On Authors, Fans, and Audience: Written in My Own Heart's Blood (MOBY - Outlander Book 8)

Last night, I polished off the remainder of another Outlander colossus--Written in My Own Heart's Blood.  Did you know that there are virtually no nouns that refer to 'a huge thing' without the connotation of a monster or a demon?  My first impulse was to call it a behemoth, but that wouldn't do at all, because I like 800+ page books if they are engaging.  (Now, the title, on the other hand, is somewhat of a behemoth!)

Disclaimer:  This is basically a review.  Yes, of course there are spoilers.

Those of you who know me know that when I undertake a review, it is generally not to praise the work.  If I find the work praiseworthy, I generally start by analyzing it, as I have with the Hunger Games series, and with a few volumes of the Outlander series as well.  Generally, for me, 'review' means 'critique.'

The Outlander series, written by Diana Gabaldon, is on Book 8 now.  I have written extensively on this blog about three of the books:  Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, and Voyager.  I became stuck in Voyager because there is so much to say about the themes that interest me--I became bogged down, finished my reread without writing out everything I thought, and moved on.  When I started rereading The Fiery Cross with an eye to blogging it, I realized that I just wasn't that interested in that particular volume, which had a lot to do with Jamie and Claire's daughter Brianna and her intended, Roger, with establishing "Fraser's Ridge," and with a minor peacekeeping skirmish that just wasn't terribly heroic.  Also with preventing pregnancy (a theme that was on the rise from the second book on) and the unlikely parentage of Brianna's son Jem (you will never convince me that it is more likely for a child to have been conceived when the couple practiced coitus interruptus than when she was raped by a pirate the next day).  In spite of The Fiery Cross, and a few moments when it was impossible to suspend disbelief, I was still enjoying the series, and waiting, perhaps not as anxiously as Diana's fans, for the next installment.

Written in My Own Heart's Blood became known through the author's conventions of abbreviation as MOBY on social media and on her web site.  And boy, have the past couple of years been exercises in social media promotion.  I am not certain how any author could sustain such a campaign and not emerge with utter contempt for her fan base.  For much of the last year and a half of her writing process, she (or her PR person) has been posting "Daily Lines"--sneak peeks of the forthcoming volume meant to titillate fans (sometimes literally).  Having just finished An Echo in the Bone, which I enjoyed, but which had a cliffhanger ending or two, I did eagerly consume these snippets.  Then, I tried to read them more carefully, avoiding the fan feedback, which was often in the form of "Oh, Diana, I LIVE for these books!" and "Oh, Jamie!  Oh, Claire!!" or "I just ADORE [character of choice]" or "When is the book going to be out?" or "WHY does the publication date keep moving?  I can't STAND this any more!!" or "Why are you DOING this to your fans who LOVE you?" and other ludicrous forms of praise and complaint.  Throw in the commentary on the casting of the Outlander Starz series, and it was truly nauseating.  I know, I know. Don't read the comments.  But the comments were part of this whole dog-and-pony show, since the whole Facebook page was designed to promote the book(s).  Eventually, I still consumed the snippets, but with less relish.  There were too many details revealed.  The snippets were repeated, or a slightly different paragraph break was posted, but essentially the same part of the story.  I began to fear that when I actually read the book, I would feel like I was reading all of the posts from Facebook, strung together.  This did happen to an extent.  And by the time the book came out, I was no longer eager to read it.  I waited at least a whole week before buying it (it may have been a month, actually), and probably would have waited longer had I not simply needed a book to read that would last through my husband's week-long conference in Switzerland.

That's the backstory.  But it's more than that.  It influenced how aware I was of the writer's writing process.  I did get the impression that the writing of this novel was a long, tedious haul--or at least, the combination of the Facebook campaign and the novel itself led me to that conclusion.

So before buying the book, I read a few Amazon reviews--something I rarely do.  I started with the negative reviews, because having seen fanbabble for the past 18 months, I rather knew what drivel would be in the positive reviews.  I wanted something honest.  What I learned is that some people--even self-described die-hard fans--were disappointed.  Even bored.  Here's a sampling:

I'm sad to say that MOBY was a major disappointment! I'm a huge fan of the series and have read every book, novella, etc available. Pre-purchased this book and counted the days until delivery. 

Plot lines were repetitious and somewhat boring (found myself skimming to get to point). Book lacked the flow that its predecessors possessed; in prior books I couldn't put the book down because the action was so intense. Stories seemed choppy and lacked relevance to each other, in some cases. 

Overall, for a book that took 5 years to write, it felt rushed, thrown together and lacked the authenticity that the 1st 7 books made look so simple. I didn't believe this journey...it felt forced.

***

 The book was so disjointed and did not flow with the poetry of the other 7. It made no sense that so many KEY, nay CRUCIAL components to this 24 years-to-compose series are not answered. Too many new characters were introduced, and I believe the author, Miss Galbadon, forgot to include many, many things alluded to in the story lines of the previous seven novels. Is this because she focused that information in her novellas?

***

A few things that irritated me.Jamie, raised in Scotland educated in France and now 20 years later.. In this book he talks more Gaidhlig than he ever has. Yet his sister who has never left Scotland, talk 99% great English. Felt like DG Learned some new words and had to include them. They didn't fit and it was SO over done. 

I didn't like Clair in this book, she took on the character of a know it all, always reminding us of how amazingly educated she is. We get it! So many useless filler stories that drag on and on, over detailed descriptions of surgery. Who cares when surgery are done on strangers, that have nothing to do with the continuing story. So many retold stories. Same Story different day.. War. war and.. the burning of a print shop again... At times I thought the story was about to pick up, only to find my hope die. The book is just a filler to the next book. I guess DG is dragging it out to make as much money as she can from this series. 

Ian had some great moments, His story could have been so much more with his fear of the baby's birth. Only to read Rachel water broke one page and 3 days later, Clair tells Jamie Ian has a son. Wow really, No excitement, no joy, no enjoying Ian's moment?The Greys have their own series and they should stay there. How stupid 70% of this book was the Greys searching for Ben. Who cares about Hal, who cares about Ben? I care nothing for William either. DG failed badly. If she spent half as much time building the characters as she did adding languages we didn't need and over detailed medical descriptions. 

***

I think that the build-up backfired with these readers.  But these reviews didn't put me off.  I forgot many of the criticisms--other than "boring," "surgery," and "characters."

I did not, however, find the novel boring.  Moving through, I could see what the reviewers meant--there were a lot of details of life, but I was prepared to forgive those.  More than prepared--I welcomed most of them.  One of the strengths of Gabaldon's writing is often that she does infuse purpose and significance into the ordinary... when she's not subverting the ordinary.  I did get bogged down in the character list sometimes, finding myself thinking--okay, who was that? and concluding that it didn't actually matter.

The first significant problem I noticed was the repetition of scenes from previous books.  Yes--at times, entire scenes.  Verbatim.  We relived, in brief, many events from each of the other seven books.  It felt like filler, and it felt a little insulting--like the reader could not be trusted to remember.  Now, this is an author who has direct contact with her readers via Facebook.  Many of those readers remember better than she does what happened in each of the books--or assume that they do.  In most cases, the flashback was strictly unnecessary, and rather felt like a device that should have been reserved for the mini series versions.  This was my first inkling that there was something odd in the relationship that the author had established with her audience--or fan base, since I don't think a "fan base" and an "audience" are precisely the same thing.

