Fairy Revel

Every year I make a reading plan, and I rarely (if ever) complete it. In spite of that, I feel that I accomplish more with a plan than I would without one. My goals, however far beyond my reach, or however I flounder and fail, encourage me to do better than before, to keep working at achievements, even if I don’t meet with as much success as I hoped.

My reading plan for this year is:

Get a foundation in fairy tales and folk tales.
This may sound weird for someone into fantastic literature, but I have never enjoyed fairy tales, and I’ve read very few. I think it’s because I like my reading to be deeply personal and character-focused, and fairy tales are short on character development. However, I think it’s time I became familiar with more tales than just the ones that became Disney movies, and see if I can’t learn to love something about these stories. I’ll be posting a sort of “initial impressions” series on fairy tales in 2011, as much for a personal record as public discussion.

Then begin studying Japanese folk tales.
I’ve been reading Japanese Tales, translated by Royall Tyler, and I’m surprised to say I’m enjoying the stories more than I thought I would. Many of them are funny, in a sort of quirky, dry-humored way. Unfortunately, these are mostly courtly and religious stories rather than folk tales, so there aren’t a lot of the farmers, fishermen and kappa I hoped to read about. So part of my reading plan for this year is just to immerse myself in the Japanese folk tales translated so far into English.

Read 50 books.
This is my basic, bottom-line challenge every year, and every year I fail to meet it. But last year (2009) I raised the number of books I read in a year from about 10 to around 25, and this year it looks like I’ll come in somewhere just under 20, so I’m happy with my results and will continue to shoot for 50 books each year. I really hope to make it this year!

Read one-third of the books on my 100 Project list, half of them the “difficult” books.
I posted my 100 Project list not that long ago. I really need to work hard if I’m to finish all the books on the list by my end date (April 27th, 2014), and some of these books are doozies. I don’t know if I’ll make a list specifically of difficult ones to conquer, but it might help.

Read the unread books already on my shelves.
When I look up at my bookcases, I see rows of books unread. This makes me feel guilty, and then when I’m at the bookstore, I have this horrible thought: “I should not buy any more books until I read the ones I have.” This must not be. So in order to free myself from the chains of guilt, I should probably read as many of the books I own as possible.

Once again, I’m probably over-reaching, but I sort of don’t care. You can’t reach a goal you haven’t set.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/adobemac/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Since Harry Potter ended, I’ve been looking for a series to love. I’ve tried a few but have yet to find any books that hold me captivated like Harry. Twilight was fun at first, but apart from being poorly wrapped up, the surrounding media hype felt like the series was being force-fed to me. Sherlock Holmes is a new obsession for me, but since most of the series is short stories, it won’t be long before I’m in this same boat once again.

I’m searching for a series that will grab me, that I can fall into with abandon and feel like I’ve lived it. Fantasy is my preference, but any genre will do. Here are the top five things I look for in a series. While these qualities are important for any book, I think they are crucial for a series to really be great.

1. Characters who are like real people.
   The characters in Harry Potter feel like old friends. Even minor characters have first names and last names, and you get the sense that they all have lives beyond Harry and Voldemort. They also all have flaws that are just like the flaws of real people: Harry is judgemental and a tad egotistical; Hermione is a know-it-all who sometimes falls apart under pressure; Ron is thick about emotions in spite of his good intuition. They do and say funny things. They have misunderstandings that make sense and jump to conclusions due to prejudice. They are just like real people.
2. A developed setting that is more than just set-dressing.
   I’ve read books in which you can tell that there’s nothing beyond the room the characters are standing around talking in, or the castle they’re about to attack. I don’t need Tolkien-like development (though that is nice), but I should sense that if the characters went through that door, a real, functional world exists on the other side.
3. A good hero and an evil villain.
   Everyone has virtues and flaws, but I like heroes who try their hardest to do what’s right, even when they suffer for it. I don’t want to be confused about who should win and who should lose, and why. I don’t want the villain’s excuses to be treated as justifications. If I’m going to read this series for 3+ books, I want to experience a world that is basically moral, if complex, where tough decisions are made and the hero earns an appropriately happy ending.
4. Story threads that flow from book to book.
   I’m not much for cliffhanger endings, but I do like some threads left loose to be picked up in future books, and I definitely like at least one story arc, even a background one, to flow through all the books in the series, only to be resolved in the last book. Many series (mysteries especially, perhaps?) tend to resolve all plots and subplots before the end, so things are sort of “reset” at the beginning of the next book, but I prefer connecting threads.
5. A believable romance.
   I don’t know about anyone else, but I struggle to stay interested if there are no racing hearts or at least some blushing. Give me a romantic story that develops over the course of the series along with everything else above, and you’ll have given me a series I can fall for.

If you know of a series with these elements, do tell! I am always looking for Mr. Perfect Series.

