Just tell them stories
Apr. 11th, 2021 02:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolorosa_12I've managed to pack quite a bit into what started out quite a sleepy Sunday: a sunny walk along the river, among the houseboats, swans, geese and crows, crepes for breakfast, a bit of yoga. I've just returned after a desperate rush into the garden to rescue the laundry from — of all things — a hailstorm.
I've also just finished a book: The Mask of Mirrors by M.A. Carrick (a pseudonym for the collaborative efforts of Marie Brennan and Alyc Helms), which felt somewhat old-fashioned in a rather refreshing way — more like the kind of twisty, page-turning secondary world fantasy I used to read twenty years ago. The setting evoked Renaissance Venice (with a dash of the Balkan coastal cities as well), the characters are all, in various ways, con artists attempting disparate kinds of heists, there are various political plots afoot, and everything is artifice in one manner or another.
The eleventh prompt for the book meme asks for:
11. A book that came to you at exactly the right time
I've used this as my answer for various versions of this question over the years, across many Dreamwidth memes, so for those of you who have been around for a while it will be no surprise to see me say Northern Lights/The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman here. I first read this several days after my thirteenth birthday, and I think that is the ideal age to first encounter Lyra, Pantalaimon, and their marvellous world. At that point the other two books in the series had not yet been published, so I read the series as it grew — The Subtle Knife around a year later, The Amber Spyglass just after my sixteenth birthday. I feel that each book arrived at exactly the right time for me, with a series that is at its heart about the transition from childhood to adolescence, from innocence to knowledge, and so on.
I've said many times that reading these books at that age felt as if my own beliefs and understanding and moral framework were given voice, as if I'd been given the words and tools to explain myself and how I understood the world before I was able to articulate them. Again, I think the effect of this would not have been so profound if I'd come to the books at a later age — I know people who read the trilogy for the first time in adulthood who found the first book delightful and richly imagined, the second book a disappointment, and the third book a betrayal. Nothing could be farther from my own experiences reading them in my early teenage years: I loved all three books equally, the ending of the third book (which I saw coming about a hundred pages before it happened, and read on, desperately, hungrily, willing myself to be proved wrong) rang perfectly true to me and felt entirely in keeping with the series, and the emotion of it tugged exactly as intended on my sixteen-year-old heartstrings. (People always think I'm exaggerating when I say this, but I literally — and I truly do mean literally — cried on and off for three days, with gulping, heaving, screaming sobs, about the end of this book. I was staying with my grandparents over Christmas at the time, and my grandmother was on the verge of getting me medical help!)
As I say, I don't think there's any better age to read that trilogy, especially if you were an earnest, emotional teenager who took everything way too personally and seriously and whose morality was heavily formed by the books you read!
12. A book that came to you at the wrong time
13. A book with a premise you'd never seen before quite like that
14. A book balanced on a knife edge
15. A snuffed candle of a book
16. The one you'd take with you while you were being ferried on dark underground rivers
17. The one that taught you something about yourself
18. A book that went after its premise like an explosion
19. A book that started a pilgrimage
20. A frigid ice bath of a book
21. A book written into your psyche
22. A warm blanket of a book
23. A book that made you bleed
24. A book that asked a question you've never had an answer to
25. A book that answered a question you never asked
26. A book you recommend but cannot love
27. A book you love but cannot recommend
28. A book you adore that people are surprised by
29. A book that led you home
30. A book you detest that people are surprised by
I've also just finished a book: The Mask of Mirrors by M.A. Carrick (a pseudonym for the collaborative efforts of Marie Brennan and Alyc Helms), which felt somewhat old-fashioned in a rather refreshing way — more like the kind of twisty, page-turning secondary world fantasy I used to read twenty years ago. The setting evoked Renaissance Venice (with a dash of the Balkan coastal cities as well), the characters are all, in various ways, con artists attempting disparate kinds of heists, there are various political plots afoot, and everything is artifice in one manner or another.
The eleventh prompt for the book meme asks for:
11. A book that came to you at exactly the right time
I've used this as my answer for various versions of this question over the years, across many Dreamwidth memes, so for those of you who have been around for a while it will be no surprise to see me say Northern Lights/The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman here. I first read this several days after my thirteenth birthday, and I think that is the ideal age to first encounter Lyra, Pantalaimon, and their marvellous world. At that point the other two books in the series had not yet been published, so I read the series as it grew — The Subtle Knife around a year later, The Amber Spyglass just after my sixteenth birthday. I feel that each book arrived at exactly the right time for me, with a series that is at its heart about the transition from childhood to adolescence, from innocence to knowledge, and so on.
I've said many times that reading these books at that age felt as if my own beliefs and understanding and moral framework were given voice, as if I'd been given the words and tools to explain myself and how I understood the world before I was able to articulate them. Again, I think the effect of this would not have been so profound if I'd come to the books at a later age — I know people who read the trilogy for the first time in adulthood who found the first book delightful and richly imagined, the second book a disappointment, and the third book a betrayal. Nothing could be farther from my own experiences reading them in my early teenage years: I loved all three books equally, the ending of the third book (which I saw coming about a hundred pages before it happened, and read on, desperately, hungrily, willing myself to be proved wrong) rang perfectly true to me and felt entirely in keeping with the series, and the emotion of it tugged exactly as intended on my sixteen-year-old heartstrings. (People always think I'm exaggerating when I say this, but I literally — and I truly do mean literally — cried on and off for three days, with gulping, heaving, screaming sobs, about the end of this book. I was staying with my grandparents over Christmas at the time, and my grandmother was on the verge of getting me medical help!)
As I say, I don't think there's any better age to read that trilogy, especially if you were an earnest, emotional teenager who took everything way too personally and seriously and whose morality was heavily formed by the books you read!
12. A book that came to you at the wrong time
13. A book with a premise you'd never seen before quite like that
14. A book balanced on a knife edge
15. A snuffed candle of a book
16. The one you'd take with you while you were being ferried on dark underground rivers
17. The one that taught you something about yourself
18. A book that went after its premise like an explosion
19. A book that started a pilgrimage
20. A frigid ice bath of a book
21. A book written into your psyche
22. A warm blanket of a book
23. A book that made you bleed
24. A book that asked a question you've never had an answer to
25. A book that answered a question you never asked
26. A book you recommend but cannot love
27. A book you love but cannot recommend
28. A book you adore that people are surprised by
29. A book that led you home
30. A book you detest that people are surprised by