Deep Secret
Feb. 5th, 2011 10:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ravenYou know, there are times, such as when you've trudged half an hour over half a mile through ankle deep icy sludge along unlit streets, that you just have to stand for five minutes under the first streetlight when it comes and evaluate your life choices. And then when you find out that after all that, no, the buses aren't running (the Siren: "Don't they have that "we never close down unless meteorites obliterate central NY" policy?") I think you are justified in going home and spending some time writing fanfic and reading and feeling sorry for yourself.
On the bright side, I got the whisky bottle open. Thank you for all your help in that matter, I toasted you all while waiting for my feet to defrost.
Thank you also for the lovely things y'all said about me on the love meme! I was really touched and felt very loved, especially because of the sonnet, wow, and although I did not get to go dancing withlivrelibre tonight as planned, life could be much worse.
Right, so I got in and spent my evening curled up finishing a novel, Deep Secret by Diana Wynne Jones, and now I want to talk about it, because it was great. Really, really good. I picked it up at the Tompkins County booksale merely because I was enjoying the Chrestomanci books and it was another one by Diana Wynne Jones, and I read it expecting light fun; I ended up liking it marginally better than the Chrestomanci books, for reasons I'm still working out. I was amused to note my initial suspicion about it was on the nose: it's a book for adults, that has been repackaged with a cartoonish cover with "12 and up" put on the back, but it's still very much a book for adults. Not that I think it wouldn't work okay as YA, but there's a lot of really graphic violence in it, more than in the DWJ kids' books, and as for YA, they tend to have young adult protagonists, don't they?
Well, this one doesn't. The two protagonists, who alternate as first-person narrator, are an angry, melodramatically heartbroken undergraduate called Maree, and a stuffy twentysomething software designer called Rupert. Rupert is a Magid, which seems to be a job very like Chrestomanci's, except he isn't doing it by himself; he, along with a few dozen others, keep magic ticking over in the multiverse. Rupert is a bit uptight, a little unsure of himself, occasionally makes silly mistakes; he's also thoughtful and compassionate, in that fabulous three-dimensional Jones way. Rupert's mentor has just died, and he's looking for a replacement Magid. On his shortlist is Maree, who is, as she puts it, "crossed in love", broke, and tormented by her awful family. She's crass, a bit self-centered, and passionate about books, and cares a lot for her younger cousin, Nick, the third main character in the book. She calls Rupert the Prat. They don't get on.
And so the plot wanders chaotically on, through an SF con that sounds like many cons I have gone to (and it's lovingly depicted - just the right balance of affection and irony), and through the canon's multiverse. It's a love story, of a sort, and a good one; an adventure story of another sort, and a good one. There is a really delightful supporting cast: Rupert's dead mentor, Stan, who haunts him by playing his Scarlatti CDs incessantly at top volume; his ex-girlfriend, Zinka, who is amazing and makes sure the novel passes the Bechdel test on lots of occasions despite having a male first-person narrator for most of it; some extremely vain centaurs (who are Asian - because, of course, their skin is the same colour all over and how many pure white horses do you see, really?), and some fabulous villains.
The thing I don't like, plot-wise, is one thing that also annoys me rather about The Lives of Christopher Chant. Christopher, the narrative tells us and to some extent shows us, is not a nice child at all; he tends to be self-centred, he lacks empathy, etc. Well, maybe, but Christopher is about thirteen, and everyone in his life, including his parents and his uncle and with probably the only exception of Tacroy, has either neglected him or used him mercilessly. I dunno, I'd be self-centred too. Well, the same plot works out to some extent in Deep Secret, and it annoys me. But, otherwise, that was a bright spot in this week. I should dig out the sequel.
In short: I want fic and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
yuletide is ten months away. Sigh.
(Oh, also, if it were fanfic, I'd warn that the treatment of mental illness is a bit odd. One background character is described as mad and evil; but on the other hand, Rupert's interior monologue is occasionally textbook depressed, and it deals very well with that, so your mileage may vary. There's also some transphobic language, but not a transphobic narrative, if that makes sense.)
Okay. Back to writing. Kinda.
On the bright side, I got the whisky bottle open. Thank you for all your help in that matter, I toasted you all while waiting for my feet to defrost.
Thank you also for the lovely things y'all said about me on the love meme! I was really touched and felt very loved, especially because of the sonnet, wow, and although I did not get to go dancing with
livrelibre tonight as planned, life could be much worse.Right, so I got in and spent my evening curled up finishing a novel, Deep Secret by Diana Wynne Jones, and now I want to talk about it, because it was great. Really, really good. I picked it up at the Tompkins County booksale merely because I was enjoying the Chrestomanci books and it was another one by Diana Wynne Jones, and I read it expecting light fun; I ended up liking it marginally better than the Chrestomanci books, for reasons I'm still working out. I was amused to note my initial suspicion about it was on the nose: it's a book for adults, that has been repackaged with a cartoonish cover with "12 and up" put on the back, but it's still very much a book for adults. Not that I think it wouldn't work okay as YA, but there's a lot of really graphic violence in it, more than in the DWJ kids' books, and as for YA, they tend to have young adult protagonists, don't they?