The third reviewer I quoted above mentions the Gaidhlig words and phrases in this book.  I will second that observation.  Though I did not remember that complaint from the review as I was reading, I developed it quite independently.  In his old age, Jamie is definitely slipping back into Gaidhlig.  Except that... I made up that "old age" part.  There is no rhyme or reason for why he--and Ian, who probably should be interspersing as  much Mohawk as Gaidhlig in his swearing and muttering--uses the Scotch Gaelic so much more in this particular book.  It becomes distracting.  But that's not all....

Speaking of vocabulary, I found myself using my Kindle dictionaries to look up obscure words and usages much more often than I have ever done before, and much more often than a casual reader with a Ph.D. in English should have to do.  I couldn't help feeling that this was another strategy--or dig--aimed at the fans she had come to know on Facebook.  First, the Gaidhlig was there for the fans, to allow them to revel in Jamie's Scottishness, and also to show off and allow them to pick up and puzzle over pronunciation and meaning.  Pure crowd-pleasing.  Meanwhile, the obscure vocabulary functioned to reinforce authorial superiority and control.  Except that the Gaidhlig did so, too.  As I read, I found myself getting the distinct impression that the author was reaching in and reminding me that she was smarter than me.  There were two things wrong with that--first, anyone can do research.  The vocabulary was a product of the nuts and bolts WORK behind the novel, just like the research into surgical techniques or military campaigns of the Revolutionary War.  Sure, a novel is work.  And in fact, more and more we're told that it's more work than inspiration.  Fine.  Whatever.  But the work should be behind-the-scenes.  The author can't imbue the work with the message, "See?  Look how much WORK I did!" Particularly when there has been a dialog on Facebook with that very implication--novels take a long time; they take a lot of work.  Gabaldon goes so far as to reprimand readers who think she is wrong about word usage in the back matter.  I was sort of incensed to read this after finishing the novel:

Owing to the interesting ideosyncracies of the Scots dialect, some words may appear to be misspelled--but they aren't.  For instance, while an English cook may have made her flapjacks on an iron griddle, her Scottish counterpart was frying sausages on a hot girdle.  (This occasional transposition of sounds results in such entertaining items as a Scottish dessert known as "creamed crud" ("curd" to the less imaginative English).  It also results in the occasional inattentive reviewer denouncing the occurance of "typos" in my books.  This is not to say that there aren'tany typos--there always are, no matter how many eyeballs have combed the pages--just that "girdle" isn't one of them.

Thank you, Mrs. Gabaldon.  However, this is a problem for readers, and by adding this note, you indicate that you know that this is a problem for readers, but don't care, because you're too smart to care, and ultimately you are the one in control. (Your editors know that, too, don't they?)  But frankly, this damages your ethos as well as your narrative.  Because the second problem with obscure words or confusing spellings is that they disrupt the reading process.  If I have to stop and puzzle while reading, to look up a word that is too obscure for an overeducated person to know readily, I have suddenly become more aware of my reading process than of the characters and plot.  This is a narrative intrusion that is much more disruptive--and possibly more condescending--than the famed "intrusive narrator," a subject of much contempt in certain camps, particularly among children's literature critics.  In my case, I did not think it was Gabaldon's typo, but I did think it was a Kindle transciption error. Consider the context:

I had a tiny cautery iron, its handle wrapped in twisted wool, heating on Amy's girdle.  I supposed it didn't matter if it tasted like sausages.

Given Gabaldon's sense of double entendre, and knowing now that it was not a transcription error, I can't help imagining her chuckling to herself about "girdles" tasting of "sausages" (*wink, wink* *nudge, nudge*)

I have not done as much research as Gabaldon on the linguistic characteristics of Scottish dialects, clearly.  But here's a thought.  In American English, a naturally occurring linguistic change is for "nuclear" to be pronounced "nucular" or "nuculer."  However, this is not something that appears in print.  If it were to appear in a narrative, even if the intent was to represent dialect, it would not register as such with readers, and would certainly not pass muster with editors.  Let's examine this from another angle.  The story.  Perhaps you noticed that the character who was narrating this particular chapter was Claire Fraser?  Right.  The time traveler. The ENGLISH time traveler.  From the 20th Century.  Why on earth would her internal narrative reflect 18th Century Scots pronunciation?  Exactly.  So that the author can demonstrate how smart she is.  *sigh*

I'm being perhaps more snarky and belligerant than I meant to be.  However, this is a natural response to the type of authorial antagonism present in the narrative, and in the note.  And that authorial antagonism is, I believe, a natural consequence of knowing your audience too intimately.

On a less personal note...

I do agree that the novel was extremely choppy.  It did not, in fact, read as a coherent novel with... okay, a plot.  There were sub-plots, but there was not an overarching plot.  I don't consider "Get Jamie and Claire back to Fraser's Ridge" to be a plot.  That, in fact, was the only unifying problem that needed to be overcome, and it was an author's dilemma rather than a plot dilemma--which points to my other major criticism.  After a while, I was tracing the author's writing process, which again took me out of the book.  It began to feel like a laborious process, and while I could appreciate the challenges of writing the book, that is not where I wanted to be.  Nevertheless, the stories themselves were interesting.  Unlike other critical reviewers, I enjoyed the presence of the Grey family throughout the novel.  For the first time, that family does actually seem to belong in the story of the Fraser's lives.  I was interested in Hal's search for his son Ben and his (purported) widow.  Unfortunately, that plot didn't resolve.  I was interested in William's... journey, which also didn't resolve, but came to one dead end (no pun intended--more on that in a bit...).  The wedding plots were fine, and provided the opportunity for some virgin (and not-so-virgin) sex and some sex ed, which again, is a crowd-pleaser.  These scenes did feel a bit forced, but they had to be there.  It's all part of the schtick.  I did not particularly enjoy the Roger-in-the-too-distant-past interlude, which seemed pointless but provided an intersection with her short story, "A Leaf on the Wind of All Hallows" (which was not my favorite thing that Gabaldon has written).

I have not particularly enjoyed the "Bree and Roger in the 1980s" segments, and I almost think that all of their intrigues in MOBY were engineered to get them back to the past (HT: Roger Zemeckis).  While in the 1980s (and I would have to say that there was such an incredible imbalance between Roger and Bree time and the 18th C people that the overall impression was that Bree and Roger didn't fit into this book at all), there were, of course, pop culture references.  There was Fraggle Rock, which, as a fraggle fan, I appreciated, but which sort of registered along with Disneyland almost as product placement.  And then, there was the Tardis.  *sigh*  And I don't care how many Dr. Who fans are out there, I just think that to drop a Tardis reference into a time travel series is ridiculous--another somewhat pointless fan-pleaser borne of social media involvement.  I actually think of Tardismania as a very contemporary thing--I don't remember the Tardis being stressed in the 80s the way it is now, though certainly Dr. Who has many incarnations that (heh) span time.

In general, I enjoyed the surgery--though "enjoy" might be overstating it.  Some made me cringe--most decidedly.  Some were designed to make the reader cringe--in fact, I would guess that most of the surgical scenes were designed--yes, to show off the author's research, but also to make the reader squirm uncomfortably.  A different kind of squirming than the sex scenes, but I do believe that both types of scenes reach out of the book to produce a physical reaction in the reader.  And it works.  How a reader reacts to that type of forced engagement is another question--I was basically okay with it, though some things did stretch my suspension of disbelief.  For example... would incisions under the tongue really stop bleeding in 2 minutes' time with only pressure and cotton?  Having dealt with mouth injuries and extracted teeth, I doubt it.  Mouth injuries bleed profusely.  And would you really want to ply the 13 year-old with whiskey to perform the outpatient procedure, even if nothing else were available? Let's ask 'ol Hippocrates about that one. One surgery seemed placed in the novel for three purposes:  to disgust the reader, to stress the importance of birth control by depicting the (historical?) dangers of childbirth, and to introduce the ethics of forced sterilization.  I did rather feel that whereas in previous books the author's "out" when she encountered a block in writing was sex, in this book it was surgery.  I know people who could not have handled the description or their own visceral reactions to the descriptions, but though I read sympathetically/empathetically, I was able to read through them all. Not all contributed significantly to the novel overall, however.  I keep coming back to that, because being able to point to this or that as not really mattering demonstrates why the novel felt choppy and why it lacked cohesion--it could hardly have been more disjointed as a series of short stories or novellas, which seems to be the mode the author might have preferred for the separate sub-plots.

