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Books: Druon and Le Guin
May. 2nd, 2018 09:38 pmOver the last few weeks I read Maurice Druon's "The King Without a Kingdom", Book 7 (of 7) in his Accursed Kings series and Ursula Le Guin's "The Wizard of Earthsea". Both were underwhelming.
Druon: This was my least favorite of the seven books, perhaps because it feels like an afterthought and it is stylistically different. He had 6 books with one main character who died at the end of Book 6, and this book is set many years later. It feels like the series was really 6 books. The style didn't help.
This book was written in first person from the perspective of a Cardinal traveling to a meeting in the midst of 100 year war, right after Poitiers, and recounting the story of the last few years to his nephew and a few other people along the way. So basically just one big monologue with occasional sprinkling of other people's speech. This really didn't work.
There was one section about the ambush at a banquet and subsequent execution that read more like classic Druon and was very engaging but the style of the book was just irritating. I still liked the subject matter but other books were just so much better.
And I think I just realized that language and style also what was the issue with Le Guin for me.
"The Wizard of Earthsea" is the third fiction of Le Guin that I read. I first read "Left Hand of Darkness" many years ago, and then "Lavinia". I read her non-fiction last year. I appreciated her fiction books but she was never my favorite writer and with this book I figured out why. When she writes fiction, her language and style leaves me outside. It never draws me in. It is just not natural to me. When I read Novik or Bujold, just the words put me in the story. When I finished "The Wizard of Earthsea " and read her afterword, all of a sudden I was right there with her and I became much more engaged with her words. I do enjoy her non-fiction. She had such a fabulous essay about her writers retreat in her book of essays.
In the afterword, Le Guin acknowledged that in many ways her fantasy was traditional, like in limited roles for girls. That actually bugged me through the story. When that woman in the castle told Ged she knew him and he didn't know her, I knew who she was just because there weren't that many women in the book and they are very cliche when they are. I get that her fantasy was groundbreaking at the time, but it doesn't read like it now. I still want to read her "Dispossessed " but that will probably be it for me.
On to Leckie's "Ancillary Mercy". Time to finish the trilogy. So far, after one chapter, it reads well.
Druon: This was my least favorite of the seven books, perhaps because it feels like an afterthought and it is stylistically different. He had 6 books with one main character who died at the end of Book 6, and this book is set many years later. It feels like the series was really 6 books. The style didn't help.
This book was written in first person from the perspective of a Cardinal traveling to a meeting in the midst of 100 year war, right after Poitiers, and recounting the story of the last few years to his nephew and a few other people along the way. So basically just one big monologue with occasional sprinkling of other people's speech. This really didn't work.
There was one section about the ambush at a banquet and subsequent execution that read more like classic Druon and was very engaging but the style of the book was just irritating. I still liked the subject matter but other books were just so much better.
And I think I just realized that language and style also what was the issue with Le Guin for me.
"The Wizard of Earthsea" is the third fiction of Le Guin that I read. I first read "Left Hand of Darkness" many years ago, and then "Lavinia". I read her non-fiction last year. I appreciated her fiction books but she was never my favorite writer and with this book I figured out why. When she writes fiction, her language and style leaves me outside. It never draws me in. It is just not natural to me. When I read Novik or Bujold, just the words put me in the story. When I finished "The Wizard of Earthsea " and read her afterword, all of a sudden I was right there with her and I became much more engaged with her words. I do enjoy her non-fiction. She had such a fabulous essay about her writers retreat in her book of essays.
In the afterword, Le Guin acknowledged that in many ways her fantasy was traditional, like in limited roles for girls. That actually bugged me through the story. When that woman in the castle told Ged she knew him and he didn't know her, I knew who she was just because there weren't that many women in the book and they are very cliche when they are. I get that her fantasy was groundbreaking at the time, but it doesn't read like it now. I still want to read her "Dispossessed " but that will probably be it for me.
On to Leckie's "Ancillary Mercy". Time to finish the trilogy. So far, after one chapter, it reads well.