Reviews - Jo Walton
Oct. 19th, 2010 11:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wilderthanFarthing (Jo Walton)
Farthing is set in an alternate-history world where Britain made peace with Hitler instead of continuing to fight. Jews are still tolerated in Britain, although they're not precisely loved by the aristocracy, and probably not by the regular people either -- though we see less of those. At the start of the book, that doesn't seem very important, perhaps, to the story. It's a country house murder mystery, with a multitude of people with motive and secrets they're keeping. There's some red herrings, etc, but in the end, I found that the alternate history was what was really concerning me and keeping me reading. The slow creep of anti-Semitism, the quiet erosion of freedom...
It's told in two narrative styles. One is in first person, told by Lucy Kahn, a member of the aristocracy who married a Jew. Her voice is quite silly and very stereotypically English, but I rather enjoyed her all the same. The other narration is third person, following a detective, Carmichael. He's much more ordinary, and it's his sections that remind me most of Golden Age crime fiction.
We get to know Lucy Kahn and her husband, David, rather well, but it's Carmichael who interests me, and Carmichael's choices that give me a hurt feeling in the pit of my stomach. I can imagine myself in his place all too well.
The ending reminds me of one of my favourite songs, Dar Williams' Buzzer: "I get it now, I'm the face, I'm the cause of war, we don't have to blame white-coated men anymore..."
Ha'penny (Jo Walton)
I didn't like Ha'penny as much as Farthing -- I didn't devour it in the same way: it wasn't as compulsive a read, and besides, everyone's politics are getting a little bit murky. Viola, the first person POV character, isn't as likeable as Lucy -- she's not as amusing to read about, and her convictions are murky, and she gives in all too easily. It's understandable. Probably most people who read this and criticise her for giving in would give in themselves, hoping to earn a few more weeks of life, or maybe get out of it entirely, but we like to think we wouldn't. I didn't really buy into it, though. The way she described it -- admittedly, supposedly writing after the fact -- was unemotional in a way that just didn't let me connect with her. She'd have been much more interesting and easier to relate to if she was passionate about something.
I still love and sympathise with Carmichael, and understand what he does, but I didn't feel as in tune with him as I did in the first book, and really wished that he'd do things differently. I'm hoping that this builds up to a stunning ending in the third book, really.
In terms of the plot, it's a bit more The Thirty-Nine Steps (John Buchan) than Clouds of Witness (Dorothy Sayers), this time round. I wasn't so fascinated by that aspect of it, this time, though -- much more interested in Carmichael's problems.
The death of one of the characters at the end threw me a lot. I hadn't been expecting it, at all, and it didn't seem really necessary. Still, having read the first chapter of Half A Crown, I think I see where that's going.
Anyway: still chilling, still worth reading, still hits you where it hurts. Perhaps less so -- I felt a little numb, after the gut-punch end of Farthing -- but still, it was there.
Ow.
Half a Crown (Jo Walton)
A part of me wants to rate this book less highly because things don't turn out the way I want them to turn out -- my definition of a happy ending. There is a sort of happy ending here, though, and the release of tension is amazing, and the whole book makes me feel so much, so I can't dock it points just because it doesn't end exactly the way I want it to end.
If I was to take off a star, it'd be because everything seems to fall into place just a little too easily. But at the same time, it works, for me anyway.
It's hard to like the female narrator, Elvira, because she's just... so unenlightened about the situation she's living in. She becomes a lot more likeable as it goes on, though, and though she doesn't become as aware as I'd like, I suppose her education would be a bit of a mirror of Lucy Kahn's, and the timescale doesn't really work for it.
I still love Carmichael, and I ache for him -- the position he's put in, and what happens to him.
The world Jo Walton creates is chilling and awful and believable, and hurtful. She's good with the gut-punch, because she did it to me in Farthing and Ha'penny too. Somehow, I just never expect it until I suddenly can't quite breathe.
Farthing is set in an alternate-history world where Britain made peace with Hitler instead of continuing to fight. Jews are still tolerated in Britain, although they're not precisely loved by the aristocracy, and probably not by the regular people either -- though we see less of those. At the start of the book, that doesn't seem very important, perhaps, to the story. It's a country house murder mystery, with a multitude of people with motive and secrets they're keeping. There's some red herrings, etc, but in the end, I found that the alternate history was what was really concerning me and keeping me reading. The slow creep of anti-Semitism, the quiet erosion of freedom...
It's told in two narrative styles. One is in first person, told by Lucy Kahn, a member of the aristocracy who married a Jew. Her voice is quite silly and very stereotypically English, but I rather enjoyed her all the same. The other narration is third person, following a detective, Carmichael. He's much more ordinary, and it's his sections that remind me most of Golden Age crime fiction.
We get to know Lucy Kahn and her husband, David, rather well, but it's Carmichael who interests me, and Carmichael's choices that give me a hurt feeling in the pit of my stomach. I can imagine myself in his place all too well.
The ending reminds me of one of my favourite songs, Dar Williams' Buzzer: "I get it now, I'm the face, I'm the cause of war, we don't have to blame white-coated men anymore..."
Ha'penny (Jo Walton)
I didn't like Ha'penny as much as Farthing -- I didn't devour it in the same way: it wasn't as compulsive a read, and besides, everyone's politics are getting a little bit murky. Viola, the first person POV character, isn't as likeable as Lucy -- she's not as amusing to read about, and her convictions are murky, and she gives in all too easily. It's understandable. Probably most people who read this and criticise her for giving in would give in themselves, hoping to earn a few more weeks of life, or maybe get out of it entirely, but we like to think we wouldn't. I didn't really buy into it, though. The way she described it -- admittedly, supposedly writing after the fact -- was unemotional in a way that just didn't let me connect with her. She'd have been much more interesting and easier to relate to if she was passionate about something.
I still love and sympathise with Carmichael, and understand what he does, but I didn't feel as in tune with him as I did in the first book, and really wished that he'd do things differently. I'm hoping that this builds up to a stunning ending in the third book, really.
In terms of the plot, it's a bit more The Thirty-Nine Steps (John Buchan) than Clouds of Witness (Dorothy Sayers), this time round. I wasn't so fascinated by that aspect of it, this time, though -- much more interested in Carmichael's problems.
The death of one of the characters at the end threw me a lot. I hadn't been expecting it, at all, and it didn't seem really necessary. Still, having read the first chapter of Half A Crown, I think I see where that's going.
Anyway: still chilling, still worth reading, still hits you where it hurts. Perhaps less so -- I felt a little numb, after the gut-punch end of Farthing -- but still, it was there.
Ow.
Half a Crown (Jo Walton)
A part of me wants to rate this book less highly because things don't turn out the way I want them to turn out -- my definition of a happy ending. There is a sort of happy ending here, though, and the release of tension is amazing, and the whole book makes me feel so much, so I can't dock it points just because it doesn't end exactly the way I want it to end.
If I was to take off a star, it'd be because everything seems to fall into place just a little too easily. But at the same time, it works, for me anyway.
It's hard to like the female narrator, Elvira, because she's just... so unenlightened about the situation she's living in. She becomes a lot more likeable as it goes on, though, and though she doesn't become as aware as I'd like, I suppose her education would be a bit of a mirror of Lucy Kahn's, and the timescale doesn't really work for it.
I still love Carmichael, and I ache for him -- the position he's put in, and what happens to him.
The world Jo Walton creates is chilling and awful and believable, and hurtful. She's good with the gut-punch, because she did it to me in Farthing and Ha'penny too. Somehow, I just never expect it until I suddenly can't quite breathe.