The other conspicuous authorial strategy was killing off inconvenient characters.  She does it twice.  It is terribly obvious.  And only one of the two is really forgivable, artistically speaking.   She introduced a character in the last book or two who was born a dwarf.  He has no place in 18th Century society outside of a circus, but is a delightful child.  Unable to provide for such a character, the author seems to have made a decision to kill him off.  It's a pity--he was an interesting character.  And the incident is really too random to feel satisfying, and too abrupt to be sad.  Gabaldon also introduces a prostitute and her sister as part of William's coming-to-terms-with-his-illegitimacy sub-plot.  As he struggles with what it means to have honor, shepherding a prostitute and her sister and shielding them from her professional hazards somehow begins to form part of his new identity.  Unfortunately, Jamie Fraser's son--even if illegitimate--and an Earl to boot--could not fall in love with a prostitute.  Which means that we can only find out that he probably was falling in love with her after she is dead.  *sigh*

Poor William. He has issues.  But how could he not, given his parentage?  I have to say that in this book, I cease to like the character of Jamie Fraser.  He is a barbarian at the beginning, and he is a barbarian at the end.  And poor, dear, overstimulated Claire needed to be a bit more defensive of Lord John Grey, who was, after all, trying to save her life by marrying her.  But when the red-heided battering ram (and I did not mean that as a double entendre, though it works) shows up again, all is forgotten.  Suffice it to say, other characters and certain sub-plots carried me through this one.

Did I like the book?  It hardly matters.  I was distracted enough by form and function that I don't know that I had the opportunity to like it.  When I wasn't thinking about how it was constructed and why, I liked it well enough, but don't get me started on the chapter titles (more crowd-pleasing, self-conscious cleverness).  There were certainly things I liked about it.  The book has not, by any means, put me off of the series (though Jamie's character came close--both at the beginning and at the end). I guess there are still too many plot holes--and that's it:  I want to know what happens next.  This one was not a cliffhanger, but in spite of its bulk, with many sub-plots and no overarching, unifying plot structure, it feels incomplete. Things that I still want to know:

• Is Ben Grey really dead?
• What is the story behind Amaranthus--Ben's purported widow?
• Will William ever love again? 
• Will Benedict Arnold turn his coat, and why?
• Where are Dottie and Denzell?
• What about that sticky business of someone knowing that Lord John is homosexual?
• Why did Ian try to kill Rachel in his sleep?
• How will the Revolutionary War end?
• Are these characters secretly immortal, and not in the literary sense?

You might notice that none of these relate directly to Claire, Jamie, & co.  Well, okay.  The last one does.  In fact, my curiousity about Jamie's ghost in Book 1 is beginning to wane.  The mystery is likely more intriguing than any answer could be.

Written in My Own Heart's Blood is a transitional point in the Outlander story--sustained only by the fact that it is part of a series.  I hope that the author works through her attraction to the short story/novella genres before plotting--or plodding through--the next full-fledged Outlander installment. But anyway, I will be waiting for the next installment.  In 5 or 10 years, I'll be ready.

Language and Race, Nostalgia and Place - Stopping in Hollin/Eregion: A Notable Moment

It's a funny thing about Notable Moments.  Once I commit one to writing, my mind becomes oriented in that direction--seeking, finding, and writing notable moments.  (And now I need to publish this one so that I can write about the Ents and Entwives...) This is another thing I hoped to inspire in my students during that second-to-last semester teaching when I introduced the "notable moments" blog assignment--a habit of thought and a pattern of writing down thoughtful analyses and questions.  Because Notable Moments don't have to come to conclusions, and unlike research papers (particularly graduate research papers), there is no pressure to say something that no one else has said or thought.  In fact, on the internet, saying something original is not particularly important.  Saying things that others have thought, in fact, builds community.

***

A few pages past my last post, when Elrond sends the fellowship on their way(s), they reach Hollin, which had been Eregion.  It is a moment of beauty and longing, and I paused over it fondly to think about what it is that I find so compelling about the passage:

     "I need no map," said Gimli, who had come up with Legolas, and was gazing out before him with a strange light in his deep eyes.  "There is the land where our fathers worked of old, and we have wrought the image of those mountains into many works of metal and of stone, and into many songs and tales.  They stand tall in our dreams: Baraz, Zirak, Shathûr.

     "Only once before have I seen them from afar in waking life, but I know them and their names, for under them lies Khazad-dûm,the Dwarrowdelf, that is now called the Black Pit, Moria in the Elvish tongue.  Yonder stands Baranzinbar, the Redhorn, cruel Caradhras; and beyond him are Silvertine and Cloudyhead: Celebdil the White, and Fanuidhol the Grey, that we call Zirakzigil and Bundushathûr.

     "There the Misty Mountains divide, and between their arms lies the deep-shadowed valley which we cannot forget: Azanulbizar, the Dimrill Dale, which the Elves call Nanduhirion."

[....]

     "Dark is the water of Kheled-zâram," said Gimli, "and cold are the springs of Kibil-nâla.  My heart trembles with joy that I may see them soon."

     "May you have joy of the sight, my good dwarf!" said Gandalf.  "But whatever you may do, we at least cannot stay in that valley.  We must go down the Silverlode into the secret woods, and so the Great River, and then---"

     He paused.

     "Yes, and where then?" asked Merry.

     "To the end of the journey--in the end," said Gandalf.  "We cannot look too far ahead.  Let us be glad that the first stage is safely over.  I think we will rest here, not only today but tonight as well.  There is a wholesome air about Hollin.  Much evil must befall a country before it forgets the Elves, if once they dwelt there."

      "That is true," said Legolas.  "But the Elves of this land were of a race strange to us of the silvan folk, and the trees and the grass do not now remember them.  Only I hear the stones lament them: deep they delved us, fair they wrought us, high they builded us; but they are gone.  They are gone.  They sought the Havens long ago." (FOTR 276)

And might I just take this moment to say that the feature of Mac OS that allows you to hold down a letter key to bring up all of the accented letters (à, á, â, etc.) and choose one with a number key or a click is AWESOME?

In this passage, the first thing I notice is language.   This is new to this particular reading--although I am well aware of Tolkien's attention to languages, when I have read Fellowship of the Ring before, or listened to the audiobook, I did not necessarily register how many different names were given for the mountains.  Only Caradhras registered--the important one.  And yet, consider:

Baraz	Baranzinbar	the Redhorn	Caradhras
Zirak	Zirakzigil	Silvertine	Celebdil the White
Shathûr	Bundushathûr	Cloudyhead	Fanuidhol the Grey

There are four distinct designations for each mountain.  The six names in dwarvish are interesting in that the first are shortened versions of the second, and that each is shortened in a different way.  Baraz takes the first two syllables of "Baranzinbar," but omits the "n," perhaps because, linguistically, the first "n" in "Baranzinbar" mirrors the second, in the syllable "zin," while also creating a full stop before the third syllable.  In the shortened form, there is no need for the mirroring--particularly when the "n" would become "swallowed" by the "az" anyway (there's a linguistic term for this, but my Old English is far behind me...)--and since the "z" is now part of the second syllable rather than the third, there is no need for a pause within the word.  "Zirak" is a more simply shortened form--simply the first two syllables of "Zirakzigil"--while "Shathûr" is the last two syllables of "Bundushathûr."