Well, this one doesn't. The two protagonists, who alternate as first-person narrator, are an angry, melodramatically heartbroken undergraduate called Maree, and a stuffy twentysomething software designer called Rupert. Rupert is a Magid, which seems to be a job very like Chrestomanci's, except he isn't doing it by himself; he, along with a few dozen others, keep magic ticking over in the multiverse. Rupert is a bit uptight, a little unsure of himself, occasionally makes silly mistakes; he's also thoughtful and compassionate, in that fabulous three-dimensional Jones way. Rupert's mentor has just died, and he's looking for a replacement Magid. On his shortlist is Maree, who is, as she puts it, "crossed in love", broke, and tormented by her awful family. She's crass, a bit self-centered, and passionate about books, and cares a lot for her younger cousin, Nick, the third main character in the book. She calls Rupert the Prat. They don't get on.
And so the plot wanders chaotically on, through an SF con that sounds like many cons I have gone to (and it's lovingly depicted - just the right balance of affection and irony), and through the canon's multiverse. It's a love story, of a sort, and a good one; an adventure story of another sort, and a good one. There is a really delightful supporting cast: Rupert's dead mentor, Stan, who haunts him by playing his Scarlatti CDs incessantly at top volume; his ex-girlfriend, Zinka, who is amazing and makes sure the novel passes the Bechdel test on lots of occasions despite having a male first-person narrator for most of it; some extremely vain centaurs (who are Asian - because, of course, their skin is the same colour all over and how many pure white horses do you see, really?), and some fabulous villains.
The thing I don't like, plot-wise, is one thing that also annoys me rather about The Lives of Christopher Chant. Christopher, the narrative tells us and to some extent shows us, is not a nice child at all; he tends to be self-centred, he lacks empathy, etc. Well, maybe, but Christopher is about thirteen, and everyone in his life, including his parents and his uncle and with probably the only exception of Tacroy, has either neglected him or used him mercilessly. I dunno, I'd be self-centred too. Well, the same plot works out to some extent in Deep Secret, and it annoys me. But, otherwise, that was a bright spot in this week. I should dig out the sequel.
In short: I want fic and
yuletide is ten months away. Sigh.(Oh, also, if it were fanfic, I'd warn that the treatment of mental illness is a bit odd. One background character is described as mad and evil; but on the other hand, Rupert's interior monologue is occasionally textbook depressed, and it deals very well with that, so your mileage may vary. There's also some transphobic language, but not a transphobic narrative, if that makes sense.)
Okay. Back to writing. Kinda.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
on 2011-02-06 10:34 am (UTC)no subject
on 2011-02-06 03:39 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2011-02-06 10:50 pm (UTC)The sequel is more allowably YA than Deep Secret, I think, although I'm still not letting the small cousins near it till they're about 14 or so.
spoiler spoiler spoiler, anyone who hasn't read it
on 2011-02-06 11:01 pm (UTC)Re: spoiler spoiler spoiler, anyone who hasn't read it
on 2011-02-06 11:25 pm (UTC)Rupert really gets a terrible time. I mean, Maree's having a much worse time on the surface of it, and it's a miracle Nick is sane at all, but Rupert's life just. keeps. kicking. him. In the face.
And his brothers have lovely functional lives, just to rub it in that much more.
Re: spoiler spoiler spoiler, anyone who hasn't read it
on 2011-02-06 11:30 pm (UTC)Re: spoiler spoiler spoiler, anyone who hasn't read it
on 2011-02-06 11:43 pm (UTC)Yes. And they so will! Interspersed with quacks underfoot and the occasional melting computer! CIVILISED ADULT COMMUNICATION IS FOR COWARDS!
Re: spoiler spoiler spoiler, anyone who hasn't read it
on 2011-02-06 11:49 pm (UTC)Ahahaha, seriously. THEIR LOVE WILL BE SO EPIC. AND WILL FEATURE HAIR BEING SET ON FIRE. why is not yuletide yet.
no subject
on 2011-02-07 09:36 am (UTC)no subject
on 2011-02-07 03:21 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2011-02-06 05:53 am (UTC)no subject
on 2011-02-06 03:40 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2011-02-07 11:42 am (UTC)One day I am going to run out of Dianna Wynn Joneses, and then I will be sad.
no subject
on 2011-02-06 09:46 am (UTC)[SPOILER] I may disappoint you, but the sequel isn't quite as good as the first book -- or at least I didn't think so. It may be because I liked the first book so much that anything after that was bound to be disappointing.
I did rather enjoy The Merlin Conspiracy, though.
no subject
on 2011-02-06 03:43 pm (UTC)hatelovesomething, and it's the sort of thread that holds up the rest of the worldbuilding.If you haven't read them I recommend the Chrestomanci books! I read them all in one go late last year and loved them.
no subject
on 2011-02-06 01:39 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2011-02-06 03:43 pm (UTC)