I have a grounding in (a lot of) the right SF/F, but I too don't know that I really like Among Others.
Two things in particular. It seems to me that if both magic and all those books are real in our narrator's world, then our narrator has totally failed to learn the right lessons from her reading -- she should be able to cope far, far better than she does, and should take more direct action far more quickly. The fact that she doesn't strikes me as a choice by the novelist to privilege the autobiographical aspects of the narrative over the internal plot logic (the book is, I'm given to understand, very strongly autobiographical) and I think that's a mistake.
Having said that, I can absolutely see why large segments of both fandom and the literary side of the genre community bond with the book. Walton is a very good stylist, and between that and the autobiographical component, hordes of lit-minded genre geeks were definitely going to look at Among Others and go "ME!!!" As a social linchpin, it's immensely successful, and rightly so; as a novel, though, I don't think the book quite works.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2014-07-17 01:33 am (UTC)Two things in particular. It seems to me that if both magic and all those books are real in our narrator's world, then our narrator has totally failed to learn the right lessons from her reading -- she should be able to cope far, far better than she does, and should take more direct action far more quickly. The fact that she doesn't strikes me as a choice by the novelist to privilege the autobiographical aspects of the narrative over the internal plot logic (the book is, I'm given to understand, very strongly autobiographical) and I think that's a mistake.
Having said that, I can absolutely see why large segments of both fandom and the literary side of the genre community bond with the book. Walton is a very good stylist, and between that and the autobiographical component, hordes of lit-minded genre geeks were definitely going to look at Among Others and go "ME!!!" As a social linchpin, it's immensely successful, and rightly so; as a novel, though, I don't think the book quite works.