In addition, you have the elvish names--Caradhras, Celebdil, and Fanuidhol, presumably the Redhorn, Silvertine, and Cloudyhead in the common tongue.  On the umpteenth reading, I think I finally noticed that "Caradhras" and "the Redhorn" are the same mountain, which others no doubt caught on the first reading...  That "Silvertine" is the mountain designated "the White" by the elves is interesting to me; I wanted the clouds ("Cloudyhead") to be white and Fanuidhol the Grey to be silver ("Silvertine"), but my instinctive preference does not account for the fact that there is a reason present in the description.  Fanuidhol is grey because of the clouds, presumably.  And it is the bright white of Celebdil that makes it shine like silver--in the names are embedded more clues as to the appearance of the mountains.

I would argue that Tolkien's deep studied and instinctive connection to language is on display in this passage in more varied and obvious ways than it is almost anywhere else in Fellowship of the Ring--and it centers on the dwarves, who are evoked more poignantly in this scene than in the whole journey through Khazad-dûm.  The phrase, "Dark is the water of Kheled-zâram, and cold are the springs of Kibil-nâla," sends a little thrill through me every time I read it, though "dark water" and "cold springs" are, in themselves, unremarkable.  Quite apart from the place-names, which are exotic and strange and evoke the unknown culture and history of dwarves, the phrasing itself--the syntax--is made ritualistic through parallelism:  "dark is the water," "cold are the springs."  One can imagine this being a responsorial chant (and dwarf poetry, as Tolkien shows us, has the feel of a chant, a march, a procession) or a greeting.  And indeed, it becomes a greeting when Galadriel, to comfort Gimli and show her understanding, says also, "Dark is the water of Kheled-zâram, and cold are the springs of Kibil-nâla," and adds that "fair were the many-pillared halls of Khazad-dûm in Elder Days before the fall of mighty kings beneath the stone."  It does not simply evoke a place and a description, but a custom, and a culture, and, in fact, a spirituality.

The passage is also replete with nostalgia, and nowhere more clearly than in Gimli's recitation of the dwarf proverb.  However, the passage holds a less distinct nostalgia as well.  Gimli feels nostalgia for Khazad-dûm, but though they are passing through Hollin, which was Eregion, a great kingdom of elves in the Second Age, Legolas, who represents the race of elves on the quest, does not feel nostalgia.  While Gandalf asserts that "much evil must befall a country before it forgets the Elves, if once they dwelt there," Legolas feels only strangeness:

"That is true," said Legolas.  "But the Elves of this land were of a race strange to us of the silvan folk, and the trees and the grass do not now remember them.  Only I hear the stones lament them: deep they delved us, fair they wrought us, high they builded us; but they are gone.  They are gone.  They sought the Havens long ago."

Here, there is a different kind of nostalgia.  The narrative makes it clear that something is lost, and gives the reader a sense of nostalgia without using the memory (personal or collective) of a character.  Rather, the fact that Legolas should not be able to remember or to feel the imprint of his kin--except that the elves who dwelt there were not of the same race as Legolas, exactly--seems to evoke a different kind of sadness.  The loss of Eregion is a more complete loss than the loss of Khazad-dûm.  And yet, the rocks, which were directly manipulated by the elves, and which did not continue to live, die, and replace themselves like trees and grass, do still bear the imprint.  In that which is not living, the memory survives--hauntingly, since the memory and their handling by the elves grants the stones a sense of life... almost a soul.

In this lost place, we see a small hint of a recurring motif in Tolkien:  the locus amœnus.  This is a literary term that I learned in the context of a graduate class on Dante, and which I have not encountered elsewhere in literary scholarship.  Perhaps it is an outdated concept; perhaps it is simply foreign to the American tradition of literary criticism, which seems likely, even given the advent of ecocriticism, which purports to root itself in place.  I have not ever found an answer to this question, but the locus amœnus is a concept I find useful and compelling, particularly with reference to Tolkien.  Wikipedia has a brief entry on the term that encapsulates most of what I was taught.  Locus amœnus means "pleasant place," but more--there is a hint of heaven or Elysium.  It is a place of safety.  In the Commedia, a locus amœnus is a resting place, particularly when there is a transition--some kind of shift in the journey. There are multiple loci amœni in the Purgatorio, and some have said that Dante's representation of Limbo, itself a nod to pagan Elysium, is a locus amœnus.  They are shadows and foretastes of heaven, safe places, resting places, pauses on the journey.

By this definition, a reader of Tolkien could, fairly easily, trace the loci amœni through Lord of the Rings.  I am not going to count the Shire, because except in memory, it does not seem imbued with power the same way that others are--though Farmer Maggot's house is a decent candidate for a locus amœnus.  Tom Bombadil's house is most certainly one, as is Rivendell.  As the reader progresses further into Lord of the Rings, the power of the locus amœnus becomes more apparent, and patterns emerge:  there is a priest-figure; there is water; there is a sacred or solemn or celebratory feast.  Many of these places are revealed in The Two Towers--my favorite of the three parts of the journey, perhaps for this reason.

So what about Hollin?  It has "a wholesome air."  But it is not safe for very long.  They are forced to continue along after being detected by spies of Saurumon (presumably).  The priests--if ever there were priests--were gone.  And yet... the stones seem still to bear the mark.  Were they consecrated?  Even if the elves are corrupt, which these were--descendents of Fëanor for those who know the Silmarillion--elves are still powerful and, in their very essence, good.  Or so it seems in this age of Middle Earth.  In Hollin, formerly Eregion, we have the memory of a place that had been a locus amœnus, but is no more.  It shows how even a foretaste of heaven can be subject to destruction--utterly obliterated, except for the memory of the stones:  a small trace of holiness.  A former locus amœnus offers no protection, and the fellowship must continue on, while the reader might remember Elrond's words--that if the Ring were kept in Rivendell, they would hold out as long as possible, but eventually would fail.  And perhaps only the stones would hold the memory of the elves who had once lived there.

The Ethos, Logos, and Pathos of Choosing Notable Moments

“And you, my Sassenach? What were you born for? To be lady of a manor, or to sleep in the fields like a gypsy? To be a healer, or a don’s wife, or an outlaw’s lady?” 

“I was born for you,” I said simply, and held out my arms to him. 

“Ye know,” he observed, letting go at last, “you’ve never said it.” 

“Neither have you.” 

“I have. The day after we came. I said I wanted you more than anything.” 

“ And I said that loving and wanting weren’t necessarily the same thing,” I countered.

He laughed. “Perhaps you’re right, Sassenach.” He smoothed the hair from my face and kissed my brow. “I wanted ye from the first I saw ye—but I loved ye when you wept in my arms and let me comfort you, that first time at Leoch.”

The sun sank below the line of black pines, and the first stars of the evening came out. It was mid-November, and the evening air was cold, though the days still kept fine. Standing on the opposite side of the fence, Jamie bent his head, putting his forehead against mine.
“You first.” 

“No, you.” 

“Why?” 

“I’m afraid.”

“Of what, my Sassenach?” The darkness was rolling in over the fields, filling the land and rising up to meet the night. The light of the new crescent moon marked the ridges of brow and nose, crossing his face with light. 

“I’m afraid if I start I shall never stop.” 

