Bujold, Lois McMaster - Paladin of Souls

[oyceter]

And now, I confess to my flist that I think Bujold is just Not For Me. I read The Curse of Chalion a couple of years ago and wasn't too impressed. I've read most of Komarr and Cordelia's Honor, largely because people have told me that Cordelia's Honor is one of her earliest and therefore not best works. Both of the Miles books I ended up putting down when I was smackdab in the middle of the climactic plot moments, and I've never felt the need to pick them back up again.

Bujold being Not For Me is not just "I admire it technically but don't quite understand and maybe a reread will convince me otherwise." I think it's something about her prose or her characters that slides right off me.

Anyway. Ista is the middle-aged mother of the queen; her life has previously been torn apart by the will of the gods, and she's really not all that open to them anymore. She embarks on a pilgrimage, largely to get away from court life, but ends up entangled in a mess of demons and conspiracies in which the gods are trying to guide her to do something.

I like that Ista is a middle-aged heroine and that she's allowed to have second chances and love again. Other than that, I was mostly bored by the book. Despite Ista's horrific past and the presence of demons in this book, I never felt that she or any of the other characters were really in any danger. And I could have put this down at the giant climactic moment and not felt any need to pick it back up again, which is never a good sign.

I'm really not sure what it is. Part of me wants to say that Bujold's characters feel too well adjusted to me; I know people will come in and talk about Miles and how much angst he goes through, but there's something about the prose or the way it's written that doesn't make the angst feel real to me. Ah well.

Links:
- coffeeandink's review
- truepenny's review (spoilery)
- rilina's review

Comments

[cofax7]

largely because people have told me that Cordelia's Honor is one of her earliest and therefore not best works.

I'm confused; you read *some* of Komarr and didn't finish it, and read *some* of Cordelia's Honor and didn't finish it? Also, CH is actually a compendium of Shards of Honor and Barrayar. Shards is pretty much a romance-with-politics-and-action. It was Bujold's first finished work, but sold after The Warrior's Apprentice (the first actual book about Miles). Barrayar was written some years later, and is a political thriller, I guess you would say, with not much in the way of romance in it. It's also much better than Shards, and has one of my favorite scenes in all fiction ("I went shopping." "How much did you pay?" "Too much." [or WTTE]).

I dunno. If the narrative drive of Bujold doesn't capture you (although I wouldn't have thought Komarr was a good place to start, for a multitude of reasons anyway), it doesn't catch you. I'm just not convinced you got the right examples. *grin*

Anyway, Bujold's characters usually start off relatively well-adjusted, have a bad spot, and end up a little better off, and understanding more about themselves. (Even Memory fits this template, and that's about as low as Miles falls.) Also, she doesn't dwell on the angst, it's there in the plot but the characters don't generally spent a lot of time thinking mournful thoughts. They're too busy being shot at or making pithy one-liners.

I'm sorry Bujold doesn't work for you: she's one of my favorite writers, although I'm less enchanted by the fantasies than by the Vorkosigan novels, and I was sorely disappointed in the last Miles novel. I'm waiting on tenterhooks for a novel about Ivan, who really really deserves one. Damnit. But it's okay if Bujold is Not Your Beautiful Cake.

[cofax7]

Bujold's characters usually start off relatively well-adjusted, have a bad spot, and end up a little better off, and understanding more about themselves.

Well, except for Mark. Who starts off fucked up, gets some better, gets really really fucked up, and then starts to get better. But he's still basically fucked up. He's just about the only one I can think of who is coded as a protagonist and just generally fucked up all the way through.

I wonder if that means you'd like Mark or hate him?

[oyceter]

Hee! It depends, I guess? I have a 50/50 reaction to fucked up characters, though I tend to like them more when they're women for some reason. I think I tend to love fucked-up characters who stoically remain fucked up and don't get emo or alpha bastard-y.

Gee, I wonder who overdosed on romance novel heroes a while ago? ;)

[riemannia.livejournal.com]

Komarr is where I started Bujold and I found it a good starting point. Totally hooked me, too.

