Revelations from an Idiot
Jul. 15th, 2007 12:49 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
jade-sabre-301.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
queensthiefSo I'm reading this book called Mélusine, which is very good and which I would place in the YA category for its focus (the scope of the world is broad, but the focus is very character-specific), but is definitely not for people under 16 due to language and other non-niceties that show up in fiction. Anyway, recently one of the characters was, shall we say, crippled. Getting this from his POV was painful. I did not want him to be crippled. He did not want to be crippled. This whole crippled business sucks. He's having a heck of a difficulty getting back to doing what he normally does. And I appreciate it from a character and literary standpoint, but it really, really sucks, because he didn't do nothing wrong (what a lie that was), and he's a decent guy, and--
Then I said to myself, "Oh."
And it occurred to me that this must be what gets to people about The Queen of Attolia.
Okay, now I have to explain myself. As some of you may know, I first met Eugenides through randomly picking The Queen of Attolia off the shelf in my school library because I needed to write a book review for the school newspaper. I liked it well enough the first time through, and a few months later I found The Thief and read it and liked it too. Then I went back to QoA and it was like the lightbulb in my head went on, was made out of steel, and bashed me upside the head and it was LOVE.
But for me, Gen getting his hand cut off always had happened, and was going to happen, and had to happen. When I first found the books, Gen getting his hand cut off was the starting point of the plot. It was a story about a thief who got his hand cut off and had to deal, and a queen with severe emotional starvation, and the politics between their countries. Even when I went back and reread TT and reread QoA a second time, I was never--I mean, it sucked that Gen lost his hand, but that was what happened. It wasn't like this was a character I had read a great deal about and come to love when he was whole and healthy, and then I had to deal with the hand as much as he did.
So, um, I guess my question/discussion thought is--what about everyone else? Was your view of the hand-cut-off thing skewed by the order in which you read the books? Is it based on which book is your favorite? Does your perspective of it affect how you view the characters (especially Attolia)? Did anyone else feel like me, or am I just an unsympathetic freak?
Then I said to myself, "Oh."
And it occurred to me that this must be what gets to people about The Queen of Attolia.
Okay, now I have to explain myself. As some of you may know, I first met Eugenides through randomly picking The Queen of Attolia off the shelf in my school library because I needed to write a book review for the school newspaper. I liked it well enough the first time through, and a few months later I found The Thief and read it and liked it too. Then I went back to QoA and it was like the lightbulb in my head went on, was made out of steel, and bashed me upside the head and it was LOVE.
But for me, Gen getting his hand cut off always had happened, and was going to happen, and had to happen. When I first found the books, Gen getting his hand cut off was the starting point of the plot. It was a story about a thief who got his hand cut off and had to deal, and a queen with severe emotional starvation, and the politics between their countries. Even when I went back and reread TT and reread QoA a second time, I was never--I mean, it sucked that Gen lost his hand, but that was what happened. It wasn't like this was a character I had read a great deal about and come to love when he was whole and healthy, and then I had to deal with the hand as much as he did.
So, um, I guess my question/discussion thought is--what about everyone else? Was your view of the hand-cut-off thing skewed by the order in which you read the books? Is it based on which book is your favorite? Does your perspective of it affect how you view the characters (especially Attolia)? Did anyone else feel like me, or am I just an unsympathetic freak?