He cast a glance at the horizon, where the sickle moon hung low and rising. “It’s nearly winter, and the nights are long, mo duinne.” He leaned across the fence, reaching, and I stepped into his arms, feeling the heat of his body and the beat of his heart. 

“I love you.”

As part of the ongoing read-along of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander novels, a promotion on the Diana Gabaldon (official) Facebook page to re-invigorate the already vigorous fan-base in anticipation of the March release of Written in My Own Heart's Blood, "Ashley," the Random House communications person posted the above passage from Outlander, to the admiration of many swooning fans.  I mentioned this initiative in my last blog post, and while I think it's interesting, I take issue with the method.  Why, you ask?  Well, I would not read the books based on the above passage.  Even seeing it out of context makes me cringe more than a little.  It was probably at this point in the novel (or a little before) when I started entertaining significant suspicions about the genre--would I have to go into the ROMANCE NOVEL section in order to buy the next installment??  That I am a book snob (though an odd one) is not a surprise if you have read this blog before.

What we have here is not what I would call a "notable moment."  Perhaps it's a swoon-worthy moment or some such, but it does not pull thoughts in my mind.  It is perhaps a matter for Aristotelian rhetorical terms--this passage is making an appeal by way of pathos, eliciting emotion from the reader.  And while it is effective in context, it just registers as, well, sappy out of context.  There are undoubtedly appeals by means of pathos throughout the Outlander series--and perhaps especially in Book 1.  But though some readers might engage with this element, they are not the substance of the works.  And, frankly, this marketing ploy is losing me--to the extent that it ever had me.

"Ashley" should, perhaps, take a cue from Diana Gabaldon herself, who personally posts (if the internet is to be trusted) "Daily Lines" from her novels, most notably from the upcoming novel, on Facebook and (occasionally) on her blog.  Very rarely, first of all, do these "Daily Lines" tell a whole story. They are evocative, and they leave more unsaid than they do said in most cases. This is particularly important because Gabaldon is posting lines from a previously unpublished, soon-to-be-published manuscript.  She only posts scenes that whet the appetite--none that satisfy--which means that the reader, who has already read some substantial bits from the novel by this time, does not have the sense that she now knows what will happen in the book.

That strategy fits with Gabaldon's purpose of posting from the upcoming novel.  Her publicity agents are not following the same strategy.  Rather, assuming that the reader of the Facebook is already a fan, the agent is posting more complete scenes, like the one above.  The scenes are rather to evoke the nostalgia that fans--many of whom reread the books frequently--have for the characters' romance.  This works for certain fans, as the hundreds of comments and thousands of "likes" on Facebook indicate.  However, it does not work for all readers, and should someone who has not read the books happen upon these excerpts, it is possible that the quotes and excerpts, taken as they are out of context, will either give a false impression, will "satisfy" because the scene involves closure, or will turn the reader off because of the sickly sweet sentiments.  The novels are love stories, no doubt--but they are more complex and grittier than that.  I would like to see some of the gritty. 

Moments can be notable to an audience, then, for different reasons, and Gabaldon and the Random House representative are tapping into two different purposes and functions of an excerpt.   My own notable moments are personal, but meant to be public as well, as I share my deep reading in the hopes that my analysis will open something new in the novels for others.  My choice of moments is bound up with my process of reading, my academic training, and what interests me not only in the books, but in life.  That's what I mean by a reader's personal "rhetorical situation of reading":  it's where the reader is right now--mentally, in terms of interest and life experience, and, yes, emotionally--that influences what elements of a text engage, frustrate, or please him or her.  While in the moment--and certainly in the first flush of reading a new book--I might be reading for the escapism, intentionally getting caught up in the pathos, the moments that are truly notable--moments that make my mind take notice, that make me form theories and connections--are the moments that engage me by means of logos, and here I mean not just "logic" but compelling content that invites potential argument and dialogue with the text, as well as the moments in which the author, intentionally or unintentionally, imparts her own ethos, revealing something about her artistic choices.  I think it is the variety and quality of the integration of ideas, as well as the successful manipulation of emotion, that make successful novels, as the quality and variety of appeals are what guarantee that a variety of people will find the novel engaging.

Although I didn't write about many notable moments in the Harry Potter novels during my recent rereading, I actually think that J. K. Rowling's strength as a writer lies in the ability to execute many appeals simultaneously, to engage a variety of readers--which, of course, just makes sense.  But for me, during this reread, I was not attuned so much to the ideas.  I was retreading old territory, in part to see what the experience felt like for me right now.  It was sort of like a vacation--no, not to Hogwarts.  Just an adventure in novel reading.  And what stood out for me this time was the ethos--the author's exercise of control over the text.  It is something I have criticized before--truly, at times Rowling might have been reigned in by an editor, but on this reread (perhaps my third reading), I don't think she necessarily had to be reigned in much.  I find the symmetry and tying up of loose ends in The Goblet of Fire to be very pleasing.  It is a very well-executed mystery.  And while the angst of Order of the Phoenix and The Half-Blood Prince were still there, what struck me more than anything was the pointlessness of the former (really? all of this effort over some words?) and the exquisite ending of the latter.  I wonder if perhaps Rowling was giving the reader a taste, in Order of how Harry would feel about the futility of striving in Deathly Hallows.  And Half-Blood Prince had at once a satisfying sense of closure--the reader knew that the novel had to end there--and the sense of a long road ahead--seemingly the opposite of closure, and yet not.  I don't think I had yet appreciated exactly that aspect of the sixth book in the series, but because of where I was--my mindset, my leisure, my particular literate moment--I was able to appreciate it.  But it was not a notable moment, because it involved the novel as a whole.

So as I work toward a consideration of the ways of reading of different personality types, and how INFPs and ENTJs, for example, engage with different elements, it is useful, I think, to consider how an individual chooses a selection from a novel to highlight, and why.  It is also useful to think of how personal circumstances, including modes of reading--rereading compared to exploratory reading, for example, or academic vs. pleasure reading--contexts, and even overall mood--change what we get out of fiction--how we filter the details and action differently.  I also think it is useful to consider ethos, logos, and pathos--the friends, and perhaps the bane, of every scholar of rhetoric, from Freshman to graduate level.  Because where I look at the passage from Outlander out of context and wrinkle my nose and say, "oh, please!" the fact is that I enjoyed it in context, in the rhetorical reading situation in which I encountered it first--and again.  It wasn't a "notable moment" to me, because why would I analyze saying or not saying "I love you"?  It's not particularly meaningful to me.  But clearly, to hundreds and thousands of readers of Gabaldon, it is meaningful.  It captures their nostalgia for the emotion evoked, and their admiration of the ideal portrayed in the scene.

Sex and the Catholic Fairy Tale: Rapunzel Let Down, Take 3

Although my reading of Rapunzel Let Down by Regina Doman has slowed to about one chapter every couple of nights, as I pack to move, enjoy a couple of unusual visit with friends who have pools, and--oh yeah, reread Harry Potter (I'm on Goblet of Fire--just because), I have worked my way through eleven chapters.  The chapters are short, and there are many of them, but this means that I have gotten through the (first?) sex scene.  And I'm sorry to say, but I think it's a bit of a mess.  It is fairly subtle, yes.  There's enough to work with that it might give some reader lustful feelings--particularly if that reader has not encountered intimacy of this sort in literature before.  There are no real descriptions, but there is enough tension and mention of skin and nudity to get the reader's imagination going, in spite of the necessary guilt.  It is in my nature to be both tongue-in-cheek and skeptical, and that's about all of the disclaimer I'm going to provide right now--but I will say that if this--and I mean strictly the mechanical aspects--were a sex scene that was situated in a novel that was saying something positive about sex, it would be subtle, and would pass as not too offensive, immoral, or whatever.  But it's not.  And the context is what bothers me.

