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Bujold, Sayers, genre fiction
Aug. 25th, 2009 03:54 pmOn what originally began as a vaguely related note to the Mihara post below:
I've been rereading Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan books lately--I've read them so many times before, but they continue to reward immensely; as I grow older and wiser, I find them just as strong, just as thoughtful. There is nothing here I expect to outgrow. I continue to love Bujold's humanism, and now better appreciate that her science fiction speculates as well as entertains; she's just from the social science fiction tradition, rather than the hard science fiction tradition. More Ursula Le Guin than Isaac Asimov.
I never really noticed how good she is at straddling genres--when I was a kid, I read mainly science fiction and fantasy, and had little experience with other genres; as an adult, I've spent enormous amounts of time reading romance and mystery novels. In the afterword to the omnibus edition of Shards of Honor and Barrayar titled Cordelia's Honor, which I am borrowing to read for the first time, Bujold talks about the genesis of those two books--I'd never realized how much of Barrayar she had plotted out before Shards was ever published--and describes Shards as being a romance, and it clicked for me for the first time. Of course it's a romance! It's certainly as much a romance as a science fiction novel--and a damned compelling romance, too. It's a hugely romantic fantasy to fall in love with someone in a life-changing way, to love them enough to want to make huge sacrifices for them, and have an unfaltering, loving, romantic relationship with that person for the rest of your lives. Aral and Cordelia's romance is so compelling and convincing--and so understated, almost but not quite matter-of-fact--that I never quite thought about the fact that the book itself is a novel about romance as well as a science fiction novel. Would I have twigged to that if I'd read more romances prior to reading Bujold, I wonder? I should ask my mother...in her youth (long before Bujold began publishing), she apparently went through a period of reading nothing but romances before she switched over to reading mainly mystery, science fiction, and fantasy. Lots of practice reading those genres.
I've seen some interesting comments from Bujold on genre fiction--she said that romances are fantasies of love, and murder mysteries are fantasies of justice, and was talking about what science fiction would be a fantasy of--agency, maybe? I'm probably muddling it all up; it was an interesting interview, but I don't remember where I read it. Anyway, when I read Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey books for the first time, particularly Murder Must Advertise, I realized what a debt Bujold's character of the brilliant Lord Miles Vorkosigan owes to the character of the brilliant Lord Peter Wimsey, from the high-strung-though-entertaining-personality and the profound personal damage, right down to the multiple identities. Most of Miles' stories are mysteries, even--Mountains of Mourning, The Vor Game, Cetaganda, Brothers in Arms, Memory, Komarr, Diplomatic Immunity--and it's not his story, but also Ethan of Athos is a mystery, and then Mark and Ivan each do some detecting in Mirror Dance and in A Civil Campaign, respectively. These stories are all more than just mysteries; they're character portraits, social commentaries, speculations about the nature of humanity and life and death and gender in a world of cloning, cryogenic revival, sophisticated genetic engineering, life-extension technology, and advanced reproductive technology. But a mystery is such a pleasurable way to tell a story, and makes such a wonderful vehicle for everything else Bujold wants to write about. No wonder she's written so many of them. Her characters tend to be extremely intelligent; how better to keep them within sight of the reader than to deny them information, and let us all find out at the same time? Intelligent Cordelia, in her books, is baffled and bemused by unfamiliar environments and alien social values, but her equally intelligent son Miles--Miles, who is, by virtue of his hybrid upbringing, more worldly than his mother was in her books--is baffled by circumstantial mysteries and plots which he is, for a satisfyingly complex and convincing variety of reasons, inevitably driven to solve.
(I haven't read Bujold's fantasy novels as many times over, but I seem to recall that mystery was a big element in A Paladin of Souls as well. Not Curse of Chalion, so much, and I can't remember about the one after Paladin. Or The Spirit Ring. Or the recent romance quartet.)
