What a difference a day makes
Written: Oct 07 '07
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Product Rating:
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Pros: good characterization, intriguing world
Cons: prurient rape scene, sketchy world building
The Bottom Line: I can't recommend it.
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| jsgoddess's Full Review: |
When I finished this book on Friday I would have given it 4 stars, and happily.
Then a day passed, and then I sat down to write this review and realized that I'm annoyed with this book and its author.
Early in the fantasy novel Melusine, one male character is raped by another in a scene that I can only describe as gratuitous. There are times when you read about the sexual assault and humiliation of a character and you can't help but feel the author is trying more to titillate than to tell a story. The rape scene happened early enough that I nearly set the book aside (and I likely would have if there had been anything else to read at the time), but I convinced myself that what felt gratuitous would eventually be shown to be wholly necessary.
But it wasn't. And it wasn't until I had finished the book and dwelled on it a while that I realized it wasn't.
Instead, I have the niggling sensation that Sarah Monette thought that male-on-male rape was kinda sexy.
You'll pardon me if I don't agree.
The story is told from the point of view of two characters: Mildmay the cat burglar and Felix Harrowgate the court wizard. Mildmay is contacted by a young woman who wants him to steal for her while Felix is accosted by an enemy at court who has found out something dreadful about his past. Eventually, the two characters meet and the Mildmay plot is pretty much dropped in favor of the Felix plot. I think I would have preferred it be the other way around.
In the aforementioned rape scene, Felix is brutally raped and used to cause something terrible to happen to the city of Melusine. The only problem is that the "something terrible" Felix is used to do is never really explained. "The Virtu" is broken. That's all I know. Congratulations! Now you know just as much about it as I do.
The narration switches back and forth between the two men, and it's quite effective for establishing their personalities fairly early. Mildmay is clever and determined; Felix is damaged and a bit stupid.
The first person narration means that the novel has a narrower focus than is perhaps wise. We can only see what the two characters see, and most of the time that isn't really enough--especially since Felix spends a good portion of the novel completely insane. Add to that the characters' tendencies toward glossing over certain aspects of their histories, or treating their pasts as things the reader should already be familiar with, and this can be a frustrating read.
Monette has an annoying habit of using made up words too liberally, forcing me out of the story repeatedly as I tried to figure out what "septad day" was, or "great septads" or, well, anything involving the word "septad." That tossed-into-the-middle-of-the-story-so-you'd-better-swim feeling is sometimes effective, but in this novel I never feel that I was given the tools to figure out precisely what the heck was going on, and what significance certain things were supposed to have.
Still, I did enjoy the travels and travails of Mildmay and, to a lesser extent, Felix. They aren't one dimensional goody-two-shoes at all and their reactions and decisions feel realistic and sincere, with the caveat that because I reader never learned how the society is structured and what certain actions mean, it's hard for me to guess if they were under or overreacting to certain events.
I also never had a grasp on what the magic system of the world was supposed to be, how it could and should be used, and what the repercussions of its use were.
Aside from the jargon, Monette's writing is solid and she is good at characterization and scene-setting. It's to her credit that I wanted to know more about this world and its background.
And, in her defense, there is at least one sequel. It could be that she had reasons, still, for the rape, the missing details, everything. But I am left uneasy and repulsed by what felt like a prurient interest in rape, and I have no intention of reading anything further in the series.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
jsgoddess
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Member: Julie Carter
Location: Ohio USA
Reviews written: 140
Trusted by: 199 members
About Me:
Come, gaze upon the newbies and ply them with ratings!
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