Saturday, May 7, 2011

Sorcery and Cecelia--Patricia Wrede & Caroline Stevermer

This is a fascinating book. It's an epistolary novel, consisting of letters back and forth between two young women, but each woman is written  by a different author. Isn't that brilliant? I really want to do this. In fact, Jacob and I started one of these but he dropped out after a couple, which apparently happens all the time. I had no idea this was a thing! I absolutely want to do this now, so if there's anyone out there who has the commitment and follow-through for such a fun project, let me know!

Also, the authors did this wonderful thing. Remember how I'm always complaining about magic being poorly written? And I insist on a good metaphor? Well, they have one. There's a thing called a focus, which a magician uses to strengthen and increase and, well, focus his or her power. And the authors describe it as glasses, spectacles. I kind of want to quote this because it's brilliant.

"It seems there are a great many magicians who, in order to use their magic most effectively, must have an object through which to focus their power. This object must be kept nearby when casting spells. (I believe it works along the same lines as wearing spectacles--some people need them, others don't; every pair is different and it does no good to try to use someone else's; one can see without them, but not nearly so well; and they do one no good whatever if they are not in place when one requires them.)"

I can't believe I just quoted a parenthetical since former students will know I'm rabidly anti-parentheses, but still! What a great metaphor, huh? In this case the focus is  a chocolate pot. A pot for hot chocolate. The book is set in 1817, did I mention that?

I actually had a terrible time reading this book. The two girls seem nearly identical in the way they write and act and even by the end I was going, "Wait, Kate is the one who got sick. Is she? Which one goes riding?" The only way to distinguish them was that one can do magic, which is only helpful if she's actually doing the magic. They both go to parties and dance a lot and think a lot about clothes and boys.

I often feel like apologizing if I can't tell characters apart, assuming it's my fault, like I can't remember which college student is Taylor and which is Tyler. It's true, I'm almost incapable of sticking those names on properly. Once I had a class with two of each in it, except one of each was a boy and one was a girl. A girl Tyler, a boy Tyler, a girl Taylor, and a boy Taylor. You try it!

One was in London and the other in a small town, but since they spent nearly all their time indoors, that didn't help either, unless someone went to Vauxhall or was out riding a horse.

Really I think the characterization was just weak. They should have had different writing styles and vocabularies, spoken differently, had different writing tics like lots of short sentences, or using words wrong, or something. Because as it was, I had to wait to the end of the letter to see which it was, and then that didn't help because one was Cecy and one was Kate. Yeah, I still don't know which was which. Though the guys they liked were a lot more vivid. I think this is a big weakness in a book, y'all.

Still, I read the whole thing, and I enjoyed it despite having no idea who was writing when and not being able to tell the characters apart.

I am a huge fan of epistolary novels, especially modern ones where there's texting, voicemail, email, notes, and all sorts of varieties of written communication. Papers written in college, job application letters, thank you cards, etc. So much you can do! I did start writing one of these and really liked it, especially the possibilities for multiple points of view and ambiguity. Obviously the weakness is that everything is narrated by someone. You have no direct action. But I've seen this done beautifully, including in Sorcery and Cecelia, where someone describes something and it slides into direct storytelling, away from the narrative format. I mean, it stops reading like someone telling a story and becomes just a story. Then afterward you might think, "Hey, wait a minute," but most often it disappears.

Epistolary is something I really love and want to play a lot with. I mean, think of a chapter where someone is telling someone else about watching a movie with a third person. You get that one level of narrative, plus the movie's story, plus of course the conversation during the movie, plus you know they're both texting to others.

It's so rich in potential because it's always multi-level narrative, someone telling a story to someone else for a particular reason. And people have weird and crazy reasons to tell stories sometimes. To gross someone out! To impress! Because it upset them! Because they're excited! Because they're sad! Because they're distracting that person while someone else is setting up a surprise party in the other room! Because they want something! Because the other person was a jerk and this is a moral fable for our time!

It all goes back to Chaucer and the frame tale. I'll never recover from how amazingly well he did it. The stories his characters told, where they think they're illustrating one thing about themselves that they're proud of, but actually they're shining a much less flattering light. Those have left my mind permanently blown.

