Reading Wednesday

[sabotabby]

 Just finished: The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley. I don't know what to make of this, and will definitely be checking out the Wizards vs. Lesbians episode on it (not that I always agree with them, but they do raise perspectives that are interesting). I would say overall the prose and characters carried it. I got to know these people, I fell in love with them in the same way that the narrator did. It was compelling, as the kids say.

But I don't think the ended quite landed and I'm struggling to think of why. In part (and this is confirmed a little in an interview that follows the book), it's hurt a bit by the first-person narration. Bradley is telling a much bigger story than the narrator sees, and while that thankfully rescues it from being a didactic Message Book, it might have swung too far towards the other direction where I'm not exactly sure what it was trying to say. It's one of those books that straddles the literary and genre, and I tend to prefer genre in a literary style than literary fiction exploring genre. 

That said, it was so relentlessly well-written that I feel like my ill-defined issues with it are kind of irrelevant because I highly enjoyed it.

Currently reading: Bad Cree by Jessica Johns. I'm almost done this one. It's almost the reverse—protagonists figuring out genre solutions to literary fiction problems. I was given a warning about this book and I'm yet to figure out why.

What Feasts At Night by T. Kingfisher. I didn't read the first novella in this series (What Moves the Dead) despite it having my favourite cover the year it came out. So it's taking some getting used to. On the plus side, the opening is suffused with so much gothic horror that I find myself turning into a young woman fleeing in a white gown across the moors, holding a candlestick.

Comments

[sovay]

Bradley is telling a much bigger story than the narrator sees, and while that thankfully rescues it from being a didactic Message Book, it might have swung too far towards the other direction where I'm not exactly sure what it was trying to say.

What are the likeliest options? Or does it just not seem to be saying anything beyond "these characters! I love them!"

[sabotabby]

I would like to know. It feels a little like fanfic (though, fanfic for a real guy who we know almost nothing about) and I mean that more or less in a positive way, where the author clearly loves her characters so much that she needs to write about them until they're out. But I think she also occupies an uncomfortable place vis a vis her Cambodian heritage and being a white-passing but still racialized Other in British society, and she wanted to address that. The result, though, is that she addresses it by having her British-Cambodian first-person protagonist fall hard for a British officer from the 1800s and then puts in a Black character who has a much more adversarial relationship with British government and society. The result is that you have, from an objective point of view, the titular Ministry being Bad, Actually, but also the people fighting back are also bad, and the only good and pure thing is (heterosexual, kinda) love. Which is, I think, not an intentional message at all, because I do think she set out to say something nuanced about race, class, and social mobility as it pertains to institutional structures.

[sovay]

It feels a little like fanfic (though, fanfic for a real guy who we know almost nothing about) and I mean that more or less in a positive way, where the author clearly loves her characters so much that she needs to write about them until they're out.

Did the writer actually come out of AMC Terror fandom? [edit] Yes, which makes me want to find the original vignettes on AO3.

The result is that you have, from an objective point of view, the titular Ministry being Bad, Actually, but also the people fighting back are also bad, and the only good and pure thing is (heterosexual, kinda) love.

I can see how that hiccups. Would it have done better with multiple viewpoints?

(Which kind of kinda? Can think of several options and have not read book.)

[sabotabby]

Did the writer actually come out of AMC Terror fandom? [edit] Yes, which makes me want to find the original vignettes on AO3.

I had no idea there was a show about the Terror ahahah what

I can see how that hiccups. Would it have done better with multiple viewpoints?

I think so. We never see the POV of the Black bridge character, who I think has the most interesting perspective.

(Which kind of kinda? Can think of several options and have not read book.)

Of the expat characters, Margaret is lesbian, Arthur is gay, and Graham claims to be straight but has had sex with at least one man and seems to be more experienced with men than with women, until he falls in love with the narrator. Arthur has a huge crush on Graham and it's kind of implied that they had sex at some point. The narrator claims to be straight but goes on at great length about how hot Margaret is, and this is deliberate on the author's part (in the interview I read, she says that the narrator is repressing her obvious attraction).

Would you like to know which characters/relationships survive?

[sovay]

I had no idea there was a show about the Terror ahahah what

The 2018 first season was adapted from and improves infinitely upon Dan Simmons' The Terror (2007) and I happen to adore it, although not being the most classically fannish of people did not then embark on exhaustively researched novel-length RPF of which it sounds as though this book is unusual primarily in its tradpub existence rather than AO3. I write this kind of poem, though, so was definitely the target audience.

We never see the POV of the Black bridge character, who I think has the most interesting perspective.

That is a bummer.

Would you like to know which characters/relationships survive?

Oh, sure. I am spoiler-indifferent and curious, although also now trepidatious.

[sabotabby]

That is such a gorgeous poem.

Honestly, the author's skill is what saves this from being absolutely cringe and mock-worthy. I think it's gotten a certain degree of mockery—like, she's not subtle about it being fanfic—but it's based on the thing in fanfic that makes it appealing in the first place.

Soo...Arthur pines horribly for Graham and is then murdered by the two future people sent to disrupt the Ministry's work. He is at least mourned by the protagonists. Margaret survives but her girlfriend is mistaken for her and brutally murdered. She does not get a name and no one seems to care. The two future people are a couple, one with male pronouns, one nonbinary, and they both get killed. The narrator and Graham survive and break up but then it's implied that they'll get back together and possibly have a kid.

I should have hated this book, honestly.

[sovay]

That is such a gorgeous poem.

Thank you so much!

I should have hated this book, honestly.

I have to say that reeled off in isolation all the narrative decisions of the previous paragraph sound absolutely book-destroying, on the level of Don't Bother to Bury Your Gays, I Just Dropped This Mountain on Them. I am now impressed that the book works as well as it does. (The fanfic impulse toward history makes sense to me and I am glad the author is not apologizing for it!)

[sabotabby]

It's in the last 50 pages that the book falls apart, but the rest of it was so good. I'd have made the complete opposite narrative choices in terms of who lives and who dies and ultimately who the protagonist is.

[sovay]

I'd have made the complete opposite narrative choices in terms of who lives and who dies and ultimately who the protagonist is.

Understandable.

[radiantfracture]

That said, it was so relentlessly well-written that I feel like my ill-defined issues with it are kind of irrelevant because I highly enjoyed it.

Do you think more was supposed to come through than actually did?

It's almost the reverse—protagonists figuring out genre solutions to literary fiction problems.

Well, I kind of love that.

my favourite cover the year it came out

I was just admiring this cover 10 seconds ago when it was being suggested to me as something I as a (new) reader of Samatar might like.

I find myself turning into a young woman fleeing in a white gown across the moors, holding a candlestick

I will just leave this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF0VaBxb27w

[sabotabby]

I think you'll like Bad Cree.

Both books were better than they had any right to be. I mean. The number of dream sequences in Bad Cree. I should have hated that. It was instead quite cool.

With Ministry of Time, my sense was that she started out trying to say less and write a silly story about romance and time travel but her own positionality made it smarter than she meant to make it.

I will just leave this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF0VaBxb27w

Ahahaha yes truth.

[sovay]

I will just leave this here

The best version.