I Am A Blank Paper On Which You & Your Magic Wrote A Girl

[redbrunja]

I had to check out Deathless about six times from the library, but I finally finished it.

It’s amazingly well-written… but that’s about all I can say. The best parts have already been excerpted and passed around the internet. Deathless is all about the language; I couldn’t really connect with the characters.

Also, another example of a book (partially) set during the Seige of Leningrad where I love the language and am interested in the place but I can’t connect to the characters.

Comments

[sugar-fey.livejournal.com]

I love Deathless, but mainly for the language and the setting, and I have a weakness for fairytale retellings. I thought the Siege of Leningrad section was the strongest, but whenever it went into the fantasy world it lagged for me. That said, I have so many quotes that I LOVE (and give me Clint/Natasha feels :P).

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

I thought the Siege of Leningrad section was the strongest

It really was.

That said, I have so many quotes that I LOVE

AGREED.

[qualapec.livejournal.com]

I love Deathless a lot, but it's definitely not the kind of book that grabs me. I do have major appreciation for how the author took her poetry training and applied it to prose structure. I'm super fascinated by that kind of thing. But like poetry, it's something I have to be in the mood for.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Basically, yes. And how I connect with stories is HUGELY dependent on the characters, so it's a lot harder for me to get attached when the language is so all-encompassing.

[blithers.livejournal.com]

Same here. The prose was gorgeous, and there were little sentences and paragraphs and even chapters that I adored, but overall I felt disconnected from the characters and uninterested in the final outcome of the book. I'm glad I read it, but I don't have love in my heart for it - character is just too important to me when enjoying a work of fiction. (I've enjoyed some objectively not-that-great stuff, if I like the characters enough.)

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

and there were little sentences and paragraphs and even chapters that I adored, but overall I felt disconnected from the characters and uninterested in the final outcome of the book.

Exactly this.

[tigerpetals.livejournal.com]

I have this one but haven't read it yet.

For characters, maybe her Orphan's Tales duology would appeal to you more? I've read those and Palimpsest - I was deeply attached to several of the characters in the former, and distant in the latter. Both were amazingly beautiful with regard to language. Of course, I've read opinions that the Orphan's Tales were too distant. "Urchins, While Swimming", a short story and the first Valente I ever read, won me with characters and language: http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/valente_12_06/

I tend to swoon over language, and also to have a calmer, more focused mind after being exposed to the excellent use of it. Connecting with the characters is important too; I can love a book that is very strong either one of these areas even if it isn't strong in both, but I think generally I love books that are primarily strong in language over ones that are primarily strong in character. It's not an iron-clad rule. More like, I see the characters as made up of the words on the page. If they aren't chosen and arranged well enough, I see clichés and contrivance rather than characters, even when in theory, the characters in the story could be affecting and interesting. Substance is created and shaped by style. I don't know the extent of this rule, if it does exist for me; there is the case of the aforementioned Palimpsest, and I got very attached to Katniss despite thinking the prose was awful from the beginning. (Awful in the way that makes reading certain books very easy to read and - at least in some cases - easy to see as a movie. I suspect that if a book is easy to see as a movie, it usually isn't well-written as a book, though I can't be certain.)

This bears further thought, since I want to see how often characters are words first and people later. I think I've become more prone to thinking this way over the years. And I wonder how much this is also related to how I want fandoms, since I tend to not be very interested in book fandoms even when I love a book and its characters, while tv and movie fandoms can get me pretty easily without my needing to think that highly of the source material. Only two book fandoms have kept my interest for years: Harry Potter and the Black Magician trilogy. I am less certain of their source materials' quality than I used to be, so quality probably has little to do with my fannishness.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Of course, I've read opinions that the Orphan's Tales were too distant. "Urchins, While Swimming", a short story and the first Valente I ever read, won me with characters and language: http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/valente_12_06/

I will check that out!

I suspect that if a book is easy to see as a movie, it usually isn't well-written as a book, though I can't be certain.)

Well, personally I disagree; I've read some FANTASTIC books that basically played like movies in my head and that I would actually love to see adapted (Sabriel and The Wizard Hunters being two of them).

Only two book fandoms have kept my interest for years: Harry Potter and the Black Magician trilogy. I am less certain of their source materials' quality than I used to be, so quality probably has little to do with my fannishness.

*nods* I feel like same way. For me, the source material has to have something MISSING, something that I really wanted to see, in order for me to get really fannish about it.

[tigerpetals.livejournal.com]

Oh, Sabriel! I loved that trilogy - I should reread, it's been a long time.

For me, the source material has to have something MISSING, something that I really wanted to see, in order for me to get really fannish about it.

This must be it. Not that I never wanted more from books, obviously, but I've usually just finished them quickly and moved on to others if I wasn't satisfied by what I was reading. Maybe that had an effect too - I have to sit down for a set time to finish movies and tv, so more time to pay attention and get attached to wanting something.

I hope you like the story.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

I also think that other people being fannish about a show changes how I feel about that show and how I interact with it.

[tigerpetals.livejournal.com]

It very definitely does for me. Often in terms of intensifying reactions that already existed.

[intrikate88.livejournal.com]

I found that I was able to connect more with the characters in Deathless than in other of Cat Valente's books BECAUSE she toned down the language. She writes so much like a prose poem that while a short story of hers is okay, but anything longer and the story and characters get absolutely lost in the wild tangles of language. So Marya's determination and her connection with the changing Soviet Union through the lives of the mythic figures around her really stood out a lot better.

Basically I love Catherynne Valente, I just wish she would find a balance between language and story, and Deathless was the closest of hers I've found yet to achieving that.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

I can understand that. I’m really looking forward to reading The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, because I have hope that either the different characters or shorter stories (I believe this is a book of linked short stories) will either allow me to connect with the world or get lost in the language or both.