McKinley, Robin - Chalice

[oyceter]

(I'm sorry for spamming! I have a bazillion book posts to catch up on, and I should probably write up Wiscon some time as well...)

Mirasol has recently been appointed Chalice of the Willowlands after the previous Master and Chalice died unexpectedly. As Chalice, her job to connect the new Master to the land is made more difficult given that the new Master was to be a Priest of Fire, and is now not entirely human. Although it sounds like epic fantasy, McKinley adds her usual every day touches, focusing just as much on Mirasol's bees and honey as well as the "who will rule the land" plot.

I've missed reading Robin McKinley. I didn't read Sunshine or Dragonhaven when they came out, due to poor or conflicting reviews, so it's been almost a decade since I've read new McKinley. I am also desperately compartmentalizing her white guy with a tan comment about Obama because I am so tired of having writers I like flash their ignorance online.

Chalice is very standard McKinley, which is to say it is comforting, homey, and focused on small acts of niceness amidst larger epic going-ons. I have no idea how this would read to people new to McKinley; she's been a favorite author of mine since I was in middle school, so I have absolutely no distance. That said, I find her focus on ordinariness and niceness a little less comforting than I did as a kid; I keep remembering some of deepad's comments at Wiscon about how niceness is small, how it is used to limit people, how you can be nice to people and hope for change, but you cannot use niceness as a way to battle systems of oppression. None of this directly has to do with the book, save that I wonder how much of McKinley's focus on niceness and humility and being ordinary I swallowed unthinkingly as a teen and continue to retain today. It is a narrative I am extremely familiar with and used to, and ... I am not sure how comfortable I am with that anymore.

I also have issues with the notion of citizenship and rulership in the book; the focus on bloodlines and blood relationships to the land works in this fantasy but begins to fall apart when you poke at it. And one element in the ending really didn't work for me.

All this said, I loved the book and the characters, even though sometimes they were too accomodating and polite and humble for me. I love the tentativeness of their interactions, I love the story of someone rediscovering his humanity, I love the plotline of trying to figure out what you're doing while you're doing it. I especially love the bees and the honey. I am very glad I had a bottle of farmers' market honey with me as I was reading, otherwise I would have had horrible cravings.

Comments

[chomiji]

>> the focus on bloodlines and blood relationships to the land<<

Hmm ... that bit sounds rather like McKillip's The Riddle Master of Hed. Did it strike you that way?

[oyceter]

Haha, I couldn't say! I read the Riddle Master trilogy, but I don't remember it at all....

[keilexandra]

I have no idea how this would read to people new to McKinley

Coincidentally, CHALICE was my first and still only McKinley book. I have others on the TBR list, but haven't gotten to any--I found this one on the library shelf and picked it up on a whim. Homey is a very good description; it was refreshing after all the epicness going on in fantasy. The pace was a bit TOO quiet and humble for me, though. Looking back at my review, I think I had some of the same worldbuilding issues.

Also, ick bees. Especially that ending scene with the swarm.

[oyceter]

Hrm, yeah, I don't think Chalice is the best McKinley. My personal favorites are Beauty, Rose Daughter, and Deerskin, but I recognize that the Beauty is because it was the first McKinley I read and I have reread it A LOT. I like Rose Daughter for what it does with the B&B story, and Deerskin for the emotional content.

[keilexandra]

Hmm. I'll have to check those out sometime when I'm not burnt out on fairy-tales. Current cravings are for space opera (just devoured the newest Asaro yesterday, such good fluff) and original-ish fantasy a la Sarah Micklem or Sylvia Kelso.

[oyceter]

Heh, yeah, McKinley will really not hit those cravings.

[telophase]

I really liked most of the book, but the element of the ending that didn't work for me was (spoiler protected) how the Master lost all his fire and came back perfect desperately ignoring the 'from black to white' element there. One of my narrative kinks is the not-quite-human fighting to maintain part of their humanity, and I prefer it when it's something they will have to keep fighting for the rest of their lives, if that makes sense. Having him come completely back is too pat.

[crossedwires]

That's my feeling about the ending too; I think Chalice is McKinley's weakest book almost entirely because of that ending. It was too easy/convenient and not really in keeping with the previous claim about how the Chalice and Master can't marry because it would unbalance the land, unless the Master was an outsider, which I think would've worked much better if he'd retained his outsider-ness. (Or if it ended more like Sunshine or Rose Daughter and less like Beauty, I guess.)

[oyceter]

Yes, that is the part I really disliked! (spoilers for Chalice and Rose Daughter) The racial issues, the fact that it goes back to what McKinley was trying to fix about the Beauty and the Beast story in Rose Daughter, everything. Graaaah. Too easy, and boring.

