skygiants | (no subject)

I finished Ann Leckie's The Raven Tower!

As I said on Twitter: massive respect for Ann Leckie's mineral protagonist progression from 'passive-aggressive AI' to 'literally just a very sulky rock.'

I'll admit it took me some time to come round on the sulky rock, but then the rock insisted on being hauled halfway across the continent in a large unwieldy carriage out of sheer bloody-mindedness despite several protestations from annoyed divine friends, and suddenly I loved that rock. We are all what we are.

I also have a slightly more confused respect for her decision to plant her flag firmly on the Horatio/Ophelia rarepeair while vehemently refusing to support all the more common Hamlet ships. Bold choice! Little out of left field, but bold!

As with Ancillary Justice, I found this a slow build and an increasingly rewarding one as it went on. Things that Ann Leckie clearly likes and is good at, in combination with mineral protagonists:
- unusual and somewhat deliberately distancing narration
- non-human entities moved to action by feelings of affection and responsibility towards specific humans
- very long-game revenge plots
- careful plot-relevant linguistic exploration! MY FAVORITE PART

As much as I liked the book overall, I did not find the ending as satisfying as I wanted to. I think part of that is just that I care more about Hamlet than Ann Leckie does. And, I mean, Hypercompetent Trans Horatio is very much a character who's written for me to love, but by 2/3 of the way through the book it's pretty clear that the whole Hamlet side of the plot is just an unstoppable rolling stone set in motion by the Strength and Patience of the Hill, and the ending is very much just that stone landing where it has to, and I kept waiting for Eolo's presence to ... maybe shift the path of the stone a little in the final pages? For the Strength and Patience of the Hill's interest in Eolo to be relevant to the endgame, other than 'Eolo lives', which we know is going to happen anyway because that's what Horatios do. So when that didn't happen, and the ending just thunked itself right into place, it felt slightly anticlimactic to me.

Also, Mawat feels like a Hamlet written by someone who doesn't much like Hamlet-the-character, and I didn't think I was a person who much liked Hamlet until I found myself becoming vaguely indignant on his behalf as I read through the book. No, that's not the right kind of drama queen-ing! Hamlet is more genre-savvy than this!

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From:

sovay

I also have a slightly more confused respect for her decision to plant her flag firmly on the Horatio/Ophelia rarepeair while vehemently refusing to support all the more common Hamlet ships. Bold choice! Little out of left field, but bold!

I didn't realize this book was a retelling of Hamlet.

I approve of the rock.

From:

kore

I read the opening pages of this, but got distracted. I totally want to read it now!

From:

skygiants

I definitely knew at one point that was Hamlet, but I'd forgotten until I started reading and our non-rock protagonists were riding into town to confront an uncle about a ruling father's untimely disappearance and then it all came back very fast.

From:

skygiants

I found it really hard to focus on for the first couple chapters and then suddenly it all clicked! Just about the time the linguistics started kicking in >.>

From:

kate_nepveu

it is also a retelling of a couple other stories that are generally less well-known to USian audiences! GIANT SPOILERS: https://annleckie.tumblr.com/post/183303749411/three-links-presented-for-no-particular-reason

my most recent feeling about Hamlet are via Ryan North's choose-your-own-adventure version, which also does not like Hamlet much or think he's very genre-savvy, so I did not feel very indignant on his behalf.

From:

kate_nepveu

I liked the narrative framework very much and I still sometimes found the relentless exteriority of the present-day sections [*] a little tiring.

[*] and I will totally die on the hill that those are first-person not second-, sorry the author is critically dead here.

From:

sovay

it is also a retelling of a couple other stories that are generally less well-known to USian audiences!

All of which makes me more interested in reading the novel than I had been. Hm.

From:

kate_nepveu

I liked it very much. I will make it my next "I am very tired but want to write" project, I have a ton of notes for it.

From:

sovay

I will make it my next "I am very tired but want to write" project, I have a ton of notes for it.

Then I look forward!

