On Apr 4, 6:03=A0pm, Andrew Plotkin <erkyr...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> I have read a lot of Swanwick and enjoyed it variably. I think he
> comes up with fantastic setups and fantastic events to follow them
> and then, some of the time, fantastic excuses to avoid wrapping his
> story up in any kind of resolution.
>
> _The Iron Dragon's Daughter_ went that way; it was vivid and
> overwhelming and I still have no idea what happened in it.
> _The Dragons of Babel_ is vivid and overwhelming and totally
> satisfying at the end. It's got all of Swanwick's *sneakiness* (and he
> is a sneaky bastard) but he has it harnessed to making the book go.
>
> (I now have painful visions of Swanwick reading this post and saying
> "Yeah, I *thought* this was my least interesting and clever book, and
> now I have proof." I struggle forward in the face of my fears.)
>
> Will is an orphan in the chaotic, modern Elfland which Swanwick first
> introduced in _Iron Dragon_. He lives in a country village... until
> one day a dragon crashes nearby, brought down by a ground-to-air
> basilisk. The dragon hauls itself into town and declares itself king
> until it can be repaired. And it grabs Will -- whose part-mortal
> genes make him tolerant of iron machinery -- to be its liaison,
> slave, mouthpiece, what-have-you.
>
> It is only a small spoiler to say that the dragon is eliminated within
> thirty pages, because that's not what the book is about. Will finds
> that he's an ex-collaborator in a village menaced by war; his old life
> is not available for the retaking. So he walks away, and what this
> book is about is Will trying to invent a new story for himself.
>
> I think everything else I have to say is a big spoiler.
>
> ** SPOILERS **
>
> _The Dragons of Babel_ is a series of episodes, and each episode
> starts out as a story -- and then collapses. Will is a dragon-slayer;
> no, he's reviled and driven out. He's a refugee in a prison camp; but
> his attempts to be honorable and protect people are thoughtlessly
> savaged. He's a hero of an underground revolution; no, it's wiped
> away. He's a daring thief and rogue; no, he's a pawn and the woman he
> loves (in the most classic meet-cute-thief imaginable!) ditches him
> like garbage.
>
> Halfway through I came up with the term "anti-stories" for what was
> going on, and by the end I was sure of it. Swanwick is (I am sure)
> consciously pulling up story-pattern after story-pattern, and then
> subverting each one with the thoughtless, heartless, or soulless
> cruelty of Elfland. The people Will meets are not his fated friends,
> lovers, parent-figures; they are fay.
>
> =A0 --------
> =A0 Will stared up at her, awestruck. The young woman in the saddle was
> =A0 all grace and athleticism. [...]
>
> =A0 She was glorious.
>
> =A0 The rider glanced casually down and to the side and saw Will
gawking.
> =A0 She drew back on the reins so that her beast reared up and for an
> =A0 instant seemed to stall in midair. Then she took the reins between
> =A0 her teeth and with one hand yanked down her halter top, exposing her
> =A0 breasts. With the other hand, she flipped him the finger.
>
> =A0 Then, jeering, she seized the reins again, pulled up her top, and
> =A0 was gone.
> =A0 --------
>
> And this whole mess, Will's search for self-justification, only turns
> around when he starts *making* his own story. (I won't spoil that
> bit.)
>
> I'm pretty sure that Swanwick is drawing mortality as the key
> distinction: Will's heritage is from *our* world, unnamed though it is
> in this book, and *we* are the storytellers. *We're* the ones who
> believe in love and happy endings and the bildungsroman as a form of
> novel. The world Will lives in isn't shaped to give him those things,
> but he is still able to create them for that world -- because (and
> yes, I think Swanwick is being exactly this meta) _The Dragons of
> Babel_ written by a mortal for mortal readers. Will has the capacity
> to play Swanwick.
>
> --Z
>
> --
> "And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogove=
s..."
> *
> 9/11 did change everything. Since 9/12, the biggest threat to American
> society has been the American president. I'd call that a change.
Interesting, i loved the way he played with the whole notion of the
fairy tale and never saw the ending coming, having been a huge fan of
the Iron Dragons Daughter I was reading it with my meta reading off, i
am looking forward to the reread
Rex
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