhhhh."

[skygiants]

THAT POOR USELESS DIPLOMAT. "I don't see the problem? Why is everyone so upset over this? Can I go back to sleep now??"

[vass]

the structure of the plot is very classic screwball

That's a good description.

My favorite character was definitely possibly-Pahlad, with their bitter cynicism and constant challenges to everyone else to do better; wanting More Pahlad all the time was probably my biggest complaint about the book.

Yeah, e was great. E and Tic both... it was weird seeing Ingray through their eyes through Ingray's eyes. That thing where someone's situation is legitimately Not Fucking Great, but the people around them come from situations so much worse that any complaint they could make or even any difficulty coping with the Not Fucking Great situation looks like whining and pathetic helplessness. She captured that particular dynamic very well, I thought. Uncomfortably well.

[skygiants]

Yeah, definitely. Honestly, I thought the book came alive most when either one of them was onscreen to be a foil to Ingray -- I liked Taucris, and it was nice to have at least one character with a reasonably healthy family and good circumstances, but her scenes with Ingray just didn't read quite as interesting to me on the page.

[bookblather]

I love love love characters who just Do Not Want To Be Here so I will read this book immediately. Because that sounds hilarious.

[skygiants]

I mean, the Radch ambassador is a pretty minor character, but on the other hand she does not want to be here enough for a character with TEN TIMES her narrative impact.

[tree_and_leaf]

I don't think it's objectively as interesting as Ancilliary Justice, but I adored it, and your summary does a good job of catching why.

And the Radch Ambassador was hilarious.

[skygiants]

Yeah, I very much enjoyed it! It didn't grab me in the throat with the same 'OKAY YES' feeling that Ancillary Justice did the first time I read it, but then again passive-aggressive artificial intelligences are always pretty much guaranteed to make my heart go pitter-patter.

[monanotlisa]

Oh man! It's on my list...

[skygiants]

The lists are always so long! It always astounds me when I manage to read two New Releases books in a month.

[thistleingrey]

Mine too! We'll get there.

[watersword]

The Radch ambassador was SO GREAT I loved seeing the Radch through another civilization's eyes. Still holding out for my book from the POV of the Presger translators.

[skygiants]

YES getting to see how everyone else views the Radch (when the Radch have such a clear and central image of themselves as The Most Important Ones) was the BEST THING.

Dang, my brain completely fails at the notion of trying to sustain that for the length of a book, so hats off to Ann Leckie if she manages it!

[kore]

This is the first review I've seen that makes me want to read it.

[skygiants]

Hah! Now I'm curious what about the other reviews hasn't made you want to read it...

[kore]

Part of it is I like screwball comedy a lot, but most reviews I've seen tend to complain this is less complex and ambitious than the trilogy, and more of a pendant to it (I haven't read those books yet). I think it's that you made it sound fun mainly? Serious but fun.

[thistleingrey]

the minute I heard that title I was like 'this had better be about cultural heritage'

Ah, good, because though I'm not an archivist by training, I've had things to do with physical and digital archives and with provenance-oriented research, and I was wondering whether the title were merely convenient. It's okay (by me) if it doesn't go very deep as long as there's something to it....

[skygiants]

There is certainly something to it! Interrogating the notion of history-and-policy-as-authenticated-through-artifacts is a central theme -- though it's much more about the idea than the practicality of it, I think, if that makes sense.

[thistleingrey]

Yes, makes sense. Thanks!

[sovay]

After reading Ann Leckie's new book Provenance I went on Twitter and asked what you call a screwball plot if it isn't necessarily a comedy.

Sometimes it's a noir, but Provenance doesn't sound like one, either.

It does sound like something I would enjoy, though.

[skygiants]

Yeah -- thematically it could be, in some respects, but it's too warm-hearted and the pacing's different. The way a screwball bounces off the beat of 'oops have I just been having this conversation with the wrong double??' tends to run differently I think than the way a noir would hold it, though the exact same plot point could happen very plausibly in either genre.

[aamcnamara]

(for everyone but me, because the minute I heard that title I was like 'this had better be about cultural heritage' and LO AND BEHOLD)

((...though I did want to see a little more documented archival paperwork and process surrounding the question of the authenticity of the artifacts, but I mean, ignore me, it's good, it's fine.))
RIGHT? It's not just material evidence! I mean paleography is great but technically not provenance per se. Um.

...I was also delighted, though, when I figured out that (rot13 because kinda spoilery?) gur dhrfgvba bs "vf guvf crefba Cnuynq" jnf nyfb n gurzngvp pnyyonpx gb cebiranapr, nf vf Gvp'f fcnprfuvc. Jr obhtug sebz n erchgnoyr qrnyre! Jr unir nyy gur cncrejbex! Ohg... hz....

[skygiants]

RIGHT. Like, OK, sure, fine, interrogate the authenticity of the artifact itself but ALSO look at the chain of custody and historiography of when it became accepted as a representation of the thing!

(BUT YES I loved that! As well as gur jnl gung gur dhrfgvba bs cebiranapr nyfb eryngrf onpx gb gur sbfgre-xvqf naq gur flfgrz bs sbfgrevat birenyy -- gurfr xvqf unir nyy gur cebcre cncrejbex gung fnlf jung naq jub gurl ner, abj, ohg jub gurl jrer naq jurer gurl pnzr sebz orsber trggvat gung snzvyl fgnzc nyfb unf na vzcnpg. Vatenl unf n cebiranapr gbb.)

[aamcnamara]

Ooh, I hadn't connected that bit, damn. I kind of just want to hug everyone in this book. Except, like, Budrakim senior.

[hebethen]

....I just think of it as Hijinks, although that is admittedly a word with a certain comedic air to it. A heist story with hijinks. Heistjinks?

[bloodygranuaile]

Were you at Leckie's book signing at Pandemonium a few weeks ago? I picked it up there and now it is like... hanging out sort of near the top of the stack of signed books I've gotten from various authors who have come by Boston in the past few months, help me I need like a month of staycation to just catch up on reading