Finally done...
Dec. 11th, 2005 01:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiperNow that I'm finally done with Mississippi Blues by Kathleen Ann Goonan, here's my full commentary on it.
I didn't like it as much as I liked Queen City Jazz in general. There were places where the language came together with that same lyricisim that I liked in QCJ, and those parts were good. But there were also long stretches where I was fairly bored. These were long stretches where a single character would be going on for several paragraphs at a time, telling other characters (usually Verity or Blaze) about things that happened with them--and that got to me after a while. Too much show, not enough tell. What made it particularly vexing was that there were two minor characters who joined the cast after getting a side chapter devoted to them, just enough to introduce them to the reader before throwing them into the main plot--and I did like that. So when other characters didn't get that introduction at all and only got these long stretches of show-not-tell dialogue to explain their stories, it was extra jarring.
I also didn't care for Verity's characterization very much in this story. I liked her pretty well in QCJ, but in this story, she got a lot more random--and, more annoyingly, whiny. She sniped at people. She screamed. And for extra special annoyance value, in places this seemed to be handwaved away as "oh, she's pregnant, so this is why she's so emotional"--not in the narrative, mind you, but in how other characters are reacting to her. They know she's pregnant (and they seem to clue in on that amazingly well despite the fact that she's not even showing at the time, which made me go WTF?!), and then dismiss her behavior. I didn't care for that at all.
More importantly, through most of the story Verity is really only a cardboard cutout version of a main character for me. She's ostensibly the one in charge of the situation--but unlike in QCJ, where she did a really good job of trying to figure out what the heck was going on and get to the heart of things, in this story she spends a lot more time just reacting to things that happen to her. As a result, she's a lot less interesting.
Blaze became a lot more interesting to me in this book, since there are large parts that are told from his point of view and in first person, distinguishing his parts of the story from Verity's, which are in third person. His pursuit of learning how to play the blues as part of rediscovering his lost identity was ultimately pretty fun, and it became a vital part of how to fix one of the last challenges the cast faced in the story. Writing about it now, I find myself thinking that Blaze really ought to have been the main viewpoint character in the story this time around, because he goes through a much more interesting plot arc than Verity does. And when Blaze plays music, when he grabs hold of one of his instruments and lets loose on the songs he's learned, Goonan gets a lot better at showing me that way with words that I like about her. When she's writing about her characters making music, she shines through again. And hell--she even threw in a brief passing mention of Elvis in Blaze's experiences learning all about the history of the blues. I had to like that. I'm biologically compelled. ;)
Even Blaze's parts of the book were erratic, though. He's got a part towards the end where he's clearly the viewpoint character, and yet the scene dropped into third person for no reason I could discern.
Ultimately, my reactions to Blaze and Verity typify my reactions to the book as a whole. There's stuff in here I like a lot. For example, the character pairoff of Mattie vs. Mark Twain (or, rather, a nanotech-created version of Twain) had some excellent side character development. And though the book has a distinctly surreal feel to it that I had a hard time following for a while, as I came in towards the end it all started making better sense. Characters who seemed to join in on the plot for no reason eventually showed their purpose for being in the plot--especially Mattie, who ultimately becomes even more vital than Blaze's music to help the characters get to where they're going.
As all this started to happen, I found myself going "okay, there is an overall theme here"--not unlike trying to follow individual themes in a big complex piece of music, and getting that sense of satisfaction that comes from final chords starting to resolve. And I am still very interested in the overall big picture of what's happened to the world as Goonan's describing it in this series. But my early gut reaction of "early draft", I think, holds true. I think one more good hard edit pass through this book could have brought out a much more polished story.
As it stands, there's enough here to pull me on into Crescent City Rhapsody. But I'm glad this read is done. It was difficult to hang in there and make it through, and I'll be happy to be starting fresh with a new set of characters.
I didn't like it as much as I liked Queen City Jazz in general. There were places where the language came together with that same lyricisim that I liked in QCJ, and those parts were good. But there were also long stretches where I was fairly bored. These were long stretches where a single character would be going on for several paragraphs at a time, telling other characters (usually Verity or Blaze) about things that happened with them--and that got to me after a while. Too much show, not enough tell. What made it particularly vexing was that there were two minor characters who joined the cast after getting a side chapter devoted to them, just enough to introduce them to the reader before throwing them into the main plot--and I did like that. So when other characters didn't get that introduction at all and only got these long stretches of show-not-tell dialogue to explain their stories, it was extra jarring.
I also didn't care for Verity's characterization very much in this story. I liked her pretty well in QCJ, but in this story, she got a lot more random--and, more annoyingly, whiny. She sniped at people. She screamed. And for extra special annoyance value, in places this seemed to be handwaved away as "oh, she's pregnant, so this is why she's so emotional"--not in the narrative, mind you, but in how other characters are reacting to her. They know she's pregnant (and they seem to clue in on that amazingly well despite the fact that she's not even showing at the time, which made me go WTF?!), and then dismiss her behavior. I didn't care for that at all.
More importantly, through most of the story Verity is really only a cardboard cutout version of a main character for me. She's ostensibly the one in charge of the situation--but unlike in QCJ, where she did a really good job of trying to figure out what the heck was going on and get to the heart of things, in this story she spends a lot more time just reacting to things that happen to her. As a result, she's a lot less interesting.
Blaze became a lot more interesting to me in this book, since there are large parts that are told from his point of view and in first person, distinguishing his parts of the story from Verity's, which are in third person. His pursuit of learning how to play the blues as part of rediscovering his lost identity was ultimately pretty fun, and it became a vital part of how to fix one of the last challenges the cast faced in the story. Writing about it now, I find myself thinking that Blaze really ought to have been the main viewpoint character in the story this time around, because he goes through a much more interesting plot arc than Verity does. And when Blaze plays music, when he grabs hold of one of his instruments and lets loose on the songs he's learned, Goonan gets a lot better at showing me that way with words that I like about her. When she's writing about her characters making music, she shines through again. And hell--she even threw in a brief passing mention of Elvis in Blaze's experiences learning all about the history of the blues. I had to like that. I'm biologically compelled. ;)
Even Blaze's parts of the book were erratic, though. He's got a part towards the end where he's clearly the viewpoint character, and yet the scene dropped into third person for no reason I could discern.
Ultimately, my reactions to Blaze and Verity typify my reactions to the book as a whole. There's stuff in here I like a lot. For example, the character pairoff of Mattie vs. Mark Twain (or, rather, a nanotech-created version of Twain) had some excellent side character development. And though the book has a distinctly surreal feel to it that I had a hard time following for a while, as I came in towards the end it all started making better sense. Characters who seemed to join in on the plot for no reason eventually showed their purpose for being in the plot--especially Mattie, who ultimately becomes even more vital than Blaze's music to help the characters get to where they're going.
As all this started to happen, I found myself going "okay, there is an overall theme here"--not unlike trying to follow individual themes in a big complex piece of music, and getting that sense of satisfaction that comes from final chords starting to resolve. And I am still very interested in the overall big picture of what's happened to the world as Goonan's describing it in this series. But my early gut reaction of "early draft", I think, holds true. I think one more good hard edit pass through this book could have brought out a much more polished story.
As it stands, there's enough here to pull me on into Crescent City Rhapsody. But I'm glad this read is done. It was difficult to hang in there and make it through, and I'll be happy to be starting fresh with a new set of characters.