Birthday + Abhorsen Trilogy
Jun. 21st, 2015 11:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lunabee34Thank you for all your birthday wishes! I had an excellent 36th birthday even if it was spent in a whirlwind of travel.
*hugs*
I am so grateful for all of you and the joy you've brought into my life over the last decade.
I finished the Abhorsen trilogy while I was visiting my parents this weekend. Y'all, I know I had some issues with the first book, Sabriel, thatthe_rck sums up pretty well: I think that it's pretty hard to get emotionally involved in most of Nix's stories (at least those that I've read). I think part of it is that he doesn't dig very far into his character's emotions, not in ways that engage readers, at least. So you kind of know, for example, that a character is probably frightened because what's going on is clearly described as terrifying, but the character doesn't react with any depth to show how that particular person responds to fear and to make the reader feel empathetic fear. source
That is exactly how I felt while reading Sabriel. I knew she was sad because what was happening would make anyone sad, but her sadness wasn't made palpable for me. I wonder if that's a deliberate choice for Sabriel's character, though--for her to be so stoic and practical and down to business--because two seconds into Lirael, the second book, I've got all the emotional depth I could ever want.
The second book is extremely emotionally complex. I don't feel distanced from the characters at all. I cried, I laughed--Lorraine was satisfied.
Lirael is a wonderful character. She spends her whole life wishing she could be something she's not (and, frankly, to be a Clayr sounds even more horrific than being the Abhorsen; the Clayr spend all their lives seeing fragments of the future, focus so much on the future that they neglect the present, and descend to the last one of them into a kind of terrible Alzheimer's at the end where all they see are unending and fragmented flashes of possible futures) and yet what she is is powerful and amazing. She's the perfect foil for Sameth who is supposed to become the Abhorsen but who sees that role for what it is--the danger and the fear--and wants nothing of it.
I think Mogget and the Disreputable Dog make the series, Dog especially. I now want all the fanfic of their relationship in the Beginning, and Lirael's golden hand, and Lirael and Sabriel learning to be sisters and Nick being all fragile and Lirael nursing him back to health and Lirael and Ellimere becoming BFFs to Sameth's consternation and Sameth's parents being genuinely delighted at him reclaiming the Wallmaking heritage--all of it.
Next, I think I shall read Mira Grant's Parasite.
I have posts to make about Game of Thrones and Penny Dreadful in the next few days, which I know you all await with bated breath dangling on your tenterhooks.
*hugs*
I am so grateful for all of you and the joy you've brought into my life over the last decade.
I finished the Abhorsen trilogy while I was visiting my parents this weekend. Y'all, I know I had some issues with the first book, Sabriel, that
the_rck sums up pretty well: I think that it's pretty hard to get emotionally involved in most of Nix's stories (at least those that I've read). I think part of it is that he doesn't dig very far into his character's emotions, not in ways that engage readers, at least. So you kind of know, for example, that a character is probably frightened because what's going on is clearly described as terrifying, but the character doesn't react with any depth to show how that particular person responds to fear and to make the reader feel empathetic fear. sourceThat is exactly how I felt while reading Sabriel. I knew she was sad because what was happening would make anyone sad, but her sadness wasn't made palpable for me. I wonder if that's a deliberate choice for Sabriel's character, though--for her to be so stoic and practical and down to business--because two seconds into Lirael, the second book, I've got all the emotional depth I could ever want.
The second book is extremely emotionally complex. I don't feel distanced from the characters at all. I cried, I laughed--Lorraine was satisfied.
Lirael is a wonderful character. She spends her whole life wishing she could be something she's not (and, frankly, to be a Clayr sounds even more horrific than being the Abhorsen; the Clayr spend all their lives seeing fragments of the future, focus so much on the future that they neglect the present, and descend to the last one of them into a kind of terrible Alzheimer's at the end where all they see are unending and fragmented flashes of possible futures) and yet what she is is powerful and amazing. She's the perfect foil for Sameth who is supposed to become the Abhorsen but who sees that role for what it is--the danger and the fear--and wants nothing of it.
I think Mogget and the Disreputable Dog make the series, Dog especially. I now want all the fanfic of their relationship in the Beginning, and Lirael's golden hand, and Lirael and Sabriel learning to be sisters and Nick being all fragile and Lirael nursing him back to health and Lirael and Ellimere becoming BFFs to Sameth's consternation and Sameth's parents being genuinely delighted at him reclaiming the Wallmaking heritage--all of it.
Next, I think I shall read Mira Grant's Parasite.
I have posts to make about Game of Thrones and Penny Dreadful in the next few days, which I know you all await with bated breath dangling on your tenterhooks.
