Heavy Duty
Mar. 14th, 2005 08:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mtvessel30 Dec 2004
A Free Man of Color / Fever Season / Sold down the River / Wet Grave - Barbara Hambly - Bantam Books, 1998 / 1999 / 2001 / 2003
* * *
It occurred to me the other day to wonder just what the star system I've been using at the top of these reviews actually measures. Is it an indicator of my assessment of a book's literary merit, or some attempt to quantify the amount of pleasure it gave me in reading it? The answer is a bit of both, with the emphasis on the latter. This is particularly relevant to these books, because here there is a definite divergence. There is no doubt that in terms of characterisation, plotting, setting and message they are superb. I just didnt enjoy them much, and I am very hard put to say why.
The series is set in New Orleans in the 1830s, and has as its protagonist a middle-aged man named Benjamin January. He is a free man of colour, that is of mixed African and European descent, but is sufficiently dark-skinned to pass as, or be mistaken for, a full African. He is also a doctor and musician who worked for many years in Paris before personal tragedy caused him to return to his home town. An interesting chap by any account, and the other recurring characters - his bookish and steely girlfriend Rose, the loquacious, charming and consumptive Hannibal, January's glamorous but cold mother and of course detective Abishag Shaw, the world's worst expectorator - are equally well-drawn and memorable.
The setting is also fascinating. Despite the Louisiana purchase, New Orleans in the 1830s continued to be a predominantly a Creole (French) city and the morals and mores of continental Europe were still very much in evidence. Creoles kept slaves, but there was a whole demi-monde of free coloured people who appear to have been mostly the offspring of white Creoles and their non-white mistresses. Indeed, being the mistress of a wealthy landowner appears to have been a perfectly respectable profession for a woman of colour (precisely what proportion of colour had a significant effect on social standing, hence the bizarre set of words - mulatto, quadroon, octoroon - to describe the proportion of black parents, grandparents or great-grandparents in someone's ancestry). The Americans were seen as interlopers, uncivilised and brutal, with a very different attitude to coloured and black people.
Slavery, naturally, forms a major part of the subject matter of the books. Hambly handles the ticklish matter of a non-black writer writing about slavery by making her liberal credentials crystal clear. She largely resists the temptation to make the slave-owners sympathetic or to suggest that the life of a slave is anything other than horrible. So no problems with the message.
So why don't I like these books more? Part of the problem, I think, is Hambly's style, which lacks the lightness of touch of, say, Lyndsey Davis. The writing is intense and vivid but is hard work to read, like Thomas Pynchon, John Updike and other mainstream American novelists. I don't know why this is - maybe "proper" American literature has a different underlying rhythm, like spoken American English, which non-American readers find difficult (or maybe it's just me).
The character of January has its faults which cause difficulties in the plots. He is a strong and passionate man but fundamentally unsuited to his role as a detective. He doesn't do much in the way of clever deduction or observation and Hambly occasionally has to resort to extreme coincidences to progress the plot.
Also, the repeated theme of slavery, however cleverly Hambly rings the changes, does become somewhat repetitive. One feels honour-bound to read these books because they are informative about a subject which, like the Holocaust, it is important for us to remember and to learn from, but the grimness adds to the effort involved.
In summary, these are fine books. Just be prepared for some heavy duty reading.
A Free Man of Color / Fever Season / Sold down the River / Wet Grave - Barbara Hambly - Bantam Books, 1998 / 1999 / 2001 / 2003
* * *
It occurred to me the other day to wonder just what the star system I've been using at the top of these reviews actually measures. Is it an indicator of my assessment of a book's literary merit, or some attempt to quantify the amount of pleasure it gave me in reading it? The answer is a bit of both, with the emphasis on the latter. This is particularly relevant to these books, because here there is a definite divergence. There is no doubt that in terms of characterisation, plotting, setting and message they are superb. I just didnt enjoy them much, and I am very hard put to say why.
The series is set in New Orleans in the 1830s, and has as its protagonist a middle-aged man named Benjamin January. He is a free man of colour, that is of mixed African and European descent, but is sufficiently dark-skinned to pass as, or be mistaken for, a full African. He is also a doctor and musician who worked for many years in Paris before personal tragedy caused him to return to his home town. An interesting chap by any account, and the other recurring characters - his bookish and steely girlfriend Rose, the loquacious, charming and consumptive Hannibal, January's glamorous but cold mother and of course detective Abishag Shaw, the world's worst expectorator - are equally well-drawn and memorable.
The setting is also fascinating. Despite the Louisiana purchase, New Orleans in the 1830s continued to be a predominantly a Creole (French) city and the morals and mores of continental Europe were still very much in evidence. Creoles kept slaves, but there was a whole demi-monde of free coloured people who appear to have been mostly the offspring of white Creoles and their non-white mistresses. Indeed, being the mistress of a wealthy landowner appears to have been a perfectly respectable profession for a woman of colour (precisely what proportion of colour had a significant effect on social standing, hence the bizarre set of words - mulatto, quadroon, octoroon - to describe the proportion of black parents, grandparents or great-grandparents in someone's ancestry). The Americans were seen as interlopers, uncivilised and brutal, with a very different attitude to coloured and black people.
Slavery, naturally, forms a major part of the subject matter of the books. Hambly handles the ticklish matter of a non-black writer writing about slavery by making her liberal credentials crystal clear. She largely resists the temptation to make the slave-owners sympathetic or to suggest that the life of a slave is anything other than horrible. So no problems with the message.
So why don't I like these books more? Part of the problem, I think, is Hambly's style, which lacks the lightness of touch of, say, Lyndsey Davis. The writing is intense and vivid but is hard work to read, like Thomas Pynchon, John Updike and other mainstream American novelists. I don't know why this is - maybe "proper" American literature has a different underlying rhythm, like spoken American English, which non-American readers find difficult (or maybe it's just me).
The character of January has its faults which cause difficulties in the plots. He is a strong and passionate man but fundamentally unsuited to his role as a detective. He doesn't do much in the way of clever deduction or observation and Hambly occasionally has to resort to extreme coincidences to progress the plot.
Also, the repeated theme of slavery, however cleverly Hambly rings the changes, does become somewhat repetitive. One feels honour-bound to read these books because they are informative about a subject which, like the Holocaust, it is important for us to remember and to learn from, but the grimness adds to the effort involved.
In summary, these are fine books. Just be prepared for some heavy duty reading.