McKillip, Patricia A. - The Tower at Stony Wood

[oyceter]

This didn't hit me at the gut level like Winter Rose and Ombria in Shadow did, probably because Thayne Ysse and Cyan Dag's stories sort of bored me. But I really liked Sel and her story, and I liked the way McKillip wove all of them together and the image of the woman in the tower and how, in the end, it was an anti-damsel-in-distress book. But it was a very chewy book that had me thinking about images and themes and all that fun stuff.

I particularly enjoyed the symbol of the woman in the tower, never able to see the world outside except through a mirror, and consistently producing art. I wonder if that's how McKillip sees the act of writing. Come to think of it, it's a rather depressing view of writing, that only by separating onself (or only through separation) can one produce art. But then, there is the part when the woman and Sel both liberate themselves (er, or the vision of the woman) through their art, how Sel in essence does what she sees the woman do and makes herself into art, almost. She writes her own story and she writes herself in it, and through that, breaks free of the tower. And there's also how Melanthos' artistic products help Cyan Dag free Sel and direct Thayne Ysse. Must think about this more. My head is also making a random, sideways jump to the ivory tower of academia and watching and writing about the world in theory while cloistered away, and how to break that separation.

I also liked how the very typical damsel in distress (locked away in a tower, separated from the world, like Rapunzel) was a complete illusion designed to bring about more lasting change than "save the princess, live happily ever after." Plus, even the illusion of the damsel manages to free herself, or echoes Sel, the other not-damsel in sort-of-distress. I loved Sel's story so much because she was ordinary. Because she baked, and raised her children, and had her husband, and because under all that ordinariness was something extraordinary. And she didn't have someone else free that in her; she didn't find some magic cloak that made her special. She made her own skin and wrote her own story. Thayne Ysse and Cyan Dag felt more like characters out of a story, chasing after dragons and going on quests (particularly the threes involved in Cyan Dag's, which makes it even more like a fairy tale). I think that was the point... especially because of the way Melanthos would watch them, like some sort of grand adventure in a novel, far away from the normal, day-to-day business of Stony Wood.

Comments

[menin-aeide.livejournal.com]

particularly enjoyed the symbol of the woman in the tower, never able to see the world outside except through a mirror, and consistently producing art.

Erm... doesn't that sound awfully like the Lady of Shallott?

[oyceter]

Very, but I liked how McKillip sort of took the Lady of Shallott trope (is it a trope? well, the cloistered, pure lady trope) and turned it on its head. No drowning for this lady!