I have problems with the way it is represented and executed--as if premarital sex could not be consensual; as if premarital sex cannot be enjoyable or intimate in the non-sexual meaning of intimacy; as if premarital sex is necessarily something seedy that borders on rape.

I have larger problems, however, with what the male protagonist (and the scene is written from his perspective) believes about sex.

Let me start with the first problem.  It lies with the author's essential motivation, and so is not something I can legitimately complain about without simply wishing for a different book.  This book does not set out to say something positive about sex.  It sets out to make a very negative point about the dangers of premarital sex.  And it does so by stacking the decks a bit.  He is 17, she is 15--so there's a difference in age and knowledge.  She is mature, but very sheltered.   No sexual interaction between the two can possibly be equal.  Frankly, this sort of creeps me out.  BUT--in fact, this makes a very excellent point.  There is often a differential of knowledge and experience in extramarital sex, especially for a virgin.  So--yes.  This is a very good point.

The problem lies in the fact that the sex was premeditated on his part--if only by a little bit--without knowledge on her part.  This might be realistic, but doesn't register as true, given that they are supposed to be friends.  There is a tenderness.  And he violates it completely.  Yes, he is selfish.  But I have a difficult time empathizing with his guilt, and this is the start of it.  And yet, the perspective is his.  So am I supposed to sympathize?  Or am I supposed to pass judgment?  I suspect that I am supposed to pass judgment.  But if I'm busy judging him, then as a reader I'm setting myself way outside of the context and above his actions.  I'm saying to myself, "Well, clearly he is wrong.  He should know he is doing wrong, because I know that he is wrong."  It's not too much of a leap for the reader to think, "Well, I could never be in this situation, and if I were, I would not act this way, because I know it is wrong."  Being inside Hermes's head simply pounds the message--this is wrong this is wrong this is wrong.  As the reader, I'm not feeling it.  And so I'm not really learning and experiencing along with the character at this point.  How can I?  Even as a teen reader, I'm morally superior--not necessarily because I'm truly morally superior, but because (and here we get into narrative theory) the author has implied that the reader is morally superior by placing the reader in a position of judging rather than a position of empathizing.  The moment that a reader can think, I can totally see myself doing that, or I feel so sorry for what s/he is going through, the judgment becomes more difficult.  But I can't imagine too many of Doman's readers thinking either of those things.  Hermes has just acted like a total creepy stalker--definitley stepping over a line, and not just the simple "taking it too far and having sex" line.

So that's where I start.  I rather feel like the whole "how they had sex" is unbelievable.  Had they been kissing, and both wondering whether they would or not, or simply not thinking and doing, that would have seemed more realistic, and made it seem less like a statuatory rape situation (it's a good thing he hadn't turned 18 yet!).

So my second problem. Hermes is an imperfect moral compass, yes.  But it remains true that he is  the moral compass of the novel thus far.  He is Catholic.  She is atheist or agnostic, and completely ignorant of religion.

Now, we don't know his family terribly well, but his brothers hardly seem the model of virtue.  They have definitely bullying tendencies.  And his brother Christopher seems pretty good at scamming on chicks (to use the colloquial).  He snatches Melissa out from under Hermes in the first three pages of the book or so.  Definitely a ladies' man, and no telling how far he takes it.  So there's no telling how his moral upbrining has been.  Their parents seem pretty good--father in politics notwithstanding (maybe he'll have his own sex scandel in a chapter or two, but that's doubtful with the way it has been set up so far).  The family is overtly Catholic--not just passively so.  They have a priest over for tea (and vocation scouting) regularly.  And all boys have attended Catholic school.  I have no reason to suspect that the values imparted to Hermes have been faulty--which is good, because it at least doesn't provide an additional "out" for the reader who wishes to judge Hermes:  "Well my Catholic upbringing was better--I wouldn't fall into that trap," etc. etc.

And therein lies the problem.  If Hermes knows he is sinning (and he does), and his upbringing and values are trustworthy from the reader's perspective (and I have no reason to think that they'll break down in the future chapters), and his Catholicism is orthodox, then that means that the assumptions he makes about sex and sin are supposed to be read as basically correct--because he is going against his conscience when he acts.  It is possible that his understanding is meant to seem flawed, but I have no reason to think that his ideas about Catholic sexual morality are supposed to be extreme.  And yet, I find them to be exactly that.

Hermes' first misstep occurs when he climbs Raphaela's tower and sees her undressing--quite by accident.  He acknowledges her innocence.  He knows he should look away.  But he can't.  He has seen naughty magazines (though is not accustomed to viewing them), and sees that she is real.  He can't look away.  He sees her naked.  (She's compared to a child here, by the way--which I still find disturbing, even if it is an intentional move...)  And he can't look away.  And his next conclusion is that "from a moral perspective, he would have been better off if he had been spotted and shot on the way up."  And I find that incredibly disturbing.  Because really?  This was not a willful act.  Certainly he should have stopped looking.  But I heard a priest offer in a homily once that if he found himself entranced by a pretty girl, admiring her in ways that he perhaps should not, he said a prayer of thankfulness for her beauty.  I found that an amazing--and imminently practical--testimony.  Our protagonist is not so morally mature, but to condemn himself so fully--especially since he had a lot of other deceit that should have been confessed that was much worse than accidentally seeing a naked girl--seems incredibly harsh.  We can perhaps chalk it up to moral immaturity, so I'll move on...

Hermes's next rhetorical move is to declare her "mentally deflowered."  Now, in my book, his peek is a violation of her privacy, and if we're working with feminist--yes, feminist!!--theory, she has been subjected to his "Gaze," which is a male, patriarchal gaze, and is akin to metaphorical rape.  But if she is as innocent as a child undressing, then his accidental viewing can't really violate her. So...  is the reader to believe that (as feminist theory would suggest), she has been sexually violated?  Has she been changed by his glance?  Or is he justifying his future actions by declaring her to be already ruined?  I am disturbed by the implication that she has been deflowered by his accidental viewing.  It had nothing to do with her.  I see it as a violation, yes, but to have Hermes use the phrase suggests that this is a Catholic interpretation.  And I do not think that to look at a woman lustfully deflowers her.  That speaks to a change in her, when, in fact, the lust changes him.  A violation--yes.  A change in her--no.  Let's not grant The Gaze the full weight of feminist theory and imbue it with moral significance.

So what does Jesus say?  Our hero remembers:  "'He who looks at a woman with lust commits adultery,' Jesus had warned. He knew it. And he knew that merely looking wasn’t going to be enough for him much longer."  So first, the actual Bible verse emphasizes the change in him rather than her.  But when Hermes says that "merely looking wasn’t going to be enough for him much longer," a couple of things happen.  First, he evokes the Law.  And interestingly, he emphasizes the Law in a way that rather feels like the way the Jews treat the Law according to St. Paul (more on that in a bit).  But the second thing is, Hermes makes a quick jump from accident to fascination to lust to action--and the first three steps are somewhat collapsed, and happen in an instant.  He's neither scared by the feeling nor intimidated by the prospect of deflowering the girl whose innocence he lamented a moment ago.  Nope.  It's a slippery slope--and a fast one.  No performance anxiety here.  We don't even get a glimpse of Hermes wondering whether she will want to.  And yet, before seeing her naked, sex doesn't seem to have entered his mind.  The moral?  Never look at a naked girl.  Because we know where that leads!  (Remember that he has already declared himself better dead rather than see her naked--and while I get the reference to plucking out your eye if it causes you to sin, it wasn't really his eye that caused the problem! The real problem happens when he decides to keep climbing into her tower...)

