McKillip, Patricia A. - Winter Rose

[oyceter]

I read this before, freshman year of college, and I am rather bemused by how little of it I remember. I also remember reading through it and being mostly confused about what was happening through a vast majority of it, and most likely missing the major climactic moments.

That said, I've never been that much of a Patricia McKillip fan because I've always felt I could never quite submerge myself in her books.

I don't know what's changed in the past four years (or even recently, because I had the same feeling about The Cygnet and the Firebird), but I loved this book. Fell in complete and total love with the language, with Rois' blackbird hair and wood eyes, with a world in which water is a doorway, wild horses ride in the wind, light can reveal or conceal, and roses can bloom and catch fire in the middle of the deepest winter.

For some reason, the narrative voice (Rois') reminded me a great deal of Beauty's in McKinley's Beauty, and Laurel reminded me a bit of both Hope and Grace. I get the same feeling from both books, of a pleasant countryside where people live and work and the strange events that take place just out of reach of that place. Of course, Winter Rose's is much more threatening and otherworldly.

Now starting the Riddle-Master trilogy, which I could never get into in high school. It's very strange, as though suddenly the McKillip translation switch in my head has suddenly turned on. I wonder if a reread of Cygnet and Firebird will have the same effect.

Comments

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

I'm very happy (selfishly.) I will say that I prefer to read them at at least a few months distance; they're rich and I enjoy them more that way.

[oyceter]

Ooo, which one is your favorite?

I'm taking a bit of a break from fiction temporarily (temporarily being... today?) -- got a book on the fast-talking dames of the movies ^_^.

[minnow1212.livejournal.com]

>For some reason, the narrative voice (Rois') reminded me a great deal of Beauty's in McKinley's Beauty, and Laurel reminded me a bit of both Hope and Grace.<

Oh, you're right! I never noticed that.

[tenebraeli.livejournal.com]

I liked Winter Rose, but my fav McKillip book has always been The Forgotten Beasts of Eld. That's one that I can haul out and re-read any number of times and still find layers in it.

[oyceter]

Oo, I read that... last year? I may need to pick it up again though.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Have you read THE CHANGELING SEA? It has a completely different emotional texture, but I think if you liked WINTER ROSE...

[oyceter]

I haven't... ooo, I shall add that on the list.

Is it similar to Winter Rose?

[avrelia.livejournal.com]

Patricia A. McKillip, in my opinion, is one of those authors who is very good – but in very small doses. I found her couple of years ago, read Winter Rose, and was absolutely enchanted by her prose. I could forgive some misses in characterization and plot, because I loved the style so much. But the next one – The Song for Basilisk - didn’t do anything for me, and I couldn’t even finish The Riddlemaster Trilogy. But some time later I read Ombria in Shadow and fell in love with her again. Now I am thinking – after getting rid of the book pile from the library I currently reading - to look into her latest stuff.

[oyceter]

Yeah, I remember going on a binge reading her freshman year, but I don't have much impression of the books I read at all.

I may try again, one a month or something ;).

Hrm, I'm kind of curious -- I read a review of Winter Rose in Green Man Review on her characterization and plot being off, and I was wondering if you agreed. I personally didn't have any problems with it in that particular book, so I'm interested.

[avrelia.livejournal.com]

I don’t really remember it now. I would have to read it again to say what annoyed me in the plot the first time, and, quite possibly I will have a very different impression.

[oyceter]

*nods* Right. I'm still rather bemused by the vast difference in my opinion the first and second time round.