And I seem to know people lately who do the same thing, especially one person who tells stories bragging about completely hateful and awful things, really reprehensible things, but told in such a way that you can tell they are real points of pride. And tells outrageous lies where everyone in the room is listening politely and knows that they are plain flat-out lies. Sometimes the lies are so completely ludicrous that it's almost embarrassing because the person isn't self-aware or smart enough to make up something plausible.

Someone who thinks they're the smartest person in the room when they're really, really not is great in fiction. As long as you hate that person. I'm reminded of the boss lady in Meg Cabot's epistolary novel, one of the Boy series--is it The Boy Next Door? Where the boss does something bad to impress someone else, and then has to keep doing more and more drastic things to cover it up. But you maybe feel a bit sorry for her, definitely by the end, because she's ruining herself completely in the process.

If I were ever rewriting Canterbury Tales, heaven forbid, I would make it so that all those excellent characters had a whole story around them. This one wants something from that one, that one did something wrong to that one, the other owes the fourth a huge favor and is trying to get out of it, and all kinds of complex Battlestarry backstory. All of which you'd learn from what they say and don't say, and what they reveal inadvertently.

Awesome. Isn't this what people are after when they watch DVD commentaries and try to learn all about authors? This is that extra level we want. It's that mental sifting you do when you see an actor or author interviewed, where you want to separate the fiction from the real world. Only it's all inside the fiction.

Imagine an epistolary novel about someone with delusions of grandeur, or a very vivid imagination. Not so much I Am the Cheese as The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Or both, really. I think every time anyone tells a story, they're living out both of those. So what I want is the story that shows you that person living those two, without being aware of it. Excellent.

I don't see why epistolary novels should be WYSIWYG when there is infinite possibility for so very much more. When nobody ever tells the plain truth anyway, even when they try really hard!

I'd rather see what Meg Cabot does so well, where someone reports an event in such a way that you can tell that that interpretation is a very loose one. Like someone who tells a friend a story about this guy who is in love with her but hiding it, so he just reads his book and is careful not to look at her. Except from how she tells it, you can tell the guy is actually just reading his book. THAT. Only lots, lots more.

Anyway I'm infinitely grateful to Sorcery and Cecelia for making me think about all of this. Hurray!

Sunday, May 1, 2011

What we know and when we know it

Rewatching season one of Battlestar Galactica and suddenly realizing how much of the awesomeness comes from dramatic irony, things we know that the characters don't know.

Of course there's the thing about how we know that Earth is real. And we know who's a Cylon when the other characters don't. That's a huge part of it, right there--who's a Cylon? And part of *that* is that we only know a few of them at the beginning, so anyone could be. In season one we only know Six, Leoben, Sharon, and Doral. So if someone accuses someone else of being a Cylon, we don't know whether they are or not.

What else? We know that Laura has cancer but most people don't. Just the doctor, Billy, and Lee. From the miniseries we know that Starbuck brought about Zak's death, but we find that out right when Lee does. Adama doesn't find out for a couple of episodes. A whole lot of the tension of season one comes from the backstory among Lee, Starbuck, and Adama. And Adama and Tigh go way back, too.

One of the most brilliant things about Battlestar structurally is how front-loaded it was with stories that were already underway when the miniseries started. I have always really admired that. It's brilliant storytelling. One of the biggest mistakes a writer can make is behaving as though everything interesting started at the exact moment we come in. It gives the story such realistic weight. At one point Tigh tells Roslin that it would take about three weeks to explain the situation with Adama, Lee, and Starbuck in relation to Zak.

Actually I was thinking about this with Hot Fuzz also. The story in that little town has been going on for ages before our hero shows up.

Good things to remember when writing: have lots of balls already in the air, in mid-trajectory.

But the things we know that the characters don't know, that fascinates me. I never do this, I don't think. I never tell the reader things that some or all of the characters don't know. Do you do this? I think I should start, because holy cow, the tension is amazing.

I was just thinking of a character of mine arguing that ancient Greek drama didn't have dramatic irony, but it totally did. Obviously. Look at Oedipus. That's the whole point! We know and he doesn't know. Jocasta doesn't know. Nobody knows. The entire point of the play is Oedipus and Jocasta finding out that they're mother and son. Gross! And of course we go in spoiled, so to speak.

