skygiants

I 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:

( massive spoilers, do not click if you plan to read the book! )

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.

OKAY GUYS CAN WE TALK ABOUT FROI OF THE EXILES? I just finished it yesterday and I am still stuck in a vortex of "what was that even!"

So Froi of the Exiles is the sequel to Finnikin of the Rock, which is a really well-done, thoughtful exploration of gender roles and the aftermath of trauma and life in a cultural diaspora.

And Froi of the Exiles is sort of trying to do these things too -- less diaspora, more about trauma and cycles of hatred and gender roles and scapegoating and the importance of consent -- except the main plot also on ten times the crack?! I still have no idea if I actually liked a lot of it was doing, but I couldn't put it down!

I should also say first of all, as a giant trigger warning, that there is a LOT of child abuse and rape as backstory in these books. Like, way more than Finnikin of the Rock, which already had a pretty significant amount. Literally EVERY CHARACTER in Froi of the Exiles has had a completely horrific, abuse-filled past, possibly also with some genocide or attempted murder by a family member thrown in. After a few chapters I just sort of stopped even being able to register levels of trauma to be disturbed by in trying to follow the actual plot, which was gloriously convoluted and Gothic as all get-out. At one point the protagonist has this exchange:

PROTAGONIST: [This dude] was your lover, but you had a wife who bore you a son?
OTHER PERSON: No, I've not had a wife. It's far more complicated and tragic than you'd imagine.
PROTAGONIST: EVERYTHING IN CHARYN seems far more complicated and tragic.

AND IT'S TRUE. ( Vague, hilarious plot spoilers! )

By the time we got to the second half of the book -- the out-of-the-castle, on-the-run half -- it had gone all the way through Gothic and out the other side and the entire thing actually started to feel like one of those quirky indie drama-comedies, like The Royal Tennenbaums or Little Miss Sunshine or something, about bizarre unconventional families undergoing awkward, angry bonding. I mean, a significant portion of the book's pagecount deals with ( awkward family spoilers! )

So basically what it all comes down to is that I have utterly lost my ability to talk seriously about any of the (worthwhile and relevant!) issues that Melina Marchetta still wants to talk about in between all of the crack, and I still don't know if I can actually recommend this book, necessarily, but I cannot WAIT to read the next one.