[cofax7]

Huh. Okay!

(I just... I have Ekaterin issues that have yet to be resolved.) But if it worked for you, I withdraw my statement.

I think my first Bujold was actually Barrayar, which makes not a lot of sense if you hadn't read Shards...

[riemannia.livejournal.com]

Maybe I've had fewer Ekaterin issues because I knew her before her predecessors. Though maybe that's irrelevant.

It was the beginning of fresh relationship, though, so I found it a good way to ease into the series. Of course, then I had to read it from the beginning.

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

My sister's first VORKOSIGAN novel was actually Komarr and she remains convinced to this day that it is a good place for someone to start reading the series. I started with "Weatherman" (which confused me) then Barrayar, then backtracked to Shards of Honor, which ended up working out. (The weird order in my case was because I was reading the serializations in back issues of Analog. It took a friend's intervention for me to realize there was more in book form.)

And oyceter, for what it's worth, The Curse of Chalion bored me and I am honestly at a loss as to that book's appeal. It's not awful, it just isn't very interesting.

[oyceter]

Huh! I think I read Komarr b/c Rachel told me it was one of the few instances of the old "killing off the romantic rival" plot that made things more complicated, not less. Which I appreciate, but given that I didn't really care about Miles or Ekaterin, it just ended up not grabbing me.

[oyceter]

Yeah, I'm probably grumpier than was really warranted for the book, except I am a bit reacting in advance to the people who will go on and say, "No, no! You will like it! Really!" And I am just too lazy to read more of her to find out, especially given my to-be-read stack.

Urf, not grumping at you, just grumping in general.

I'm confused; you read *some* of Komarr and didn't finish it, and read *some* of Cordelia's Honor and didn't finish it?

Oops! I reread my sentence up there and realized it makes no sense whatsoever. Anyway, yeah, I read most of Komarr and most of Cordelia's Honor, and for both, I just sort of wandered off at the big plot climax and never really went back. Alas, much of her dialogue hasn't worked for me either. I suspect it's an incompatible style thing.

But hey! This means I can go spoil myself on all the Miles books and finally read fic and whatnot!

[kate_nepveu]

I never felt that she or any of the other characters were really in any danger

Chad has pretty much this reaction to Bujold too, so you're not alone.

I have a split mind when it comes to narrative expectations & characters in danger: I don't really expect that the protagonists are going to die horribly, because that's not what usually happens in fiction except in certain kinds of genres that I don't read much of [*]; but I still get really tense on their behalfs anyway because I get sucked in. So I don't even know if I have this feeling about Bujold's plots; but if I did, I don't think it would matter.

[*] Though I will note that I give it even odds that Harry Potter dies at the end of the last book. And I'm okay with that, at least in theory.

[oyceter]

I never really expect any protagonists to die horribly either, but some authors or texts can still make me feel terrified. I spent most of Fullmetal Alchemist anime just waiting for DOOM to befall one or both of the Elric brothers, but I don't get that same sense of dread from the manga, oddly enough.

I suspect it may be because I don't care about her characters enough to worry when they are in danger?

[kate_nepveu]

Could be--they're your reactions, after all, you'd know better than I! =>

I'll observe, apropos _FMA_, that there's also an immediacy to stuff on-screen (that means, for instance, that I don't watch horror movies, or even moderately suspenseful movies).

[oyceter]

Could be--they're your reactions, after all, you'd know better than I! =>

Hee, quite true!

Now trying to think more about what makes me afraid for characters and what doesn't. Hrm. Maybe this will be a post later.

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

I think you're right about the FMA anime.

I know for one that they pretty quickly trained me to get scared --hairs on the back of my neck prickling worried-- for the brothers when the ending music started playing. Uh oh, *now* what new mess are they going t get into?

[oyceter]

Oh god, the FMA anime! There were so many times I just wanted to cower under the cushions and not watch what happened, just because I was so scared for the Elrics.