I have seen Sayers criticized as a mystery writer for her mystery plots not being something enough--people regularly accuse mystery writers, including all the greats, of cheating if they don't give the reader every single vital element with which to solve the mystery themselves. I suppose that's one way to approach the genre, but it's definitely not mine. (And, if you look into the history of the mystery genre, kind of dumb, since the seminal mystery writers were not remotely concerned with giving the readers sufficient clues with which to solve the puzzle. Actually, I think that's sort of an aberration in the field. It's fine to enjoy that, I suppose, but critiquing any given mystery writer for not doing something most mystery writers don't do consistently seems a little unreasonable.) I enjoy puzzle-solving enormously, but I expect more and different things from a novel than a puzzle. It's a bit like complaining that crossword puzzles are cheating, because unlike sudoku, they require more from the puzzle-solver than the exercise of pure logic; crossword puzzles require external knowledge (and more verbal acuity). But that's not cheating, it's simply being a different kind of thing, a thing which I assure you is also enormously fun, for the people that like it. Mystery novels contain more than just puzzles. Can contain, should contain.
Anyway, the brilliance of Sayers (and Bujold) lies not in the cunning nature of her plots (the plots are fine), but in the rich depths of her characterization, all the questions she asks about more than just the who and how of a mystery. I enjoy genre tropes--the genre tropes of mysteries and romance and science fiction, at least--but greatly appreciate the genre writer who can--I don't want to say, transcend genre--the writer who can use genre and genre tropes to tell a story that is transcendent. Bujold and Sayers both do that.
(And, as evidenced by my love also of Rex Stout and Georgette Heyer, I also greatly appreciate a writer who, using both genre tropes and a personal formula, consistently produces work that, though not transcendent, is absolutely perfect and brilliant within its chosen structural limits. I do put high value on solidly crafted entertainment. It's not easy to do!)
I've been rereading Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan books lately--I've read them so many times before, but they continue to reward immensely; as I grow older and wiser, I find them just as strong, just as thoughtful. There is nothing here I expect to outgrow. I continue to love Bujold's humanism, and now better appreciate that her science fiction speculates as well as entertains; she's just from the social science fiction tradition, rather than the hard science fiction tradition. More Ursula Le Guin than Isaac Asimov.
I never really noticed how good she is at straddling genres--when I was a kid, I read mainly science fiction and fantasy, and had little experience with other genres; as an adult, I've spent enormous amounts of time reading romance and mystery novels. In the afterword to the omnibus edition of Shards of Honor and Barrayar titled Cordelia's Honor, which I am borrowing to read for the first time, Bujold talks about the genesis of those two books--I'd never realized how much of Barrayar she had plotted out before Shards was ever published--and describes Shards as being a romance, and it clicked for me for the first time. Of course it's a romance! It's certainly as much a romance as a science fiction novel--and a damned compelling romance, too. It's a hugely romantic fantasy to fall in love with someone in a life-changing way, to love them enough to want to make huge sacrifices for them, and have an unfaltering, loving, romantic relationship with that person for the rest of your lives. Aral and Cordelia's romance is so compelling and convincing--and so understated, almost but not quite matter-of-fact--that I never quite thought about the fact that the book itself is a novel about romance as well as a science fiction novel. Would I have twigged to that if I'd read more romances prior to reading Bujold, I wonder? I should ask my mother...in her youth (long before Bujold began publishing), she apparently went through a period of reading nothing but romances before she switched over to reading mainly mystery, science fiction, and fantasy. Lots of practice reading those genres.