To emphasize the legalism of Hermes' thinking, and the slippery slope, he thinks to  himself:  "He couldn’t go up to receive communion, tomorrow, not with lust on his soul."  And on one sense, this is good, sound thinking.  Technically, perfect contrition and intent to go to Confession, combined with the intentionality of the sin (or lack thereof), might have meant that he could take Communion.  But that's a bit technical--too technical--for the story.  So he has condemned himself fully.  His sin must, by implication, be mortal, meaning that Hermes has judged it to be both serious and conscious.  I still quibble with the "conscious" part, though it gets "conscious" pretty fast.  So he has condemned himself--by the Law: by taking the instinctive lust and applying it to himself in a legalistic manner, complete with penalty, he has condemned himself.  At that point, it seems that since he will not live up to virtue, he can only continue with sin.  And so he does.  (Perhaps I am misreading what St. Paul has to say in Romans about the Law vs. Faith, but had Hermes turned his mind to faith rather than judging himself legalistically, it seems that he would have given himself a bit more of a chance...)

The icing on the cake is, for me, the most destructive idea of all for a reader, and yet it seems to be coming from a frankly Catholic perspective, albeit Hermes' guilty perspective:

She should have been a bride, resplendent in white, with a ring on her finger and joy on her face in the sunlight to show the world she was loved. If he had really loved her, he would have given her that.  

But he had taken that away from her. And left her with— what? The chance to watch him steal away into the shadows like a thief? And she didn’t even realize what he had taken away from her. Instead of feeling like Romeo leaving Juliet, he felt like a dog skulking off with a piece of stolen meat. An animal. No, lower than an animal. She had trusted him. He had wanted her. And he had taken her.  

And she would always be with him. And he would always be with her. Whether they wanted it or not.

She is ruined, and he would always be with her and she with him, because they had ruined each other--a permanent bond that registers here as more violation.  The metaphor, "he felt like a dog skulking off with a piece of stolen meat," is particularly unsavory.  Is she a piece of meat?  Is he a dog?  But more importantly, is she a piece of meat???  Stolen meat???  This does not bode well for countless women who are deflowered before becoming brides--whether or not that choice or state of being is the ideal or morally preferable one.  Where did he get this idea?  Catholicism?  That's what the reader is lead to believe.

Recently, an article by Calah Alexander discussing the problems with abstinence-only education came to my attention (H/T Melanie).  It was written from a Catholic perspective, so it was not voicing a problem with abstinence, only with how it is presented to young people.  The article was occasioned by the testimony of Elizabeth Smart, whose will to resist kidnapping and sexual abuse was broken because abstinence-only education conditioned her to feel like a "chewed piece of gum."

I did not experience abstinence-only sex ed.  I had the biological kind that taught you how to prevent pregnancy and STDs.  And it was fine.  Nicely amoral.  It didn't make a huge impression, but it was informative.  I would be okay with having my children taught the same things.  So this account of abstinence-only education was a bit shocking, and I can immediately see how it would be damaging to the psyche.  And yet, here it is in Rapunzel Let Down.

I suppose it's admirable on some level that Hermes feels bound to her at all.  But on such terms as these!! And I know from reviews that she becomes pregnant.  And he goes to prison.  And wow!--they are completely ruined.  So the natural consequence of sex out of wedlock is. . . ruin and despair.  This actually doesn't seem too different from the prevailing attitude about unwed motherhood or unexpected pregnancy--but the time frame is shifted back to the initial act rather than to the resulting pregnancy.

I understand that the book is supposed to be hopeful (eventually).  I understand that the book is supposed to be dark because it deals with these "issues."  But it also presents an unrealistic and potentially damaging vision of premarital sex--how it happens, why it happens, and how it should be regarded by a moral person.  The emphasis is squarely on judgment, and does not ask the reader to experience the fear and pain--at least at this particular moment.  And for these reasons, I can't help but reject it.  Again.  *sigh*

Post-script:  It has occurred to me that some might question my claim above that "the whole 'how they had sex' is unbelievable.  Had they been kissing, and both wondering whether they would or not, or simply not thinking and doing, that would have seemed more realistic, and made it seem less like a statuatory rape situation."  Why should premarital sex be shown to be more consensual in this kind of novel?  Why should they get "carried away" mutually?  And well, the reason is this:  it's fine to condemn premarital sex (or any other kind of sin) when it obviously looks and feels wrong--as this does, and very much so.  But if it feels and seems good--and if there is real affection between the couple, at least for the duration of the sexual act, then it becomes a bit more like the confusion of actual premarital sex between attached people, and a bit more confusing as well--because how could such an act be objectively wrong?  It's a harder question to answer, and a harder truth to explore.  If everything goes to hell in a handbasket afterwards, the context of the sexual act (out-of-wedlock) becomes the problem, and provides a dramatic contrast to what the characters think is a neutral or good act (though it isn't, because of the context--right?).  The sex act itself remains good or neutral (at least potentially), and the context is highlighted as the sinful part of it.  Because again--it's easy to rationalize--"Well, their situation was different.  We are equal and in love."  And so the potential for real empathy with the characters and real instruction is broken down--because who can learn when the narrative places the reader in the role of spectator and in a position of moral superiority?

Why I like The Hunger Games (Pt 2): Katniss

Starting with the main character is as good a place as any, and is perhaps an obvious place to start.  But let me say that I'm not in love with Katniss.  I don't relate to her particularly well, and I think that the first-person, present-tense narrative keeps the reader at arm's length in a counter-intuitive sort of way, preventing the reader from getting in her head.  But all of this is why the construction of her character is so intriguing to me.

First, her personality.  I have this one figured out.  She's an ISTJ to my INFP.  From Wikipedia:

ISTJs are faithful, logical, organized, sensible, and earnest traditionalists who enjoy keeping their lives and environments well-regulated. Typically reserved and serious individuals, they earn success through their thoroughness and extraordinary dependability. They are capable of shutting out distractions in order to take a practical, logical approach to their endeavors, and are able to make the tough decisions that other types avoid. Realistic and responsible, ISTJs are often seen as worker bees striving steadily toward their goals. They take special joy in maintaining institutions and are often highly religious. Despite their dependability and good intentions, however, ISTJs can experience difficulty in understanding and responding to the emotional needs of others. 

Although they often focus on their internal world, ISTJs prefer dealing with the present and the factual. They are detail-oriented and weigh various options when making decisions, although they generally stick to the conventional. ISTJs are well-prepared for eventualities and have a good understanding of most situations. They believe in practical objectives, and they value traditions and loyalty.

If I am slightly uncomfortable with analyzing a character according to the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator, I am buoyed by Freudian analyses of characters, and by the very fact that, in this particular case, it makes so much sense!

So what does this mean?  In terms of the narrative voice, the emphasis in the ISTJ description on "the present and the factual" in conjunction with focus on the individual's "internal world" justifies the slightly irritating first person, present tense narration.  In fact, it's a little too neatly packaged. In terms of audience engagement, and I can only speak for myself, we have a character who is opposite from me in every possible way--except introversion.  So having figured out intuitively (INFP) why I can't find myself in the character, suddenly I can see it in concrete terms. Katniss resists introspection.  An INFP would reflect back--almost incessantly.  Katniss lives in her mind, but in the moment.  For whatever reason--personality or circumstances--she easily leaves the past behind (at least, when she is operating from her conscious mind--and trauma notwithstanding).  She is living in the moment--because she has to.  And because she lives in the moment, she survives--or, because she is a survivor, she knows to live in the moment.

