Darkwalker on Moonshae is absolute garbage. In fact, I don't think that is a strong enough condemnation of its crapness.
I read this when it first camDarkwalker on Moonshae is absolute garbage. In fact, I don't think that is a strong enough condemnation of its crapness.
I read this when it first came out, back when I was sixteen, and for thirty-some years I have remembered it fondly. It's amazing the tricks the mind will play.
I found it last summer at a used bookstore and thought, "This will be fun!" Nope. It was a torturous slog. It represents almost everything that is wrong with the fantasy genre -- from Fantasy's inherent racism to its shallow characterizations to its deus ex machinas to its ridiculous death tolls to its elementary good vs. evil plots -- and to make Darkwalker on Moonshae even worse, it reeks of the D&D campaign turned novel that littered the Fantasy landscape of the late-80s / early-90s.
So I am going to focus on that. The D&D campaign in the shape of its "party of adventurers." They are as bad a bunch of D&D characters as I have ever seen in the bad campaigns I have played in over the years.
There's Tristan Kendrick, the spoiled prince of a disapproving father. He whines a lot. Fights a lot. Finds a magic sword that we are told he is worthy of but are never shown he is worthy of. And, of course, he pines for his foster sister, Robyn.
And Robyn? Well, she is about to become the most powerful druidess the islands have ever seen, but she has mystery lineage, so she hasn't figured any of that out yet. She is bossy; she is pissy; she loves Tristan, but keeps him at arm's length; she saves the day. She is both saviour and reason to fight. She is insufferable.
Then there are their companions: Daryth, a foreign man with a scimitar, is a bit of a fighter, a bit of a thief, a bit of competition for Robyn's love (though not at all affectively), and he is a skilled dog handler-trainer. Which matters because another member of the party is Canthus, the biggest, baddest, most well behaved hound in the history of gaming (who will, of course, be instrumental in their ultimate victory over the forces of evil. We also need little folk. So there is Pawldo, a halfling archer who is close friends with Tristan and Robyn, and there is Finnelen, a stereotypically obnoxious dwarf (only this time "she" is the one combing out "her" beard). And the mentor that fills out the party is Keren the Bard. Woohoo! What a crew. What a fucking lame crew.
Not a one of them can muster any depth beyond a midsummer dew. If only more of them had died at the end, perhaps then I could have walked away with a small smile in my heart. Instead, all I could do was grind my way to the last page.
You know, three out of every four books I reread fall to pieces when I return to them. I really need to learn a lesson from that. I won't but I should. ...more
I bought it for a couple of reasons. First, I am about to teach Lady Chatterly's Lover for the first time, and I thoughtThis book is appallingly bad.
I bought it for a couple of reasons. First, I am about to teach Lady Chatterly's Lover for the first time, and I thought any book that makes the case for widespread use of "cunt" was an important bit of prep for D.H. Lawrence's infamous classic. Second, I was under the impression that the book delivered an overview of the etymology of "cunt." Third and last, I read Betty Dodson's introduction and was led to believe that Cunt A Declaration of Independence was the kind of book I could one day pass on to my daughters, a gift that would show them the existence of a community as comfortable and proud of their menstruation, sexuality and "cunts" as I hope my daughters will one day be.
Instead, there was nothing in Cunt that I could use in my class, an unreliable and disappointingly skeletal etymology, and little for my daughters that wasn't written by someone other than Inga Muscio.
In fact, most of the interesting bits of Inga Muscio's book were from much better writers and thinkers (Ursula K. LeGuin, Cristien Storm, Nina Hartley, Audre Lorde, etc., etc.). Muscio's own work was illogical, poorly argued, continuously fallacious, and often full of hate. She did offer a couple of inspired ideas -- such as her call for menarche parties to celebrate a woman's first menstruation and the need to remove shame from masturbation -- but these moments were too few to mitigate the overall shabbiness of her work.
And that shabbiness was heightened by Muscio's voice. She shifts from pirate to gangbanger to urban artist to pretentious author without any textually supported reason. It's obvious that she adopts this potluck style for effect; it's a voice used to make her cool and accessible, but she would have done better to spend her energy fully developing her ideas of how to make "cuntlove" universal and rid us all of "cunthate" than to waste time offering up piratical dialogue like, "We be powerful people when we bleed." Arrrrrr! Avast matey!
