Reading Round-up

Having said I’d blog more I’ve not done much at all, sorry about that. So I figure a little reading round-up wouldn’t go astray.

I finally got through Clash of Kings – that’s Game of Thrones Season 2 for TV folks – and I’m looking forward to A Storm of Daggers. I also decided not to watch season 2 of the show; I watched season one and enjoyed it but it lacks some of the depth, the story is shifting away from the book and … I don’t need to see that stuff.

Finishing it opened the way for me to read Neil Gaiman’s latest, The Ocean at the End of the Lane. It really dragged me in and was a charming tale; I don’t think it’s a match for his other novels but it’s still an addictive read with some great characters and ideas.

And finishing that, which didn’t take long, meant I could finally read Shine Light, the third book in Marianne de Pierre’s Night Creatures trilogy. It took me a couple of chapters to get back into the world but once there the story moved along at a good pace. I thought I knew what was happening, then bang, something shifted dramatically and kept me interested. The ending seemed somewhat sudden in a way but with time I see it’s the right way.

Actually, before those two I finished reading another YA fantasy, Crewel by Gennifer Ablin. I was lured to this book by a moment of serendipity. I was doing NaNoWriMo and I read one of the pep talks, which was by Ablin; and I found it pepped me quite successfully. I switched tabs to Twitter after reading it and someone tweeted their review of Crewel. It seemed to me to be a sign, so I tracked it down on Angus & Robertson and bought the ebook.

Unfortunately, when I went to read it on my reader I found passages went missing between pages. It turns out that why A&R uses the epub file format, it formats the books specifically for the Kobo, which handles the whole reading experience differently to my Sony. So the only way I could read it was on my computer, using the A&R program. Which was okay but not something I’m keen to do often.

Anyway, while very YA at times and occasionally a little rough around the edges, Crewel is a truly fascinating story. It’s a dystopia with a difference as the world of the story, Arras , is wound by Spinsters – women with an ability to see the threads of reality and to manipulate them on special looms. It’s a great concept and the intrigues we’re drawn into make it well worth reading.

Speaking of ebooks, I’ve recently read the classic fantasy novel The King of Elfland’s Daughter by Lord Dunsany, a poetic tale of mundane meets faery, and Tim Powers’ The Anubis Gates, an interesting mix of magic and time-travel set, mostly, in 19th century London , with a detour to Egypt . Now I’m working my way through Emperor of Dreams, a huge collection of short stories by Clark Ashton Smith; brilliant. I’ll likely have more to say on them later.

For now, I think that’s your lot.

Keep dreaming.

Considering Ibsen's Peer Gynt

Last year I planned to read 50 Plays and write a response to each one. I read far less than 50 and only wrote one response. But I figure I might as well share it with you so here it is.

Described as a play in five acts, Peer Gynt is very much an episodic narrative with the ongoing fantastic encounters of our ‘hero’ heading inexorably to the final conclusion where, Faust-like he gets an unexpected reprieve.

Structurally, the play can be divided more into three than five. The first three acts are adventures in Peer’s youth where he meets Solveig and culminating in his mother’s death; the two together seem to drive him to flee the country. The fourth act is a sample of Peer’s adventures overseas while the fifth act is his return home in old age and his attempt to run from fate (O Sinner Man, where you going to run to?)

The episodes in the first phase all follow on one after the other, but there are jumps in time thereafter, which seems slightly incongruous. I can see this play working better in three acts; condensing the first three and possibly expanding the last two.

In the end this is very much a moral tale but the moral is to be yourself, whatever your lot. Peer’s various adventures are driven by his desires but also by his willingness to mould himself to the situation. When mistaken for a prophet he becomes a prophet; when asked to be a troll he’s fine with that until he learns it’s forever and he can’t roam. Being trapped, or rather accepting his situation and living it, is something Peer is unwilling to do. He loves Solveig in a fashion but the permanency drives him away – especially without his mother to hold him in place.

The fantastic nature of the adventures and Peer’s willingness to accept them all without surprise drive the action on in an entertaining fashion. His justifications and swift about-faces also keep the tone light, with the lot of Solveig and Aase’s death the only real points of drama.

The fifth act has a more didactic feel to it than the first four as Peer’s life draws to an end and he must finally face up to who he is – which is no-one as he has never been himself. There’s a lot of moralising which slows it down somewhat, but the final few scenes with the Button moulder flow quite quickly and echo Everyman.

In all it’s a light entertainment that pushes a message too hard at the end when it might be better left to example. The structure could be greatly condensed to strengthen it and make the jump in time between Act 3 and Act 4 less jarring. I suppose interval would be had in between but the story should allow for no interval.

What’s noteworthy in light of my ideas of narration are Peer’s speeches between his adventures. These are again quite fantastical but he drives the creation of a whole world through his imagination. He becomes an emperor in his own mind or an historian who is again an emperor but through manipulation of history; trees take on different aspects, he becomes an onion he is peeling. The speeches are illustrative and symbolic and tell us as much of the real story and nature of the play as the scenes themselves.