reading wednesday

[sea_changed]

Tongues of Serpents, by Naomi Novik. Kulingile! Kulingile and Demane! Probably other things happened in this book but this is what I walked away with; they broke my heart and then put it back together again in the most wonderful way.

I'll admit overall though that this was not one of my favorites of the series; I spent significant stretches of it fairly bored, which is not an emotion I usually feel reading these books. There wasn't the excitement or interest of another dragon culture, I think, and while the sea serpent smugglers could've been great they came out rather flat, which again I think was tied to the fact that the creatures didn't have personalities of their own and there was no real dynamic between them and the dragons, or various human group and dragon group combinations; the same was obviously true of the bunyips. There was none of the intrigue of meeting the Chinese or Tswana dragons (or the Inca; I am most of the way through Crucible of Gold at the moment and loving it).

The Fantasy of Feminist History, by Joan Scott. Ah, Joan Scott. It has the disjointed feel of a collection of talks and essays, which it is, though there's plenty of interesting stuff. The psychoanalytic side is surprisingly (though thankfully) downplayed, and her better points seem largely absent of any Freudian (or more appropriately Lacanian) influence.

Comments

[sunlit_stone]

There are definitely moments (...stretches) of ToS that feel flat, and I also prefer CoG, though like you I love Kulingile and Demane. But I also love the climax of the smuggling sea serpents arc--seeing the effects of the resolutions of previous books, and of course the point that though it may have gone the Brits' way earlier it's not like the Chinese are in any way subservient to them; they've got their own interests. And of course towards the very end, Laurence saying that he will never obey an order he disagrees with again <3

[sea_changed]

I do like the look, if distant, at China and the goings-on there, and the making a point to note, as you say, that they have their own interests. And I do think there are some interesting things going on with Laurence in the book, however characteristically below-the-surface they remain: getting him from the "Oh Gd, I wish I had not done it" moment of VoE to that great moment you mention at the end of ToS takes some doing, and I do think you can see bits of that happening throughout the book. So there were moments that were really good, but something in the balance seemed off; there were definite stretches of flatness.