I've seen some interesting comments from Bujold on genre fiction--she said that romances are fantasies of love, and murder mysteries are fantasies of justice, and was talking about what science fiction would be a fantasy of--agency, maybe? I'm probably muddling it all up; it was an interesting interview, but I don't remember where I read it. Anyway, when I read Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey books for the first time, particularly Murder Must Advertise, I realized what a debt Bujold's character of the brilliant Lord Miles Vorkosigan owes to the character of the brilliant Lord Peter Wimsey, from the high-strung-though-entertaining-personality and the profound personal damage, right down to the multiple identities. Most of Miles' stories are mysteries, even--Mountains of Mourning, The Vor Game, Cetaganda, Brothers in Arms, Memory, Komarr, Diplomatic Immunity--and it's not his story, but also Ethan of Athos is a mystery, and then Mark and Ivan each do some detecting in Mirror Dance and in A Civil Campaign, respectively. These stories are all more than just mysteries; they're character portraits, social commentaries, speculations about the nature of humanity and life and death and gender in a world of cloning, cryogenic revival, sophisticated genetic engineering, life-extension technology, and advanced reproductive technology. But a mystery is such a pleasurable way to tell a story, and makes such a wonderful vehicle for everything else Bujold wants to write about. No wonder she's written so many of them. Her characters tend to be extremely intelligent; how better to keep them within sight of the reader than to deny them information, and let us all find out at the same time? Intelligent Cordelia, in her books, is baffled and bemused by unfamiliar environments and alien social values, but her equally intelligent son Miles--Miles, who is, by virtue of his hybrid upbringing, more worldly than his mother was in her books--is baffled by circumstantial mysteries and plots which he is, for a satisfyingly complex and convincing variety of reasons, inevitably driven to solve.
(I haven't read Bujold's fantasy novels as many times over, but I seem to recall that mystery was a big element in A Paladin of Souls as well. Not Curse of Chalion, so much, and I can't remember about the one after Paladin. Or The Spirit Ring. Or the recent romance quartet.)
I have seen Sayers criticized as a mystery writer for her mystery plots not being something enough--people regularly accuse mystery writers, including all the greats, of cheating if they don't give the reader every single vital element with which to solve the mystery themselves. I suppose that's one way to approach the genre, but it's definitely not mine. (And, if you look into the history of the mystery genre, kind of dumb, since the seminal mystery writers were not remotely concerned with giving the readers sufficient clues with which to solve the puzzle. Actually, I think that's sort of an aberration in the field. It's fine to enjoy that, I suppose, but critiquing any given mystery writer for not doing something most mystery writers don't do consistently seems a little unreasonable.) I enjoy puzzle-solving enormously, but I expect more and different things from a novel than a puzzle. It's a bit like complaining that crossword puzzles are cheating, because unlike sudoku, they require more from the puzzle-solver than the exercise of pure logic; crossword puzzles require external knowledge (and more verbal acuity). But that's not cheating, it's simply being a different kind of thing, a thing which I assure you is also enormously fun, for the people that like it. Mystery novels contain more than just puzzles. Can contain, should contain.
Anyway, the brilliance of Sayers (and Bujold) lies not in the cunning nature of her plots (the plots are fine), but in the rich depths of her characterization, all the questions she asks about more than just the who and how of a mystery. I enjoy genre tropes--the genre tropes of mysteries and romance and science fiction, at least--but greatly appreciate the genre writer who can--I don't want to say, transcend genre--the writer who can use genre and genre tropes to tell a story that is transcendent. Bujold and Sayers both do that.
(And, as evidenced by my love also of Rex Stout and Georgette Heyer, I also greatly appreciate a writer who, using both genre tropes and a personal formula, consistently produces work that, though not transcendent, is absolutely perfect and brilliant within its chosen structural limits. I do put high value on solidly crafted entertainment. It's not easy to do!)
I don't normally bother to rec this or even note this sort of thing, but this was pretty good fanfic for my favorite author, Lois McMaster Bujold. It's Vorkosigan Saga fic, Miles/Gregor slash. It's good stuff!
E.E. Beck's (and her co-writers Stacy's and Sahiya's) A Deeper Season and sequel What Passing Bells, (and followed by one more must-read among some fragments, Seeds. There are a few other stories set in and out of this universe, and they're worth looking at).
