flemmings | Embarras de richesses

It is so nice to have extra money these days. Means I can buy books, and sometimes safer books than the latest Ishiguro, which I still haven't finished.

I did finish the Wynne Jones in less than a day (I can read speedily when my heart's in it) and am rather pleased by it on the whole. I understand

kickinpants' objections, but they didn't make the book disappointing for me. The cast of thousands is confusing but I think it's intended to be- hordes of relatives buzzing about and creating a clan. The trouble with a book that focusses on Chrestomanci and a couple of others is that for me Chrestomanci always has a chilling effect on the psychological action. He may be on the side of Good but he's not a clubbable type, and god knows he's impossible with children. I do like Charmed Life the best myself, but that's because there's Gwendolyn and the Goddess and the whole Chrestomanci menage to be going on with, with the untrustable figure of Chrestomanci looming cold and dark and Everest-like in the background. So anyway- a happy read there.

While taking those Gangans apart last week for their FMA and Papuwa episodes I started getting all twingey nostalgic looking at the ads for Papuwa 10, so screwed my courage to the sticking point and ahh surrendered my amazon.jp virginity to the gods of desire. And because I can't find Papuwa 8 anywhere in the house and suspect *it* may have been sacrificed to the gods of the Gunma PO, ordered that too. And then ordered a bunch of other stuff, because prices are low even if shipping is highish. And then envisioned Customs stopping the package and charging $1.85 of GST as they did for my cent demons, and the shipping co. charging me $30 handling instead of the PO's $5, and unordered them again. I have extra money but not extra money like that. So I hope that two thin Papuwas flying low will elude the eyes of Canada Customs and turn up in the usual 4 weeks.

(I also ordered the autumn WARD this morning, but haven't yet heard back from Kinokuniya, which is worrisome. Maybe they're just behindhand in their English email.)

Yesterday there was a package in the mailbox from

mvrdrk, which was US mail sending two Ima Ichikos with commendable dispatch. One is The Man who Slew the Clouds and the other is Song of the Seashore I-am-guessing-at-the-meaning. I'd been wading through

paleaswater's copy of Cloud-slayer and finding it as obscure as she says it is. And that, my pretties, is because it's the second (at least) in a series that starts with Seashore (at least) as I discovered on looking into the latter (copyright 2001) and finding a familiar if unintroduced character from Cloud-slayer (copyright 2005). Seashore is currently chugging along nicely and making very good sense hurrah.

Yesterday also there's a note stuck to the door from nobody I recognize, trying to make a delivery to one MJ Johnson which is certainly me and not, as I first assume, J Johnson at the wrong number. (This has happened before with local shipping companies delivering computer stuff to my bro next door. 543 and 545 are infinitely confusable in people's minds, though 543 and 534 are worse.) Someone sending me an unbirthday present? A pleasant mystery. This outfit allows you to sign a release and restick, which I approve of, because IPS and Purolator require you to call them and rebook a drop-off, which annoys me. So I sign and restick and go off to get my ailing bicycle, which is still ailing $200 later alas, and come home to a package stuck between doors just like in the old days before the PO decided my neighbourhood was not a safe drop-off one. A package from amazon.jp. My Papuwas, which I certainly didn't pay $35 to have delivered expedited, arrive expedited nonetheless. Someone obviously just chucked them in the airmail bin on reflex. Thank you, unknown wage-slave at amazon.jp. Whatever your sex, you are a prince.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

he's impossible with children.

Urm. He is not that looming to me. The adult Christopher Chant is merely a vain, vague man whose dressing gown has to match his pajamas just so. As for the carpet critter era, true, even as a child he had a nasty personality (whether intentional or no is another question), but at the third read of the Lives of Christopher Chant I could begin to feel sorry for him when he discovered what Uncle Ralph had been up to. (But not as much as I felt sorry for Conrad when he discovered what his uncles had been up to.)

Mh well. I felt sorry enough for Christopher first time around. I didn't find him that unpleasant, just an amoral adolescent as many of them are, and for obvious reasons lacking in socialization. The lack of socialization has kind of slopped over into adulthood, in spite of marriage to Milly. Sort of like an otaku. Unlike most otaku Chrestomanci is at least efficient at his job. One feels safe with him around, just not very comfortable; and god knows he's not the first man with no idea how to deal with children. If you weren't raised properly yourself it's not a natural connect.

Another thing that bothered me about that book was the lack of looming fear. She had fun magicky details done fine, like Rowling, such as the wonderful repeating detail of "I belong to Chrestomanci Castle" that all the objects in the flying machine would chime out, but the lack of real fear- because both Chrestomanci and Cat have so much power and multiple lives, left that climax kind of blah for me too. Yeah-yeah, Mr. Farleigh is kind of scary, but not really. I felt like she took some of the oomph from her own punch.

Sigh...

If she wrote another book about these people, I would, of course, buy it, hard copy, but still. A little let down.

Thing is, I never get a sense of looming fear in Chrestomanci ever. People confused and not knowing what to do, but never the feeling that things could go hideously wrongly bad, which does happen in other (and earlier) books occasionally. Well, once.

In fact part of my problem with Jones is that she seems to be too much into the English trope of terrible things happening that slide off the people they happen to. Same as with HP, Harry in his closet being a totally fantasy thing that doesn't affect him in any real-life way. It's part of the genre, but you have room to play with it if you want. Jones just does a brisk 'of course you feel horrible' when people variously lose their parents, are betrayed by their closest and/ or only relatives, or learn that their near and dear have no objection to murder-- (spoilers for this and that) only *one* of the uncles remembered to feed their crippled prisoner for eight years? That bit made me go cold and that's the end of it. This approach to characterization gives a coldness to the whole series. Yes of course you cope with the uncopable and bear the unbearable, but it's pure fantasy that people just bounce back from betrayal and violence like that.

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