[vee-fic.livejournal.com]

I loathed the second Chalion book, and I like Bujold. So, it's not just you.

The reason I like the Vorkosigan novels is that they're complex and plotty; the characterization tends to be their weak note, for me. When that series veered into romantic comedy, it lost me instantly (and the regained me with the next complex plot).

[oyceter]

Ooo, hrm, yeah, the complex and plotty might lose me. My brain seems to have completely lost the ability to track anything remotely complicated; ergo my retreat into manga and YA for the most part. And I tend to read more for character than plot.

[estara.livejournal.com]

I've been checking this thread (just returned from four days at the parents) to see if anyone has already recommended for you to try a Civil Campaign - which is the romantic comedy book that the previous commenter didn't like.

I think that might be more to your taste, because it IS almost like a Gorgette Heyer, except for galleons of bug butter (one of my favourite scifi comedy bits ever - although you can see it coming). And it has multiple romances, so there you go.

Not too many new characters introduced, however there's one gender-swap you may have a hard time with, but in terms of Barrayaran society it's a coup-de-grace well delivered.

If you can get it from the library, that one might be to your taste.

It's my favourite Bujold, however so far I have more or less enjoyed most of her books.

[oyceter]

I think I may skip out on A Civil Campaign, though rachelmanija previously recced it to me as well... I suspect I won't like the characters or the writing enough to make it through =(. But thanks for the suggestion!

[chomiji]

Wow, what a variety of reactions people have had here. I'm going to make it even more so. I really can't deal with Bujold's science fiction. My brain goes blank when I read it - I'm not interested in any of the characters at all.

But I liked Curse of Chalion pretty well, and I really liked Paladin of Souls and the third book, The Hallowed Hunt. I like the idea that some unromantic, un-gorgeous people are ending up as human channels for godhead, and that the people themselves aren't particularly thrilled about it. I'm not as attached to the characters in these books as I am to the characters in some of my favorites, but at least I care about them, which is more than I can say about Miles and Cordelia.

The are some nice little details along the way too - people in these books eat real food, ride real horses (and suffer real saddlesores), wear real clothes. The religion's a little too pat in some ways, but it's intertwined in daily life in a reasonable fashion. I like the idea of the two related forms of the religion, each considered a heresy by the other. The process of discovering how to deal with demons was interesting to me, too.

There really is something anti-angsty about Bujold, though. I can't put my finger on why, either.

- Cho

[oyceter]

Huh! Interesting!

It's really weird, because I sort of like some of the details that Bujold puts in, but everything just ends up feeling a little too pat for me, if that makes any sense? Sort of like Ista dismissing her irritating companion for Liss, who largely seems to be faultless.

[chomiji]

I think you may be right. Bujold doesn't seem to want to let ongoing tensions continue to "on-go." But tension is what gives so many stories and characters their edge ... hmm. >thinks< It's like she's eaten some elaborate gourmet dish that she found tasty but over-seasoned, so she makes her own version of the recipe, leaves out the second spoonful of lemon juice, all the cumin, and most of the black pepper, and the ultimate result is fairly complex, more or less satisfying, and certainly not revolting, but you wouldn't bother to take a second helping, because it lacks a certain spark.

Did that make any sense, or did I just go off on a completely pointless culinary comparison?

Also, I have a feeling that her characters' inner processes are just too damn efficient. I guess that's more of the same business you said in your original remarks - that they're too well-adjusted. Real people tend to obsess uselessly over at least some of their mistakes. Ista seems to have got over hers too quickly, yes? She doesn't have enough regret, and doesn't question herself enough.

Although I have done at least one re-read of this and may eventually do another one or more, this certainly doesn't fall into the category of books I re-read obsessively when I want to get lost in a book. You know, I think I like the setting almost more than the characters - it makes me want to run a roleplaying campaign again.

[oyceter]

Hee! I like the culinary metaphor.

The odd thing is, I tend to like when characters have suffered lots of angsty situations and end up ok. Except... I think in Bujold's case, they end up too uniformly ok, or something; like another comment thread here, I feel like more people should be questioning her sanity, or there should just be more conflict that isn't external.

