snacky | (no subject)

Am reading The Secret Country by Pamela Dean. I know this book is beloved in fandom: someone explain to me why. I am up to chapter 8, and I'm kind of hoping that Laura is killed by her own clumsiness and soon.

Seriously, I thought that child must have some kind of condition/handicap to be so clumsy that she literally cannot go two sentences without falling and/or injuring herself, but the other children (and adults) are snide to her about it, so I figure that can't be it.

Patrick is also very annoying. I like Ted mostly, and could like Ruth more if we got to know her better. Ellen is just very dull. So dull that even the author forgot she had written her out of a scene, had her speak up, then had her return a few paragraphs later.

I think the premise is great, and so far the plot has been very slow, but I have hopes for it. I just really hope that the characters get better as they go on. Like, I can't figure out why these kids would spend any time playing together since all they do is bicker and tell each other to shut up. Sample dialogue:

"I was right!"

"No, you weren't, fool!"

"Don't call names!"

"Shut up!"

"You shut up!"

"Goddamn!"

"Stop swearing!"

"You pig." <- said "mildly" but still.

Also, so far, most of this has been from either Ted's or Laura's POV. Ted's is much better than Laura's - we get a lot more information and insight from him, but Laura just tends to think about how she falls down all the time and how everyone is mean to her.

I have read reviews that say the first book is not so good but it gets better in the other two. I guess I am just disappointed because I've seen so many people rave about these books, that I expected much better from them. So tell me what makes them good?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Honestly, I could never get into them at all, so you're not alone. If you haven't read Tam Lin, I liked it much better, although that might be a result of having gone to the college the setting is based on, and so having a very good mental image of the campus.

Maybe people read them as children or young adults? I never heard of them until the Cassie Claire plagiarism thing, but apparently they were written in the mid-80s.

I have them on my to-read list out of curiosity, but they're not very high on the list.

But clumsy and whiny IS my defining traits

I found them hard to follow, actually, something about the prose style was somewhat confounding. And I didn't think the kids were very distinguishable.

That said, I recall that they improve, but they are kind of anti-Narnia books (in a different way than Lev Grossman), and the story is intentionally non-intuitive in pacing and content.

However despite all of that, I really liked The Dubious Hills, which is set in the same universe (although quite some distance away), because the writing is very good and the concept is brilliant. I also really enjoyed Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary (although I didn't entire understand it), and I adore Tam Lin.

I will say that very little of Dean's work is simple to parse. She has a habit of hiding the plot in the everyday detail, and it often takes a second read, or a third, to figure out what is going on. This is rather a lot to expect of people, I sometimes think. *g*

I read them as a teenager and loved them. The characters didn't bug me as much as you, except for Patrick; I empathized with Laura's timidity and wretched sense of failing to live up to heroic expectations. That said, what I loved best was the prose style, precise and understated and wry.

As with cofax, though, I think Tam Lin and The Dubious Hills are much better -- The Dubious Hills is my favorite of her work, really. I could not tell what was going on in Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary even after it was all over.