This book wasn't anywhere near good enough, and it could have been amazing in the hands of someone with the skills to propose an idea, sustain an argument, deliver the proofs, and avoid digressions. Hell...I wanted it to be amazing. But Cunt is pop drivel of the worst kind. I am going back to Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick to cleanse my feminist tastebuds.
Here I am writing a review after only one hundred and seven pages. It's not my policy, but I have enough to say that I think this early review is valiHere I am writing a review after only one hundred and seven pages. It's not my policy, but I have enough to say that I think this early review is valid.
The entire first section of Knights of the Black and White, called Beginnings by Jack Whyte, is the biggest, clunkiest most useless piece of exposition I have ever read. It is a classic example of an author's cerebral, pre-writing work spilling over into their novel without any thought for pacing, necessity or readability. Indeed, it took only three pages of Awakenings, the second part of the novel, to see that this is where the novel truly begins. This is another fine example of what Shane Joseph recently described as "only us Plebs needing a copy editor." Someone should have told Mr. Whyte to reel it in and cut Beginnings; sadly, no one did.
But this isn't the only issue I have with Knights of the Black and White. Does the following passage ring any bells for anyone who has read a Whyte book in the past: "Godfrey's face twisted in a frustrated grimace. 'I know what I want to ask you, but I don't know how to put into words properly. Let me think about it for a moment.'
'Think as long as you wish. I'll wait,' Hugh lay back and closed his eyes again.'"
Substitute Arthur Pendragon for Godfrey and Caius Merlyn Britannicus for Hugh and you've got every discussion Whyte's characters ever had in the Dream of Eagles series, and its subsequent books. Does anyone actually ruminate in such a way when they talk to a close friend? Maybe there are a few who do this, but they must be in a very small minority. Regardless, the similarity is instantly off-putting, and it makes me want to put down the Knights of the Black and White so I can avoid wasting my time. But, of course, I won't.
I am doomed to read the whole book. I only hope my tentative rating of two stars can be overcome by something truly inspired, but I don't think I'll submerge myself in the tub in anticipation.
I may add more to this when I am finished reading, so stay tuned.
Later...
So much for being doomed to finish. I can't do it; I can't and won't go on. I am BORED. Whyte hasn't created a single character for me to care about. It isn't very often I put away a book before I'm done, particularly without plans to give it another try, but I am done with The Knights of the Black and White.
I hoped for more, but I got less than I hoped. I would love to give this book one star, but I don't feel it's fair to change my initial rating when I won't be finishing the book. So two is where it will stay.
**spoiler alert** WARNING: This is not a strict book review, but rather a meta-review of what reading this book led to in my life. Please avoid readin**spoiler alert** WARNING: This is not a strict book review, but rather a meta-review of what reading this book led to in my life. Please avoid reading this if you're looking for an in depth analysis of Anna Karenina. Thanks. I should also mention that there is a big spoiler in here, in case you've remained untouched by cultural osmosis, but you should read my review anyway to save yourself the trouble.
I grew up believing, like most of us, that burning books was something Nazis did (though, of course, burning Disco records at Shea stadium was perfectly fine). I believed that burning books was only a couple of steps down from burning people in ovens, or that it was, at least, a step towards holocaust.
If I heard the words "burning books" or "book burning," I saw Gestapo, SS and SA marching around a mountainous bonfire of books in a menacingly lit square. It's a scary image: an image of censorship, of fear mongering, of mind control -- an image of evil. So I never imagined that I would become a book burner.
That all changed the day Anna Karenina, that insufferable, whiny, pathetic, pain in the ass, finally jumped off the platform and killed herself.
