soph (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sophia_sol) wrote2015-01-09 07:39 pm
sophia_sol) wrote2015-01-09 07:39 pm
Chalice, by Robin McKinley
Okay so like for most of the book I was overcome with feels because it is all about two people who are variously awkward and unfit for their positions but TRYING SO HARD and CARING SO MUCH and making every effort of goodwill and just - being genuinely good people in difficult situations. OBVIOUSLY I AM THERE FOR IT.
But I found the ending so very unsatisfying and I think the largest part of that is because the Master is turned human??? like that seems just so very out of nowhere and unjustified and very much just...sweeping away all the problems as opposed to facing and overcoming them. The Master as a fire priest was trying his best and succeeding with difficulty, and him managing to stay Master and make things work despite his fire nature would have felt a good and right ending. Turning him human feels like it makes all his efforts pointless. It's not the culmination of his work throughout the book - it's the erasure of the necessity of it. I REALLY DON'T LIKE IT.
Also I'm not sure I'm a fan of the Mirasol/Master marriage agreed on at the end? I could possibly be convinced of it eventually but as it is I am really not convinced.
And the fact that the ending is so unsatisfactory to me is just so.... so FRUSTRATING after how good the rest of the book is. I was filled with a million feels, I loved Mirasol, I loved the Master, I loved the Grand Seneschal, I loved the worldbuilding and the bees and honey, and on and on. And then the end just doesn't work, and I have all these feelings that were hurtling towards the climax and never got their resolution! AUUUGH.
Sigh, I suppose that's the ending one should expect from Robin McKinley, who has said in the past that her One True Story is beauty and the beast and I believe she's even said that everything she writes is somehow tied back to it eventually. This one is just more obvious than most, I guess (...other than the two full straight-up retellings she's done).
(It's weird to me, btw, that Beauty & the Beast could be anyone's one true story because the story as it is is just filled with frustrations and things I want to fix and change, whereas McKinley clearly loves it for what it is. Okay then.)
Anyways. Another thing I wanted to say about the book is that I am endlessly fascinated by how McKinley always manages to both fill her books with wonderfully real-feeling details and STILL somehow make her books feel dreamily distantly unreal. I don't think I can come up with a single book of hers that DIDN'T do this for me. I don't know how she does it! I don't know that I'm a fan of it! BUT SHE DOES IT and I'm so curious how she manages to pull that one off.
This book is a reread, though you wouldn't guess it from the above. Last time I read it was years ago when it first came out, and I promptly forgot all of the actual plot and just remembered the...the feel of the book, the honey and the warmth of life. Which I still love! But I wish I had remembered the issue with the ending, so it wouldn't have hit me anew this time with all the fresh raw frustration of running into it heedlessly headlong.
But I found the ending so very unsatisfying and I think the largest part of that is because the Master is turned human??? like that seems just so very out of nowhere and unjustified and very much just...sweeping away all the problems as opposed to facing and overcoming them. The Master as a fire priest was trying his best and succeeding with difficulty, and him managing to stay Master and make things work despite his fire nature would have felt a good and right ending. Turning him human feels like it makes all his efforts pointless. It's not the culmination of his work throughout the book - it's the erasure of the necessity of it. I REALLY DON'T LIKE IT.
Also I'm not sure I'm a fan of the Mirasol/Master marriage agreed on at the end? I could possibly be convinced of it eventually but as it is I am really not convinced.
And the fact that the ending is so unsatisfactory to me is just so.... so FRUSTRATING after how good the rest of the book is. I was filled with a million feels, I loved Mirasol, I loved the Master, I loved the Grand Seneschal, I loved the worldbuilding and the bees and honey, and on and on. And then the end just doesn't work, and I have all these feelings that were hurtling towards the climax and never got their resolution! AUUUGH.
Sigh, I suppose that's the ending one should expect from Robin McKinley, who has said in the past that her One True Story is beauty and the beast and I believe she's even said that everything she writes is somehow tied back to it eventually. This one is just more obvious than most, I guess (...other than the two full straight-up retellings she's done).
(It's weird to me, btw, that Beauty & the Beast could be anyone's one true story because the story as it is is just filled with frustrations and things I want to fix and change, whereas McKinley clearly loves it for what it is. Okay then.)
Anyways. Another thing I wanted to say about the book is that I am endlessly fascinated by how McKinley always manages to both fill her books with wonderfully real-feeling details and STILL somehow make her books feel dreamily distantly unreal. I don't think I can come up with a single book of hers that DIDN'T do this for me. I don't know how she does it! I don't know that I'm a fan of it! BUT SHE DOES IT and I'm so curious how she manages to pull that one off.
This book is a reread, though you wouldn't guess it from the above. Last time I read it was years ago when it first came out, and I promptly forgot all of the actual plot and just remembered the...the feel of the book, the honey and the warmth of life. Which I still love! But I wish I had remembered the issue with the ending, so it wouldn't have hit me anew this time with all the fresh raw frustration of running into it heedlessly headlong.