Katniss is not a reader.  Literacy does not figure prominently into The Hunger Games (more on this later), but even in its absence, literacy is conspicuous.  In the children's/young adult genre, female characters are readers.  In the development of female characters, there seems to be an unspoken, unwritten, but understood rule that girls need smart characters who read to teach them that reading and being smart are okay.  The exceptional, very bright, slightly odd, female reader is such a commonplace motif as to make claims to the exceptionality of such a character hollow.  Consider, for example, the very mundane female protagonist of Cassandra Clare's Infernal Devices series.  Every now and then, the narrative shows Tessa with a book to remind the reader that her literacy is one of her distinguishing features, when otherwise, she is pretty bland.  So Katniss's very difference from these supposedly extraordinary female characters is refreshing.

So why do I like Katniss?

Although I am not particularly engaged by being able to relate to Katniss's personality--so different from my own--my own personality type causes me to read empathetically (I'm hammering the Meyers-Briggs, but it's sort of fun from a "rhetoric of reading" standpoint, because it can explain, to an extent, why certain readers engage with texts and characters the way we do!)  So I am sympathetic to Katniss's circumstances, and more sympathetic to her manipulation by those around her, when that comes to light in Catching Fire.  In fact, it was while reading Catching Fire that I really started to like the books and Katniss's character.

It is easy to understand Katniss's motivations, given what the reader knows about her character and her circumstances.  She is exactly what she should be, given what the reader knows.  And as a reader, I don't like to be unfairly manipulated by an author into feeling something I don't want to feel (as in The Giver), or thinking something that is untrue.  Katniss is satisfyingly well-constructed as a character.  And above all, what is predictable are her convictions.  There is a moment in book 3 when she votes in favor of "one last Hunger Games," and I wonder, as a reader, if this is an inconsistency in her character.  But then, I wonder whether that vote is sincere given the subsequent turn of events.

It her predictability (another ISTJ quality) as enacted in the novels that makes her vulnerable to manipulation--and having one's values subject one to manipulation is something an INFP can understand.  So there's a connection after all.  As a person of action rather than contemplation, Katniss acts from her convictions.  When she acts, she makes it count, as in volunteering for Prim in the Hunger Games, or survival in the games themselves.  Haymitch recognizes this trait throughout, and uses it for various purposes--most notably the revolutionary propaganda in book 3.

But finally, I come back to that narrative voice.  When the author's choice of a technique is so obvious as to register as a little bit wrong, there should be a definite reason for drawing attention to that choice.  I learned this from Robert Browning's verse, though Robert Frost has moments as well (Something there is that doesn't love a wall - one of the clunkiest lines in iambic pentameter).  As she moves through the events of the three novels, Katniss resists contemplation, even as she tries to work out what's happening to her.  She focuses on details rather than abstract concepts.  The narrative reinforces the sense of moving forward rather than looking backward, and does not give the reader advantages over the character's self-awareness, or lack thereof.  Rather, the reader experiences how baffling it is to be living one's own coming-of-age.  I can't speak to how it would have been to read this as a young adult.  I likely would have been more frustrated by the lack of introspection, because I wanted to figure out what was happening, or what had happened, and theorize about it.  I still do.  But looking at The Hunger Games, I can read the narrative, and live with the character, and think--yeah, it was exactly like that.  So at the end of the day, Katniss's narrative feels authentic.  And so does she.

Why I like The Hunger Games (Pt 1)

I finished reading The Hunger Games trilogy for the second time over the weekend, and I have been wanting to write something since I finished rereading the first book, but it just hasn't happened.  Part of the reason it hasn't happened is because, while I did know what I wanted to say when I finished book 1, I wanted to read the next book--and the next--more than I wanted to sit and write about the first one.  That happens sometimes.  Also, it is summer, and for me, that means less time for writing--apparently.  In the fall and winter, I found time to blog in the mornings while on break and on weekends, at lunch when I was back at work, and in the evenings after work, which was, frankly, exhausting.  Evenings are meant for reading, not writing necessarily.  (And I used to be a night person.  *sigh*)  Right now, however, my weekends are filled with packing, organization, and sometimes birthday parties.  My evenings are spent combating the plague of flies visited upon us by the nearby sewage plant.  My lunch hours are spent picking up my daughters from their summer program.  And my work has taken more of my creative energy than usual, which is good because it prevents boredom, but bad because it takes my creative energy!  And yet, somehow, when I woke up this morning, I couldn't stop thinking about a post--or a series of posts--about what The Hunger Games does well.

Why is this post necessary, you might ask, since the books are wildly popular?  Well, first of all, I liked them very reluctantly myself.  I am that person who avoids things that are popular simply because they are popular.  It was after a friend (Hat tip, Rochelle of The Bradley Clan) invited me to go with her to see the film that I became intrigued and read the trilogy.  And even then, I was reluctant at first because frankly, I wasn't in love with the narrative voice.  The first person, present tense narrative that ran throughout simply did not make sense to me.  Because how can analysis and evaluation, contemplation and assessment, occur while the events of a story are taking place?  That, and in the beginning, and in certain places thereafter, it is awkward to read a narrative written in present tense.  I stand by that, though I have made tentative peace with the present tense, and well, first person is not my favorite mode, but it's functional, and by giving voice to a character that isn't necessarily introspective, and by resisting that analysis of past events, the novel almost subverts the first person and the present tense, though I risk attributing a degree of artfulness to a device that might have been a product of the author's "wouldn't it be cool/a challenge if...."  But more on that later.

The other thing is that I have friends who love the novels, and some who do not care for them, or do not consider them worth considering.  In the second (or third?) category is Darwin, who, if memory serves, found the novels a bit facile.  Because this was a concern of mine--okay, so you make these kids fight to the death. That's original.  Didn't Star Trek do that at some point?--and because I think my initial impression was unjust, I sort of feel the need to write through that because I don't think that's what's going on.  There is also the argument that The Hunger Games world, novels, etc., do not belong in the ranks of dystopian literature because there are bigger, better dystopias out there, like Brave New World, which I love, and Darwin does not. Or 1984, Fahrenheit 451, and most notably for its potential parallel, Lord of the Flies.  I will say that The Hunger Games is different from these dystopian visions, but deserves its due.  I will also hold it up as far superior to The Giver, which is simply a catalog of hot-button issues for elementary school students.  The Hunger Games does not have direct, one-to-one correspondences to news items, and that's fine.  And if it borrows tropes from other dystopias, it is bound to do so, given the rich tradition of the dystopian novel.  I see it as a welcome addition to the genre--if dystopia is, indeed, its genre (more on that later).

The novels aren't terribly quotable, though they are highly readable.  And I find that interesting as well.  They're not quite novels of ideas the same way as other dystopian literature, and I still maintain that the first person present prevents the reader from finding the answers in the cleverly constructed maxims.  Indeed--that is another point of the novels:  that overwrought language is overrated (and maybe there will be more on that later, too).  So this will not be a series of "notable moments" the same way as my Gabaldon series.  Rather, it will be organized according to the features of the novels that I find compelling.

One last note.  It is a convention of writing titles that when referring to the title of a novel, you italicize.  When referring to a series, you do not.  So The Hunger Games the novel, vs. The Hunger Games trilogy.  Just like The Chronicles of Narnia vs. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  I will try to do this as I remember to distinguish the book from the trilogy, but I might slip up.  Because really?  These are not three distinct books.  Not really.  What we have is a single book that was split into three for purposes of a publishing contract and length.  There is only one story, and the events take place in a very short time frame, as a series of novels goes.  It very nearly observes the unities (okay, maybe not, but there you have it).  And so I will often treat it as a single whole, and sometimes might forget that I'm discussing three distinct volumes.