[snarp]

I never felt that she or any of the other characters were really in any danger.

I'm not sure if I can articulate this sensibly, but I see Bujold's main weakness being a fetish for symmetry or uniformity - she has this kind of compulsion to demonstrate that the women are just as strong as the men, the poor are just as smart as the rich, and that power and politics are exactly the same for every social class everywhere in the universe. She's constantly having her characters make comparisons like that - everything's value-laden and it all weighs the same. She wants everything to balance out, and that means that nothing unredeemable can ever happen. I feel I can safely predict that Bujold will never write a book about the Holocaust.

This is problematic because her main strength is in building characters, and if nothing really bad can ever happen to this larger-than-life military genius you've got set up, we start wondering why we should care. And if you repeatedly insist that his relationship with his wife - who just may - someday - (like when she graduates college and things) - be the best gardener in the world! - is a perfectly symmetrically equal one, then it's going to fall pretty flat.

(I declare this day to be International Dubiousness About Ekaterin Day. Or maybe it's just in general Dubiousness About Bujold's Female Romantic Leads (Except Let's Say Cordelia And Ista To Be Safe) Day, because this is a common problem. It's pretty painful in The Sharing Knife. "This young girl is the one who deserves your praise for slaying the monster!" "She was there by accident. She stabbed it because it was going to eat her." "The look in her eyes tells me she has the spirit of a true warrior!" "She's five years old and she can't tie her shoes! She just dribbled on the floor." *inappropriate romance* "OH MY GOD"

...yes.)

I could obviously go on about this stuff for many pages, because it drives my insane, but I probably shouldn't, as you haven't read the Vorkosigan books and I'm technically supposed to have left five minutes ago.

[oyceter]

"She's five years old and she can't tie her shoes! She just dribbled on the floor." *inappropriate romance* "OH MY GOD"

Bwah!

The thing about symmetry makes sense to me, even though I can't articulate why either, and I obviously haven't read that many of her books. Or... hrm. I think I never quite felt that the world in Paladin of Souls was an alien world, and ditto with the little I read of the Vorkosigan books. I mean, clearly Bujold doesn't have straight-up 21st-century minds implanted in her characters, but some of them feel like 21st-century analogues, particularly the Betans.

[tatterpunk.livejournal.com]

Um, hello, I lurk around your journal for the book/manga/anime/tv reviews and such. ;)

By crazy coincidence, I just finished reading this book for the first time myself. I was kind of... ambivalent about it as well. On the one hand, it opened beautifully and was written with enough skill to fully distract me on an overnight train ride (on a hard sleeper, no less). But I didn't emerge from it feeling exhilarated and energized, the way you do with the best books; just a general sort of "well, that was nice."

There were some fantastic elements in this story that made me very excited when I picked it up, but I felt like they never really came together... You definitely nailed it with the lack of danger -- and for me, Ista seemed remarkably secure and self-assured for someone who spent so many years steeped in madness. It wasn't ignored -- Bujold's too good to do that -- but her worries about lapsing back into old ways seemed more habit than a real conflict, and of course once she left the estate there wasn't anyone around her questioning her sanity. I guess I would have liked to see her struggle more... I would have liked to see a lot of the characters struggle, since there seemed to be a lot of potential for conflict set up but only touched on briefly before the plot whisked you along.

I'm still tempted to try her scifi, though. Someone described them as "Regency romances in space" to me, and that actually tickles my interest.

[oyceter]

(OT) Icon love!

Hi! I'm glad you commented!

Oooh, yes, I got the same sense as you did wrt Ista's years of madness and how all the "good" characters almost immediately didn't question her mental state and only the "bad" characters (like her annoying handmaiden who was not Liss) assumed that she was still mad or condescended to her.

rachelmanija told me that A Civil Campaign is the Regency in space, though maybe you need some background for that? I'm not sure... another Bujold fan would probably know more!

