book review--One For Sorrow by Christopher Barzak

[pennie_dreadful]

Every once in a while, I let myself get talked into thinking I need to read some "real" literature.  All fantasy and sci fi fans have dealt with the subtle snobbery when they take out their favorite book and read it in a library, or anywhere else for that matter.  The two have a very low brow image, even though as genres I think they're probably the best suited to deliver messages and themes about human existence.  For some reason, reading a book about a world that has essentially the same problems as our world makes our problems (and their solutions) clearer.  Fantasy in particular is well suited to social commentary.  Morgan Howell's Queen of the Orcs trilogy very closely mirrors the history of the American West and Manifest Destiny, and the cruel treatment of Native Americans.  Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series has some very relevant insight into fanatical minds and how they can be manipulated by greedy, power-hungry governments, not to mention themes of tolerance and personal responsibility.  I can honestly say that reading fantasy has made me a better person.  

At any rate, when I start thinking I need to read something outside the genre, either a classic or contemporary lit, I just pick something, and generally I feel completely apathetic about it at best, or downright hate it at worst (Frangipani, Everything Is Illuminated). Sometimes however, a non-fantasy book will just catch my eye.  It's almost an instict that tells me, I need to read this book.  I was walking out of the bookstore, and One For Sorrow was on the very end of the shelf; I glanced at it, stopped short, backtracked, read the blurb, and bought it. I've been waiting for a chance to read it all at once, with minimal interruptions (which means I took it with me to work yesterday--and of course it was the busiest Saturday I've ever had, but I still finished it half an hour before closing).

It was beautiful. The prose, the insights, even the angst and the teenage determination that all adults are clueless--just breathtaking. I don't want to spoil it by saying anything about the plot, read the blurb if you want to (it actually does the story some justice), but I know for myself it's best to not get too many preconceptions about something like this, and I just couldn't give any kind of in depth summary without doing that and spoiling it.  

The prose was simply gorgeous, but not, I don't know, florid I guess is the word.  I don't normally do this, but here's a paragraph that I found particularly striking:

"Right then I thought, You can live again.  You can take the steps toward the finish line without too much fear or sadness.  And even if you sometimes fell in the process of getting there, it didn't mean you were done for.  It didn't mean you had fallen from grace, but that maybe you'd had the grace to fall in the first place.  That you'd had the grace to get back up again."

It's called a coming of age story, and for the most part, it is.  It's also called a ghost story, and that's where I think some people were put off by the book, because it's not really, not in the traditional sense.  So Shannon, don't read the reviews on Goodreads.  They're not productive, for the most part, mostly just "this book sucked" and they'll give you the wrong idea of what it's really about.  I suppose it's one of those things you either get or you don't. 

Comments

[aurillia.livejournal.com]

I've come across lots of Goodreads reviews that made me shake my head. So many negative reviews are based simply on misconceptions, disappointed expectations, and other wayward things. The Bastard of Istanbul was one such.

Is this a feel-good story? Self-indulgent at all? I like the cover, with the tree.

[kat-nic.livejournal.com]

Definately not feel-good, but not completely depressing, either. It has a sort of hopeful ending. You feel like the kid's going to be okay. He's still not okay right then, but he's going to be. As to self-indulgent--I suppose it may be, but then the main character is just turned fifteen. Unless you mean was the author being self indulgent? I don't think Barzak was, at all. A lot of people complained about it being tedious, and one person even said that a real fifteen year could have written it better, which is ridiculous. I'm not so far from fifteen myself, and was/am a pretty decent writer, when I feel like applying myself, and no one could have written this at age fifteen (unless it was a nonfiction memoir...which would very weird). Just keep in mind it does require a lot of suspension of disbelief. It can get kind of...surreal, but at the same time it can be almost gritty, earthy.

[aurillia.livejournal.com]

I like surreal :)

[kat-nic.livejournal.com]

Usually I don't. I'm very glad I hadn't read anything about it except the blurb, because I would either have never read it, or not liked it when I did. But not knowing what to expect, other than having a vague idea that there was a ghost involved somehow and some romance, really made it so much better.