That summer I was performing in Shakespeare in the Mountains, and I knew I'd have plenty of down time, so it was a perfect summer to read another 1,000 page+ novel. I'd read Count of Monte Cristo one summer when I was working day camps, Les Miserable one summer when I was working at a residential camp, and Shogun in one of my final summers of zero responsibility. A summer shifting back and forth between Marc Antony in Julius Caesar and Pinch, Antonio and the Nun (which I played with great gusto, impersonating Terry Jones in drag) in Comedy of Errors, or sitting at a pub in the mountains while I waited for the matinee to give way to the evening show, seemed an ideal time to blaze through a big meaty classic. I narrowed the field to two by Tolstoy: War and Peace and Anna Karenina. I chose the latter and was very quickly sorry I did.
I have never met such an unlikable bunch of bunsholes in my life (m'kay...I admit it...I am applying Mr. Mackey's lesson. You should see how much money I've put in the vulgarity jar this past week). Seriously. I loathed them all and couldn't give a damn about their problems. By the end of the first part I was longing for Anna to kill herself (I'd known the ending since I was a kid, and if you didn't and I spoiled it for you, sorry. But how could you not know before now?). I wanted horrible things to happen to everyone. I wanted Vronsky to die when his horse breaks its back. I wanted everyone else to die of consumption like Nikolai. And then I started thinking of how much fun it would be to rewrite this book with a mad Stalin cleansing the whole bunch of them and sending them to a Gulag (in fact, this book is the ultimate excuse for the October Revolution (though I am not comparing Stalinism to Bolshevism). If I'd lived as a serf amongst this pack of idiots I'd have supported the Bolshies without a second thought).
I found the book excruciating, but I was locked in my life long need to finish ANY book I started. It was a compulsion I had never been able to break, and I had the time for it that summer. I spent three months in the presence of powerful and/or fun Shakespeare plays and contrasted those with a soul suckingly unenjoyable Tolstoy novel, and then I couldn't escape because of my own head. I told myself many things to get through it all: "I am missing the point," "Something's missing in translation," "I'm in the wrong head space," "I shouldn't have read it while I was living and breathing Shakespeare," "It will get better."
It never did. Not for me. I hated every m'kaying page. Then near the end of the summer, while I was sitting in the tent a couple of hours from the matinee (I remember it was Comedy of Errors because I was there early to set up the puppet theatre), I finally had the momentary joy of Anna's suicide. Ecstasy! She was gone. And I was almost free. But then I wasn't free because I still had the final part of the novel to read, and I needed to get ready for the show, then after the show I was heading out to claim a campsite for an overnight before coming back for an evening show of Caesar. I was worried I wouldn't have time to finish that day, but I read pages whenever I found a free moment and it was looking good.
Come twilight, I was through with the shows and back at camp with Erika and my little cousin Shaina. The fire was innocently crackling, Erika was making hot dogs with Shaina, so I retreated to the tent and pushed through the rest of the book. When it was over, I emerged full of anger and bile and tossed the book onto the picnic table with disgust. I sat in front of the fire, eating my hot dogs and drinking beer, and that's when the fire stopped being innocent. I knew I needed to burn this book.
I couldn't do it at first. I had to talk myself into it, and I don't think I could have done it at all if Erika hadn't supported the decision. She'd lived through all of my complaining, though, and knew how much I hated the book (and I am pretty sure she hated listening to my complaints almost as much). So I looked at the book and the fire. I ate marshmallows and spewed my disdain. I sang Beatles songs, then went back to my rage, and finally I just stood up and said "M'kay it!"
I tossed it into the flames and watched that brick of a book slowly twist and char and begin to float into the night sky. The fire around the book blazed high for a good ten minutes, the first minute of which was colored by the inks of the cover, then it tumbled off its prop log and into the heart of the coals, disappearing forever. I cheered and danced and exorcised that book from my system. I felt better. I was cleansed of my communion with those whiny Russians. And I vowed in that moment to never again allow myself to get locked into a book I couldn't stand; it's still hard, but I have put a few aside.
Since the burning of Anna Karenina there have been a few books that have followed it into the flames. Some because I loved them and wanted to give them an appropriate pyre, some because I loathed them and wanted to condemn them to the fire. I don't see Nazis marching around the flames anymore either. I see a clear mountain night, I taste bad wine and hot dogs, I hear wind forty feet up in the tops of the trees, I smell the chemical pong of toxic ink, and I feel the relief of never having to see Anna Karenina on my bookshelf again.
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