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Sep. 30th, 2015 10:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretUprooted by Naomi Novik
This book was great. Everything everyone said about it is true, Novik is dazzling at telling a story that upturns fairy tale convention at every turn while still being a really, really great fairy tale.
Agnieszka is a fantastic heroine and I love how Novik's magic system entwines itself with and supports the narrative. There is Harry Pottery/Vancey mechanical magic where particular words and phrases and spells, pronounced in exactly the right way with exactly the right spell components creates a specific, known effect, but then there is fairy tale magic of intuiting how to make use of the spell components and emotions and ideas available to create new magic, and Novik uses both of those ideas comprehensively to build a single magical system that is thrillingly complex and alive.
And rather than privileging one or the other, rather than saying that fairy tale magic is better because Agnieszka our hero does it, Novik forces the Dragon and Agnieszka to work together, to harness rationalist magic and intuitive magic, in order to do the most powerful spells, which require a stable platform and then improvisational creativity together to unleash their effects. That itself is a pretty rare synthesis in fantasy novels (Something similar but less developed haunts the end of Lev Grossman's The Magician King). But Novik doesn't stop there! She then has Agnieszka later combine her magic with Solya and with other rationalist mages, with differing effects each time. The synthesis of rationalism and intuition isn't an end in itself, it's just a resonance pattern in a complicated and dynamic magical ecosystem. <3 <3
And the Agnieszka/Kasia relationship! And Agnieszka and Alosha! And the sword that will kill anything and the unkillable forest and the marvelous subversion of fairy tale tropes it constitutes! And the slow realization over many chapters that leads to Agnieszka's triumph being not some magical ascension, but her return home to her family and her community, so that she defies all the predictions of the novel's first page at last. What a beautiful ending Uprooted has.
This book was great. Everything everyone said about it is true, Novik is dazzling at telling a story that upturns fairy tale convention at every turn while still being a really, really great fairy tale.
Agnieszka is a fantastic heroine and I love how Novik's magic system entwines itself with and supports the narrative. There is Harry Pottery/Vancey mechanical magic where particular words and phrases and spells, pronounced in exactly the right way with exactly the right spell components creates a specific, known effect, but then there is fairy tale magic of intuiting how to make use of the spell components and emotions and ideas available to create new magic, and Novik uses both of those ideas comprehensively to build a single magical system that is thrillingly complex and alive.
And rather than privileging one or the other, rather than saying that fairy tale magic is better because Agnieszka our hero does it, Novik forces the Dragon and Agnieszka to work together, to harness rationalist magic and intuitive magic, in order to do the most powerful spells, which require a stable platform and then improvisational creativity together to unleash their effects. That itself is a pretty rare synthesis in fantasy novels (Something similar but less developed haunts the end of Lev Grossman's The Magician King). But Novik doesn't stop there! She then has Agnieszka later combine her magic with Solya and with other rationalist mages, with differing effects each time. The synthesis of rationalism and intuition isn't an end in itself, it's just a resonance pattern in a complicated and dynamic magical ecosystem. <3 <3
And the Agnieszka/Kasia relationship! And Agnieszka and Alosha! And the sword that will kill anything and the unkillable forest and the marvelous subversion of fairy tale tropes it constitutes! And the slow realization over many chapters that leads to Agnieszka's triumph being not some magical ascension, but her return home to her family and her community, so that she defies all the predictions of the novel's first page at last. What a beautiful ending Uprooted has.
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Date: 2015-10-02 06:54 pm (UTC)tl;dr Me and books: it's complicated. Thanks for the rec!
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Date: 2015-10-07 04:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-01-02 04:33 pm (UTC)The one thing that left a bad taste in my mouth was the Strong Black Woman Who Sacrifices Herself. She was even, completely unnecessarily, the daughter of a slave. Yes, Alosha was a kick-ass character, yes, she [blatant spoiler] at the end; but it was jarring to be met by these same default American tropes in the midst of an otherwise well-thought-out fantasy world, a reminder that even here, Those People don't get to just be people.
While reading, I kept thinking, "This could totally be a movie," and it looks like it might end up being one. (Although it might be better as a series -- there's so much story here!) I'm normally wary of the movie-fication of books, but I feel optimistic about this, as the author seems to have had this in mind in the writing of it. I think it also could lend itself to sequel-ing. Seeing Agnieszka settling into the life she made for herself, using her powers in the ways she chooses, interacting with the Dragon on her own terms, was a thing I felt I couldn't get enough of.
...Which means I should go see if anyone on Ao3 has felt the same way, I suppose.
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Date: 2017-01-02 04:40 pm (UTC)