Walton, Jo - Half a Crown

[oyceter]

Half a Crown concludes the Small Change or Still Life with Fascists trilogy, which also consists of Farthing and Ha'Penny.

It's 1960, eleven years after the events of Farthing and nineteen after a group of powerful British politicians brokered a peace with Hitler. Elvira, the adopted niece of Carmichael, is about to debut when she's drawn into the world of politics that her uncle inhabits.

I didn't like Ha'Penny as much as I liked Farthing. But I think Half a Crown is the strongest in the series, largely because it departs from the mystery format that worked so well with the first book and not so well with the second. Of course, this may be influenced by my not being much of a mystery reader. Part, though, is because the second and third books in the trilogy lack the element of surprise and discovery about the worldbuilding that's so intrinsic to Farthing, so what we're left with in Ha'Penny is a more standard mystery, not one that simultaneously works as mystery and worldbuilding.

I also found Half a Crown effective because it places Carmichael front and center; we've been waiting for his story after realizing he's the continuing thread that ties the books together, and it's good to get it at last.

Spoilers

It's so painful to see Britain in this world, to see talk of sending undesirables off to concentration camps, to have talk of building one (!!) on British soil. And I had originally thought that maybe the people weren't fully aware of what happened in the concentration camps, but the later jokes about being made into soap make it very clear that they do. And I wonder how close we are now with Guantanamo.

I do wish we knew a little more about the state of the world elsewhere; the Japanese general's visit and the mention of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere hit me just as hard as Moscow wiped out by an atomic bomb. There's brief mention of India, and I want to know what happened to black people in the US.

But mostly, I love Carmichael, I love finally seeing him involved in a plot that personally matters to him. And oh, Jack. I also love that Walton calls him on his own privileges even as he's commanding the Inner Watch; Jacobson's reactions to the Jewish people they save compared with Carmichael's is contrasted with Carmichael's willingness to do anything once it's Elvira or Jack out there.

Still, I'm not entirely sure I believe the ending, largely because I want to believe it. I'm not sure we've seen enough protest to Britain's policy grow to fully buy the change that comes about, even though given all things, it's a very small change (no pun intended) that doesn't guarantee anything. But then, I'm not sure how else Walton could have ended the series otherwise without it being horrifically depressing.

I cried when I read this, and then I remembered elections and the change come January.

Links:
- oursin's review
- kate_nepveu's review

Comments

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I thought, "...the Queen saves the day!?"

I would have found it more believable if the Queen had been a fink, but the protesters had saved the day. This would have worked better if there'd been more protests earlier (or if they'd been given more plot-space earlier.)

I did love the book though. It was so appallingly plausible otherwise. Perhaps it's easier for us to believe in horror than hope.

[oyceter]

Yeah... I think it might have also helped if we had seen more of the Queen in the previous books. Although we might have? My memory's so poor that I may have completely forgotten. Ditto re: the protesters. It would have been nice to know that protests had been increasing, or something like that being the main plot, as opposed to the British Power thing.

But yes, other than that, I loved this. Carmichael! And oh, poor Jack. And I loved seeing Carmichael finally stop selling his soul and going for broke.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't remember any Queen or protesters whatsoever in the earlier books. I loved Carmichael in this one, too, and Elvira having her (inevitable, duh) mind-broadening experiences.

[oyceter]

I loved Elvira! I love how Walton is good at creating young, seemingly-flighty female protagonists and how they are still all different.

[boxofdelights]

No, Elizabeth wasn't Queen in the earlier books.

I feel dubious about the happy ending too, but I wanted to believe in it so much that I did.

[oyceter]

Yeah, I definitely wanted to believe in the ending.

[almeda.livejournal.com]

Unrelated to this entry except that (a) you're awesome and (b) I think you might like it, have you checked out elysesewell yet? She works in Hong Kong, Kowloon, and other such parts as a model, and posts pictures and short cute commentary about stuff she encounters.

She especially loves congee.

[oyceter]

Oh, no, thanks for the link!

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Clute's review, forthcoming on Monday at Strange Horizons

Hey, no spoiling the reviews schedule! ;-)

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

meep--shouldn't post late at night.

(oyceter, I'll reask the question in about 24 hours.)

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Oh, I didn't mean you should delete your comment! I was teasing, hence the winking. And I am interested in what people make of Clute's review, since there seem to be quite divergent reactions to Half a Crown...

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

Well, it was a dumb and unthinking thing for me to do, nevertheless. :)

I'll put the comment back once the review is live....

*reposts*

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

Okay, let's try this again.

I'm looking forward to reading this--I read Farthing, and somehow I didn't even make it to Ha'penny.

Mm, I am wondering (after reading Clute's review (http://www.strangehorizons.com/reviews)) how the temporal part of the setting works. The first two are set during the 1940s, yes? Clute noted that little seems to have changed since then, and Half a Crown is set in the '60s...?

(Also, Clute seems to have little patience for YA-POV narrators--but he makes some very cogent-sounding points, hence my curiosity about the time aspect, at least.)

Re: *reposts*

[oyceter]

Sorry! I just got around to reading the review. I... have some notable issues with it, largely surrounding Clute's reading of the vapidity of Walton's heroines (particularly the snarky comment in the middle about how if a man had written the series, he would have been lambasted for being sexist) and his general dismissal of the female voices.

That aside, I am not sure Clute and I are even in the same room for most matters; he's coming from a place in which he's referencing what I assume are a great deal of works on alternate histories and/or mysteries, whereas I have very little patience for mysteries period unless they involve characters I care a great deal about. I do agree with him about the temporal matters; I had a difficult time believing that so little would have changed between the second book and the third, and I also agree about not having enough of a set-up for the ending.

That said, I enjoy the books a great deal because of some things that Clute sees as flaws, such as the way so many people in that world let things slide by--we may have very differing views of the world. I fully believe something like this could happen and see hints of it every day (the lambasting of Muslims, the difference in treatment between men and women, etc.), whereas he seems to assume that the world is not like that and therefore it must be proved that it is.

Plus, I love the narrative voice in the books and the way Walton sets up her female characters as supposedly flighty and ditzy but ends up showing that they are not (which is why I personally do not think they are misogynist at all).