In Patricia A. McKillip’s The Bell at Sealey Head, two worlds are connected by the ringing of the sunrise bell. In Sealey Head where Judd Cauley runs his inn and an old noblewoman lays dying at ancient Aislinn House, the townsfolk go about their business in a “polite society” evocative of the 18th century, enjoying balls and tea time and the spray of the salt sea air, barely aware of the single toll that sounds at the precise moment of sundown. In another Aislinn House, knights and ladies wend their way through an elaborate set of rituals centered around the daily tolling of the bell, rituals they dare not shirk even to smile or to wonder “why?”

In all of McKillip’s works, the emotion of the story and the evocative language carry the reader along through a tapestry of dreams. Her characterization is both rich and archetypal, and there are funny moments as well as a sense of deep magic always flowing in the background. McKillip never neglects story, but in The Bell at Sealey Head, the story moves more to the fore than in some of her other novels. Lady Eglantyne is aged and bedridden, barely hanging onto life in her chambers in Aislinn House, an old house overlooking the port town of Sealey Head. While the townsfolk wonder what the new heir is like, Emma, a maid in Aislinn House, is able to open doors onto another Aislinn House, where Princess Ysabo moves through a series of daily rituals that she must perform without question, lest she face punishment. Ysabo walks daily up and down the stairs accomplishing seemingly meaningless tasks, feeding the crows last night’s leavings each morning, lighting candles, turning the blank pages of a book. The question “why” is rewarded with a slap to the face from a man whose name she doesn’t even know. Meanwhile, in Sealey Head, a mysterious guest has arrived at Judd Cauley’s inn, and everyone wonders who Ridley Dow is and why he is so curious about the daily tolling of the bell.

Reading The Bell at Sealey Head, there was a moment when I finally understood what novels are for. I can’t recall exactly which moment it was, but reading Judd Cauley’s thoughts, experiencing what he experienced, made me certain that the purpose of reading fiction is to know others intimately, to get inside the heart and soul of another and know them as we can know few others in this life. Someone said McKillip writes the same characters over and over, but the human spirit is endlessly faceted, and exploring those facets, over and over, can be rewarding in a way that coming up with new quirks and unique backstory isn’t. Her characters are archetypes, yes, but it’s not because she can’t think of anything new to say; rather it’s that she never runs out of things to say about people, and certain types draw her back over and over with the questions and puzzles they present. I think this is where movies fail and books succeed: there is no other media in which language can be used so precisely to explore the inner landscape of another person, as well as the external events that effect that landscape. It’s like living another life, for a few hours or days.

While the townsfolk of Sealey Head plan parties and make matches, the rituals in that other Aislinn House go on and on, and it serves as the inner landscape to the story itself. If Sealey Head is the story’s body, Ysabo’s world is its mind. It would be easy to say that the rituals Ysabo moves through in a neverending cycle are a commentary by the author on the vanity of meaningless religious practice, imposed upon us by men and tradition, and perhaps that’s so. But I kept thinking of the way we sometimes accept meaningless ritual in our everyday lives, how we wake up to an alarm, shower, convey ourselves to our destinations, then sit in our cubicles or classrooms busying ourselves with pointless tasks for reasons we don’t fully understand, made use of by a system set into place long ago. I think many people’s lives are not that different from Ysabo’s, and that our rituals can be similarly imposed upon us by a mysterious source or mindless acceptance that “it must be good because everyone says so” or “it’s always been this way”.

Of course, narcissists, control-freaks and powers-that-be sometimes use ritual to mind-numbing effect upon others. Often the ritual in The Bell at Sealey Head reminded me of the controlling spouse who demands all labels in the kitchen cupboards face forward, or that the floor behind the refrigerator not harbour a speck of dust. Such arbitrary, whimsical rules are a prison for the person who must perform the rituals day after day, until their own thoughts are bound by this control mechanism. The constant cycling of Ysabo’s ritual, going up and down winding stairs, feeding the crows, lighting a candle, locking a door, echoes the misery of a mind locked in its own meaningless rituals, trapped in the prison of obsessive compulsive disorder, in which the rituals must be performed over and over again without question lest evil befall the individual. The “body” that is the town of Sealey Head goes about its business, unaware of the cycling torment of its inner world, as the individual may go about their business giving no indication of their own inner turmoil.

But The Bell at Sealey Head is not a heavy book. It’s more story-driven than McKillip’s books usually are, but the writing is still beautiful, the characters still rich and the magic still deep. The plot of this book is fun and the relationships are charming; The Bell at Sealey Head has a light tone that makes for a slightly different sort of read than McKillip’s other works, though her signature use of repeated motifs is still present. Mostly though, the characters and McKillip’s humor—more apparent in this book than some of her others—really drew me in. Highly recommended.