[crossedwires]

I am also desperately compartmentalizing her white guy with a tan comment about Obama because I am so tired of having writers I like flash their ignorance online.

Me too. I grew up on McKinley; I read Beauty when I was 10 or so, and just fell in love. I also haven't come across a McKinley book I didn't like, including Sunshine and Dragonhaven (though I'm maybe more in the minority with the latter book).

[daedala]

Yeah.

The Hero and the Crown was my go-to book in the library throughout elementary school. If I couldn't find anything, I got that. Even if I could find something I wanted to read, I'd get it anyway. I checked it out once a month sometimes, just to reread it, because it was my comfort read and I needed a lot of comforting...

It kind of warped my mind. :)

[crossedwires]

Same here. I am/was that way with The Hero and the Crown too. I read it all the time. I haven't re-read it since McKinley made that comment, but I have calmed down enough that I can discuss her books and contemplate re-reading them without feeling so let-down and angry.

[oyceter]

Yeah. Compartmentalizing like whoa! I still haven't been able to bring myself to reread Blue Sword.

[(Anonymous)]

Ack! She is historically one of my favorite authors - The Hero and the Crown was, seriously, REVELATORY for me as a little girl - but in recent years her streak of really irritating books and her increasingly overt racism (and the skills I've gained in critically examining her older work) make me a bit nervy around her books.

I picked this up at a used bookstore thinking that at least I wasn't buying it new, and I'm glad I didn't.

!!!!!SPOILER!!!!!

I thought the master's transition from inhuman/black-skinned to human/white-skinned was pretty racist, and I really disliked the heroine - her constant self-abnegation made her seem like a caricature of the classic McKinley heroine. I also really didn't buy the love story. And why did those poor bees have to sacrifice themselves? She does this, often - her books are full of animals *just knowing* when someone is noble and pure-hearted (and high-ranking, ahem) and becoming subject to them. It is starting to irritate me greatly.

- seitzk

[oyceter]

Yeah, McKinley definitely has things she hits over and over! Sometimes I am ok with it (I think it bothered me less here because it's been almost ten years since I've read her!), and sometimes it rubs me the wrong way.

And OMG the racial issues. SIGH. (Is there stuff in Sunshine and Dragonhaven as well?)

[crossedwires]

(Is there stuff in Sunshine and Dragonhaven as well?)

Not to my recollection, other than I think there not being any non-white people in either book (though Sunshine has not-quite-human characters, and vampires, of course, that are definitely Other, but they or one at least is sympathetic and well-developed), but I read them both without a critical eye towards race issues (it was more, if something bothered me - in anyone's books - I'd skip/skim over it; I got really good at that and will still do it now, sometimes without realizing it).

Oh, yeah, and re Dragonhaven, she named one of the dragons Buddha, which I was a little o.O at, though not enough to not finish the story. Also I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the (spoiler?) surprise!gay character, who was only outed at the end and spent the earlier part of the story being rather antagonistic to the main character. OTOH, he lived! and ultimately wasn't evil, just cantankerous. The romance in this was also much more side-plot/underdeveloped than in most other McKinley books. (Possibly, I had more issues with dragonhaven than I thought.)

Plus, the narrator's 'voices' in both Sunshine and even more in Dragonhaven is pretty close to McKinley's own blog voice. I don't know if this is something you'd find problematic; it doesn't go as far as to sound like *McKinley* is the character, but there's a first person, meandering sort of narrative going on, particularly with Dragonhaven (almost stream-of-consciousness style with a rather self-involved? - that's not quite the right word; maybe, insular? too busy raising a baby-dragon to pay attention to anything else? - teenage boy, which I think is also a first for McKinley). I love the world-building, though, especially in Sunshine; I'd read more books set in that universe, even if it didn't have the same main characters.

(I am also wondering if the pressure to publish 3 (or more?) books in as many years is affecting the quality of her stories. Chalice felt rushed at the end, sort of half-baked and relying on old themes she'd covered before. Dragonhaven seemed more like an experiment that I'm not sure was entirely successful. I am starting to feel a little excited again about Pegasus because horses! with wings! but with a large side of reservation too.)

[oyceter]

Hrm, interesting! I think I will keep skipping Dragonhaven, although I really do mean to read Sunshine someday... (it's been sitting on my shelf for years). Thanks for the notes!

many books

[susanreads]

a bazillion book posts to catch up on
Oh, you've been saving them up? Phew! I thought "I couldn't read that many books if I did nothing else".

Re: many books

[susanreads]

This is the icon I should have used.

Re: many books

[oyceter]

Ha! Not so much "saving them up" so much as "desperately behind on writing things up and too lazy to try." ;)