There are some serious flaws in these stories. There are two really major totally bust-your-suspension-of-disbelief elements,
( SUPER SPOILERY PLOT POINTS )
THAT SAID. If you can bring yourself to ignore these issues, the stories read pretty well. If Beck's prose doesn't cut as deep or sparkle as brightly or as often as Bujold's, remember, you're comparing her to the best. And though Beck has a tendency to pile on the drama and people get the drop on our protagonists a little too often, the pacing is overall excellent and the drama never loses its hold on you.
This is a world where Gregor has been in love with Miles even since the shenanigans of the The Vor Game (and admit it, folks, Gregor has never come off as aggressively interested in women, although canonically that's perfectly explainable by the fact that most of the women he knows are aggressively interested in his throne. Or are Cordelia), Laisa doesn't exist, or at least never shows up, and Miles--and yes, this really is a departure from canon, where Miles is shown to have actually thought about his sexuality, and is shown to be clearly and firmly heterosexual--is just flexible enough to be brought round to the idea of Gregor. The drama of the story stems as much from the adjustments they have to make to actually pull off a romance as all the lovely twisting and plotting of the adventure part, which is in the spirit of Brothers in Arms or Cetaganda.
What makes this such an utter pleasure to read is that Beck's drawing on and expanding the emotional intimacy that implicitly exists between Miles and Gregor. They were raised together as brothers, but the connection in adulthood comes also from their shared, insider's understanding of Barrayaran government, and the families of power, and the enormous sense of mutual responsibility and shared values. Beck totally gets Bujold's humanism and her value system and her romance. She excels at writing this aspect of Miles and Gregor's relationship, at making it a focus, and successfully puts a romantic gloss on it.
This could get long, so I will list everything else Beck does wonderfully right:
--Ivan. He's less stupid/faux-stupid here, but he was moving that way in canon anyway, and Beck makes his growing responsibility work. I love Ivan, she loves Ivan, it's all good.
--Miles and Ivan. Aren't they the most enormous fun? And they have the kind of cousin closeness that can be as close as brothers without quite being brothers. Beck really digs that, and though it's a little more dramatic and less funny than Miles and Ivan in canon, it's still wonderful.
--Ekaterin. Hah! I love this. I love this! How often will you see the canon love interest the fanfiction author is setting aside get a role this good? Beck obviously loves Ekaterin, she even loves Ekaterin and Miles. When Ekaterin shows up, Beck not only establishes them as close friends and has Ekaterin as a major character, she makes it clear that they share the attraction they did in canon, that Ekaterin and Miles would still have worked here--Miles just ended up with Gregor first. No, "Oh, we're just friends," or "sure I loved her, but she died, and I'mma move on to the slash now," or infidelity, or any of the nastier fates of romantic rivals in fanfic written by people who are less appreciative of the source material**--this is simply an alternate universe where things happened differently, and her Miles and Ekaterin are so close to the satisfaction of the canon version that I even don't miss that romance in this fic.
(You'll never guess who Ekaterin ends with...oh, okay, yes you will. She hooks up with Ivan, and it's plausible, because Ivan's grown up, and it's really sweet, and the two couples make a lovely family unit composed my favorite characters, emotionally intimate with each other and physically proximate for happy ending d'awww.)
--Alys. I would think it would be tough to get her nuances right, but Beck does it, and it helps to keep the feel of the Barrayaran setting properly wide and complex.
I am not sure about including Aral and Cordelia on that list, although they're prominent in What Passing Bells and I enjoy them there, I questioned at times whether they would really follow the course Beck lays out for them. I'm not sure I disagree, either; it's just harder to picture. And the scenes of Miles and Aral and Cordelia as a united family are total fanservice to me.