[tatterpunk.livejournal.com]

(OT) Icon love!

Isn't it great? It feels almost too appropriate, as I inevitably end up gravitating towards them in my free time... even during the year I worked at a bookstore.

Hi! I'm glad you commented!

Hi! You probably won't be able to get rid of me, now! ;)

There was an annoyingly obvious divide (I felt) between the "good" and "bad" characters. Some were perilously close to stereotypes saved only by the sophistication of Bujold's writing: the smothering caretakers, the pretty-but-not-too-bright young wife of the heroine's lust-interest... Actually, the lust interest himself was (I thought) the only really ambiguous character, with his being married yet happily flirting with rescued damsels, and never seeming that upset about how he was living on his brother's borrowed life. But because Ista never really examined any of this closely it all became a non-issue.

rachelmanija told me that A Civil Campaign is the Regency in space, though maybe you need some background for that?

I'm actually fond of diving into books/movies/story lines halfway through and learning what came before as I go along, so that's not a problem. What I do need is a bookstore with a decent English-language scifi/fantasy section... but I'm back in the states in several months, I'll look it up then. Thanks!

[oyceter]

Ha, I did the same when I worked at a bookstore! I think I am overcompensating for years spent growing up in a country with very few English bookstores.

Ooooh, you are the LJer in China! Nifty! I hate trying to get books while living overseas (am in the US now though), especially when I am constantly tempted by book recs online.

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I used to adore Bujold, but as time passed, I liked the books less and less and now find them unreadable. I have....issues with her politics. I think she rigs her worlds to work a certain way to make a certain political point and thus betrays the way story works.

If you'll pardon a little cold-med induced artistic emo, there is nothing that pushes my buttons quite like a storyteller who manipulates the story for the wrong reasons.

She reminds me a lot of Crusie in that way. On the surface, things seem good, but below that is a miasma of political ickiness.

Also, I find her fantasies completely unreadable period. Dull as dirt.

[oyceter]

Oh huh, Crusie? How so?

I do like Crusie's politics generally, but I very well could have missed stuff.

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

Hrm. I have a hard time explaining my problems with Crusie. I wish I had Mely's insight...one of the few times I've come out and said I didn't like Crusie's politics was in a coffeeandink thread, and Mely pointed me to this other thread with a very good discussion about Crusie and heteronormativity. Wish I could remember where it was.

In essence, Crusie takes a bunch of stuff that I *adore* the politics of, like women forming close bonds, sisterhood functioning as family, women making bold life changes....but the way the stories evolve, it's like it all gets twisted very subtly into those elements making stuff worse than it was to start.

Bujold does something kinda similar. Miles dates all these hot, really ooomphy women (bodyguards, admirals, etc). He wants to marry them, but they turn him down, often because he wants them to become a Wife as a profession. He eventually finds a woman, who is all Strong and Stuff, because she was abused and who he loves, and she says Yes, and does become his wife, and is supposedly his equal, because as a sideline she's a gardener. A really good gardener. It's like she took the view that women ought to become whatever they want, but then twists it completely, so that only by refusing that do they get the brass ring (the countess-ship). The emperor falls for a woman because she's zaftig and his mom died when he was young. Okay, yes, she's a businesswoman, but when the emperor's done proposing, her brain dribbles out her ears and she's overwhelmed by the desire to become a princess and there's a shiny white horse and everything.

It's hard for me to articulate, because it's like the whole thread of political ickiness is under the surface, sneaking around. In Fast Women, the heroine overthrows her whole life, and winds up the same place she was before: partner in a firm with a husband, her life revolving around him, and except for the change in the job type, there isn't much difference. Is this making any sense?

[oyceter]

*nods* Yes, that does make sense! Like she is trying to accomplish all these things, and on the surface she does, but then there is a lot of subtext that ends up subverting her textual message.

Hrm, I feel like I should reread and try to catch those! I did catch a bit with Fast Women, in which I was wondering why she had to be the guy's secretary, but not so much with the rest. Thanks!