From:

troisoiseaux

Frankly, I was won over almost immediately by the general concept of a sulky and extremely stubborn rock as a protagonists, but then it turned out to be a Hamlet adaption ft. "non-human entities moved to action by feelings of affection and responsibility towards specific humans" and linguistics and the urgency of my need to get my hands on this book grew about 10000x!!!!

From:

skygiants

SAME. Please, Leckie, give me an emotional heart to Eolo and Mawat's dynamic or indeed any of the Eolo dynamics, I'm begging you!

From:

skygiants

AN APPROPRIATE REACTION; this book has for sure the best rock protagonist I've ever read!

From:

starlady

Aw, I loved it. I love Hamlet, but I appreciated him being called out for his drama by the narrative in this version. And I appreciated that the sulky rock was actually the book's protagonist the whole time.

From:

vass

*crashes through the wall* I HATED Ryan North's CYOA Hamlet. Not because he didn't like Hamlet much, but because he was clearly so determined to fix Ophelia by making her a completely different character. Because if she were the sort of female character that Ryan North personally approves of -- smart and witty and sensible and interested in STEM -- then she wouldn't be affected by tragedy and trauma and misogyny, which are things that only happen to soppy girls who obey their fathers and boyfriends.

It felt didactic, like he was making Ophelia into his version of a Strong Female Character in order to create a Good Role Model for Girls Today while victim-blaming canon Ophelia. Whom I don't even like, but that was shitty.

Edited (line break) Date: 2019-04-24 04:52 am (UTC)

From:

conuly

I'm going to have to object to your view of Breq as "passive-aggressive".

From:

vass

I agree with much of this, although in fairness does Horatio's presence change the plot of Hamlet?

I do like Hamlet-the-character, and was initially prepared to just go with "well, this is just going to be one of the Hamlet adaptations where I don't care much about him, like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead," but I did warm to Mawat a little because of the fucked-up family dynamics and how it was clear that while he's never been great at regulating his emotions, he is also someone whose skill at doing is inversely correlated with proximity to his family (both in time and geographic distance.)

Mainly I was there for the rock.

From:

st_aurafina

Omg, Mineral Protagonists, omg. Hypercompetent Trans Horatio, I'm dying.

I felt the same about the ending - it did thunk into place like one of those balls in a puzzle box. I loved the journey (and also the literal journey, and how mad the Myriad was at big old rock frand) but the ending fell a little flat for me.

But language! And long games! So good.

From:

rmc28

I am still laughing at myself because I was UTTERLY GRIPPED by this story all the way through and Spouse and I enthused at each other when we'd both finished it, and I completely failed to notice it was a Hamlet story.

(I twigged to the Hamlet about a week ago after reading a couple of other people's reviews.)

From:

kate_nepveu

hmm! I'd have to replay (I got the app version) to see what I think; but I see what you're saying.

From:

kate_nepveu

apparently I'm willing to infer a lot! I was talking more about the "I imagine you were feeling x" stuff.

From:

kate_nepveu

yes, it was interesting how my rooting interests shifted over the book, the way it used my expectations about narratives, and also the way Mawat so clearly devolved over the course of the book (alas).

From:

kate_nepveu

Becca. Becca, the real crossover here is not Marielda, it's . . .

STEVEN UNIVERSE.

Imagine the mutual uncomprehension at such different ways of being a rock person!

From:

asakiyume

I'm carefully not reading your spoiler cuts, but I love your bullet list of things that Ann loves, and I **agree** My heart skews toward the non-human entities moved to action by feelings of affection, but **they are all good**.

From:

skygiants

Oh, don't get me wrong, I very much love and support sulky rock protagonist!

(Hamlets are always dramatic and should absolutely be called out for it, but I think the most interesting Hamlets also have ... not just self-doubt about their bizarre situation, but also a weird sense of humor about it? ... which is absolutely not evident in Mawat, and maybe is what I missed the most.)

From:

skygiants

I mean it as a compliment, but I stand by it, at least in the first book! I first loved Breq for the way in which her narrative is frequently like "I'm perfectly chill, I'm not mad about it" while the other person in the room is like "YOU CLEARLY ARE THOUGH".