You won't see much of the galactic cast, and people like Mark and Illyan are essentially there only in cameos. Though I like all of Bujold's characters, I am okay with this, because Beck does right by them when they do cameo, and she's concentrating on my favorites. XD
So! Highly recommended with some caveats. This is purely derivative fanwork; at no point can it ever claim to surpass or even build on the amazingly awesome source material, which would really be a tall order;*** it's more of a case of a reasonably good imitation of genius. And again, although the flaws are big flaws, Beck's a good enough writer to keep you going despite them, when in the hands of a lesser writer, you wouldn't even be tempted to continue. Read these when you've read all the Vorkosigan books so many times you can recite all the dialogue, but you're desperate to read a good Vorkosigan story.****
*You'd be surprised how much this will not tick you off when you read Ethan of Athos. While the planet Athos was obviously settled by religiously fanatic, misogynistic, homosexual male separatists, their descendants are pleasant, peaceful farmers with surprisingly healthy attitudes towards reproduction, even if they do all think women are scary aliens and don't want to leave their planet. The remaining misogyny is only a lingering remnant--the kind of thing you're taught in Sunday School but never really believed, even though you never really questioned--buoyed by lack of exposure to women. It's rather harmless, and in the gentle, peaceful Ethan, forced to leave the planet on a Quest for New Ovaries, it's positively endearing, especially once he meets Elli Quinn. Nobody's prejudices survive Elli Quinn. Barely anybody survives Elli Quinn at all.
**Or where the source material is less worthy of appreciation. I'm not saying I always mind. This is just a rare exception, and in this context, a very welcome one.
***In contrast, while I was reading Dorothy Sayers and realizing how heavily Bujold drew on her style and characters, I was always impressed by how Bujold built on what she borrowed. That's a case of a phenomenal writer being inspired and influenced by a phenomenal writer, and creating a different thing that is just as good.
****Alternatively, you can read Dorothy Sayers at this point, but you may end up with the same problem in the long run, and she's not even around to eventually produce new books.
E.E. Beck's (and her co-writers Stacy's and Sahiya's) A Deeper Season and sequel What Passing Bells, (and followed by one more must-read among some fragments, Seeds. There are a few other stories set in and out of this universe, and they're worth looking at).
There are some serious flaws in these stories. There are two really major totally bust-your-suspension-of-disbelief elements,
( SUPER SPOILERY PLOT POINTS )
THAT SAID. If you can bring yourself to ignore these issues, the stories read pretty well. If Beck's prose doesn't cut as deep or sparkle as brightly or as often as Bujold's, remember, you're comparing her to the best. And though Beck has a tendency to pile on the drama and people get the drop on our protagonists a little too often, the pacing is overall excellent and the drama never loses its hold on you.
This is a world where Gregor has been in love with Miles even since the shenanigans of the The Vor Game (and admit it, folks, Gregor has never come off as aggressively interested in women, although canonically that's perfectly explainable by the fact that most of the women he knows are aggressively interested in his throne. Or are Cordelia), Laisa doesn't exist, or at least never shows up, and Miles--and yes, this really is a departure from canon, where Miles is shown to have actually thought about his sexuality, and is shown to be clearly and firmly heterosexual--is just flexible enough to be brought round to the idea of Gregor. The drama of the story stems as much from the adjustments they have to make to actually pull off a romance as all the lovely twisting and plotting of the adventure part, which is in the spirit of Brothers in Arms or Cetaganda.
What makes this such an utter pleasure to read is that Beck's drawing on and expanding the emotional intimacy that implicitly exists between Miles and Gregor. They were raised together as brothers, but the connection in adulthood comes also from their shared, insider's understanding of Barrayaran government, and the families of power, and the enormous sense of mutual responsibility and shared values. Beck totally gets Bujold's humanism and her value system and her romance. She excels at writing this aspect of Miles and Gregor's relationship, at making it a focus, and successfully puts a romantic gloss on it.
This could get long, so I will list everything else Beck does wonderfully right:
--Ivan. He's less stupid/faux-stupid here, but he was moving that way in canon anyway, and Beck makes his growing responsibility work. I love Ivan, she loves Ivan, it's all good.
--Miles and Ivan. Aren't they the most enormous fun? And they have the kind of cousin closeness that can be as close as brothers without quite being brothers. Beck really digs that, and though it's a little more dramatic and less funny than Miles and Ivan in canon, it's still wonderful.
