Galveston, by Sean Stewart
11 Apr 2010 12:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cimoreneThis week I reread the World Fantasy Award winning novel Galveston by Sean Stewart, whose premise (and hook) is a ~sinister magical Mardi Gras.
I know, right? Sinister magical Mardi Gras. Amazing.
So, I wasn't disappointed in the magic. The sense of awe was as I remembered, and I still thought that the execution fully lived up to the coolness of the concept of a sinister magical Mardi Gras. Also, one of two protagonists is a complex young woman with a really great story. Also her life is overshadowed by strong multi-faceted women, and the universe itself is also populated with women as well as men, which I no longer take for granted since I started watching so much TV. The book is set in the South, and it doesn't racefail that I noticed, and it does women right, and the South right, showcasing its ugliness honestly while still exploring its culture sympathetically.
But on the other hand, there's a whole half of the book devoted to a male protagonist that I REALLY FUCKING HATE. Not only is he a whiny, nasty, privileged asshole Nice GuyTM, but most of his story is BORING. His dickness is part of his ~journey~; he gets called on these flaws and deals with that in a predictable and realistically privileged way. Points for honesty, but it's painful to read.
And. Okay. Was that right there a straight-up visual symbol of absolution for his dickwaddery, and did you then actually articulate in words "washed in the blood of the lamb", and did he actually, later, sway the crowd in a stirring speech? So is he not, in effect, narratively absolved for the crimes of privilege which you took such care to explicitly accuse him of and symbolically try him for?
And what the fuck was that last scene? His ex-friend, who already got the girl that the Asshole Protagonist spent the book lusting after, is suddenly probably going to die of TB? And then the girl wins supernatural luck - but her guy still has his symptoms? And then asshole falls in love with her (on a pretentiously separate paragraph), presumably to denote achieving some ~wisdom to separate his new genuine attraction from the sneering objectification that went before? So - is it somehow still lucky for her that the guy she really wants is going to die and the unlucky bastard she rejected in his favor is now pining for her? Surely you didn't really mean to intimate that she would ultimately end up with the asshole after all, even after gaining supernatural luck? Even if her luck can't affect a pre-existing case of TB, surely it's not particularly lucky to have dickwad falling for her??
I also started to try to reread Chimera by John Barth (was put off by deliberate jocularity of narrative voice which I found engaging the first time I read it, and gave up after 1/3) and Beauty by Robin McKinley, who, unlike Lady Gaga, does not look good without any pants on, and who unfortunately chose to display her lack of them on the Internet after Obama's inauguration by ranting that he shouldn't call himself black because she, a random white woman, doesn't consider his pedigree to be black enough and he "looks like a white guy with a tan". Beauty was one of my mother's favorite books before I was even born, and the copy I reread countless times throughout my childhood dated from the 1970s, until I proudly bought my own in 6th grade; and yet after seeing Robin McKinley's arse, I wasn't even able to get through two chapters of it; that unflattering light was spilling over everything, niggling away at the back of my mind, ruining my enjoyment completely.
I know, right? Sinister magical Mardi Gras. Amazing.
So, I wasn't disappointed in the magic. The sense of awe was as I remembered, and I still thought that the execution fully lived up to the coolness of the concept of a sinister magical Mardi Gras. Also, one of two protagonists is a complex young woman with a really great story. Also her life is overshadowed by strong multi-faceted women, and the universe itself is also populated with women as well as men, which I no longer take for granted since I started watching so much TV. The book is set in the South, and it doesn't racefail that I noticed, and it does women right, and the South right, showcasing its ugliness honestly while still exploring its culture sympathetically.
But on the other hand, there's a whole half of the book devoted to a male protagonist that I REALLY FUCKING HATE. Not only is he a whiny, nasty, privileged asshole Nice GuyTM, but most of his story is BORING. His dickness is part of his ~journey~; he gets called on these flaws and deals with that in a predictable and realistically privileged way. Points for honesty, but it's painful to read.
And. Okay. Was that right there a straight-up visual symbol of absolution for his dickwaddery, and did you then actually articulate in words "washed in the blood of the lamb", and did he actually, later, sway the crowd in a stirring speech? So is he not, in effect, narratively absolved for the crimes of privilege which you took such care to explicitly accuse him of and symbolically try him for?
And what the fuck was that last scene? His ex-friend, who already got the girl that the Asshole Protagonist spent the book lusting after, is suddenly probably going to die of TB? And then the girl wins supernatural luck - but her guy still has his symptoms? And then asshole falls in love with her (on a pretentiously separate paragraph), presumably to denote achieving some ~wisdom to separate his new genuine attraction from the sneering objectification that went before? So - is it somehow still lucky for her that the guy she really wants is going to die and the unlucky bastard she rejected in his favor is now pining for her? Surely you didn't really mean to intimate that she would ultimately end up with the asshole after all, even after gaining supernatural luck? Even if her luck can't affect a pre-existing case of TB, surely it's not particularly lucky to have dickwad falling for her??
I also started to try to reread Chimera by John Barth (was put off by deliberate jocularity of narrative voice which I found engaging the first time I read it, and gave up after 1/3) and Beauty by Robin McKinley, who, unlike Lady Gaga, does not look good without any pants on, and who unfortunately chose to display her lack of them on the Internet after Obama's inauguration by ranting that he shouldn't call himself black because she, a random white woman, doesn't consider his pedigree to be black enough and he "looks like a white guy with a tan". Beauty was one of my mother's favorite books before I was even born, and the copy I reread countless times throughout my childhood dated from the 1970s, until I proudly bought my own in 6th grade; and yet after seeing Robin McKinley's arse, I wasn't even able to get through two chapters of it; that unflattering light was spilling over everything, niggling away at the back of my mind, ruining my enjoyment completely.