I always wondered about this when having students read it. Should I tell them the big secret? Greek audiences would have known. The whole point is that you know the story and watch it unfold so that you can be even more tortured, watching the characters not know and then find out. Exactly like Battlestar.

I'm watching the Chief watch Sharon petting the Cylon ship and wondering whether she's a Cylon, though it seems like he can't even admit to himself that he's thinking that. So there are several things going on in that one little scene.

1. Sharon doesn't know she's a Cylon. We're waiting for her to find out.
2. Chief doesn't know Sharon's a Cylon. We're waiting for him to find out.
3. Everyone trusts Sharon and doesn't know there's an enemy infiltrating their ranks--that they're incredibly vulnerable. We're waiting for them to find out.

So there are two personal stresses there and one general stress. Also that extra stress of the broken off relationship between Sharon and the Chief.

Brilliantly enough, the same exact thing is playing out with Helo and another Sharon, only she goes from pretending to fall for Helo to actually falling for Helo and betraying her own people. They tell her to get him to a cabin where they can hole up for a while, and she goes right back to him and tells him they have to run.

Only we (and Sharon) know all this. The Cylons don't know she's running. Helo doesn't know she's running from the Cylons. It's just like with Baltar. We're in an incredibly privileged position, so that we know what's going on in their lie-filled heads. We know all the lies because we know the truth.

But we don't know the truth about everything. Like Leoben, is he telling the truth? He seems to know things about Starbuck that upset her, but we don't know anything about her at this point, so we don't know if it's true.

It's almost like we get first person points of view with some of these characters because we're with them when they're alone and we know what they're not telling anyone else. We know their lies and what they're hiding. We know the truth.

I'm always fascinated by the difference between dramatic irony like that and the classic mystery. In one, we know things that some characters don't know and watch them figure it out. In the other, we don't know everything, or we don't know how things fit together, until all is revealed at the end and we can appreciate the cleverness of the author at giving us all the pieces yet hiding the solution. One is Oedipus and the other is Fight Club.

I think Battlestar is both. But season one is way more Oedipus. I think Oedipus is much more stressful and also much more enjoyable because we know what's behind that door that you're about to open and we can feel what you're going to feel for ages in advance. Anticipation and the pleasure of dramatic irony are much more interesting and powerful than just appreciating some cleverness afterward.

I would really like to use the godlike POV of dramatic irony with this character who may or may not be an actual god. (I know, but I'm not saying, ha!) I should use it a lot more because it's much more powerful.

Well, look at the different options:

1) Character sees and talks to a god who we know is real. Her friends think she's crazy, but she knows she isn't and so do we.  (Oedipus)

2) Character sees and talks to a god who doesn't exist. Her friends think she's crazy and so do we, but she knows she isn't. (Oedipus)

3) Character sees and talks to a god who may or may not be real. Her friends think she's crazy, but we're not sure until the end. (Fight Club)

It's odd because I started the book one way (I'm not saying which) and then introduced two elements: one confirms #1 and one confirms #2. Which I guess puts you firmly at #3, which is Fight Club again, and not Oedipus. I want Oedipus instead. I really believe Oedipus is infinitely more interesting and powerful, either way.

Also, with #2 we're watching the story of a crazy person or possibly a commentary on religion, whereas with #1 we're watching the story of an ancient god in modern life, which would obviously be better every kind of way. And is also a commentary on religion.

I'm not really sure what Six turns out to be in relation to Baltar. Honestly I can't remember how it all worked out in the end. Was she an angel sent by God to guide him? Or what? I dunno. I'll get there sooner rather than later, the speed I'm whipping through season one. I should have known I would have no ability to be moderate with this show. I figured I'd watch a couple a day, one or two, but I saw the miniseries and the first four yesterday and have already watched four today while cooking and cleaning just in the kitchen. Haven't even started my quiltapalooza yet. I'd bet on another four tonight.

What drives it, though? I really believe it's because I know things the characters don't know and I can't stand waiting to watch that shoe drop. It's the dramatic irony. Well, think about if you worked with someone and knew a secret about that person, whether it's something they did or something that's going to happen to them later that day. Unresolved secrets are pure torture. You can't wait for the resolution. It's so much better than waiting to find out the secret yourself.