--Ekaterin. Hah! I love this. I love this! How often will you see the canon love interest the fanfiction author is setting aside get a role this good? Beck obviously loves Ekaterin, she even loves Ekaterin and Miles. When Ekaterin shows up, Beck not only establishes them as close friends and has Ekaterin as a major character, she makes it clear that they share the attraction they did in canon, that Ekaterin and Miles would still have worked here--Miles just ended up with Gregor first. No, "Oh, we're just friends," or "sure I loved her, but she died, and I'mma move on to the slash now," or infidelity, or any of the nastier fates of romantic rivals in fanfic written by people who are less appreciative of the source material**--this is simply an alternate universe where things happened differently, and her Miles and Ekaterin are so close to the satisfaction of the canon version that I even don't miss that romance in this fic.
(You'll never guess who Ekaterin ends with...oh, okay, yes you will. She hooks up with Ivan, and it's plausible, because Ivan's grown up, and it's really sweet, and the two couples make a lovely family unit composed my favorite characters, emotionally intimate with each other and physically proximate for happy ending d'awww.)
--Alys. I would think it would be tough to get her nuances right, but Beck does it, and it helps to keep the feel of the Barrayaran setting properly wide and complex.
I am not sure about including Aral and Cordelia on that list, although they're prominent in What Passing Bells and I enjoy them there, I questioned at times whether they would really follow the course Beck lays out for them. I'm not sure I disagree, either; it's just harder to picture. And the scenes of Miles and Aral and Cordelia as a united family are total fanservice to me.
You won't see much of the galactic cast, and people like Mark and Illyan are essentially there only in cameos. Though I like all of Bujold's characters, I am okay with this, because Beck does right by them when they do cameo, and she's concentrating on my favorites. XD
So! Highly recommended with some caveats. This is purely derivative fanwork; at no point can it ever claim to surpass or even build on the amazingly awesome source material, which would really be a tall order;*** it's more of a case of a reasonably good imitation of genius. And again, although the flaws are big flaws, Beck's a good enough writer to keep you going despite them, when in the hands of a lesser writer, you wouldn't even be tempted to continue. Read these when you've read all the Vorkosigan books so many times you can recite all the dialogue, but you're desperate to read a good Vorkosigan story.****
*You'd be surprised how much this will not tick you off when you read Ethan of Athos. While the planet Athos was obviously settled by religiously fanatic, misogynistic, homosexual male separatists, their descendants are pleasant, peaceful farmers with surprisingly healthy attitudes towards reproduction, even if they do all think women are scary aliens and don't want to leave their planet. The remaining misogyny is only a lingering remnant--the kind of thing you're taught in Sunday School but never really believed, even though you never really questioned--buoyed by lack of exposure to women. It's rather harmless, and in the gentle, peaceful Ethan, forced to leave the planet on a Quest for New Ovaries, it's positively endearing, especially once he meets Elli Quinn. Nobody's prejudices survive Elli Quinn. Barely anybody survives Elli Quinn at all.
**Or where the source material is less worthy of appreciation. I'm not saying I always mind. This is just a rare exception, and in this context, a very welcome one.
***In contrast, while I was reading Dorothy Sayers and realizing how heavily Bujold drew on her style and characters, I was always impressed by how Bujold built on what she borrowed. That's a case of a phenomenal writer being inspired and influenced by a phenomenal writer, and creating a different thing that is just as good.
****Alternatively, you can read Dorothy Sayers at this point, but you may end up with the same problem in the long run, and she's not even around to eventually produce new books.
have you met my cousin Bredon?
Nov. 19th, 2007 09:38 pmHave just now finished Murder Must Advertise, and the Lord Peter Wimsey/Miles Vorkosigan parallel has become even more inescapable. I'll never be able to read Brothers in Arms the same way again. :D
Sayers had an unusually wonderful mind.
Sayers had an unusually wonderful mind.
