"May the Charter be with you."
Nah, it's not from the pre-prequel of Star Wars. It's from Garth Nix's Sabriel, which I plan on finishing today....
If you thought the Inferi in HBP were scary enough, then be even scared-er with Nix's versions of the Dead. Mordicants, gore crows, Dead Hands, Shadow Hands...even the realm of the Dead is described beautifully in detail. Funnily enough, I keep thinking of that scene in Gladiator when the character played by Russell Crowe dies and ends up in this field where everything is grey...Nix describes the realm of the Dead as grey and without distance, and there's a main river in it, pulling spirits in its current through all the Gates and down to the Final Gate, where they would meet their final death.
And of course, Sabriel. She started off as a pretty impulsive character - only eighteen and quite ignorant of what went on in the Old Kingdom, having grown up in another much different place, Ancelstierre - but later she changes and finally understands that things are not always what they seem. She was frustrating me in the earlier chapters, doing things I thought were silly and thoughtless - but hell, if I were in her place, I would probably lose all control and go crazy. Anyway, she does change, and starts accepting her role as the new Abhorsen, and she grows up quickly, having faced death and danger so many times.
There's Mogget, the white cat with a pretty big mouth and a snarky sense of humour, but Nix doesn't tell us much about him, and we only know as much as Sabriel that Mogget is a servant of the Abhorsens and possibly not as innocent as he seems. But yeah, I like him :) and the fact that he's a talking cat does make him much more likeable.
Another character...Touchstone. Hah, I hated that name. Still do. No idea what his real name is, because he's under a magical binding. Didn't quite like him at first, but after he saves Sabriel's life and showed what he was really like, I did like him then. And his declaration of love for Sabriel is pretty much one of the funniest I've read this year -
"I love you...I hope you don't mind."
Oookay...I doubted that Romeo ever asked Juliet whether she minded at all. And sneaking into a lady's room in the middle of the night, tch tch.
But yeah, Touchstone. He married Sabriel in the end, as can be seen in Lirael, where they have one pain-in-the-somewhere daughter and an interesting son. The romance part in Sabriel was a bit random though, I thought.
Heh. I'm going on and on about some book that you haven't read yet. At least I think you haven't read it yet.
No more emo boys in ugly glasses and funny scars!
One great thing about Nix's plot...lots of girl power. First you have Sabriel as the Abhorsen, then Lirael as her successor. Then you also have the Clayr, the Sightseers, who are all female and pretty adept at Charter magic. So now we have heroines instead of handsome, dashing, deep-chested, staggeringly charming males coming from nowhere with their swords and awesome powers to save the world. And these ladies and girls are pretty normal too, with doubts and weaknesses. Sabriel, for one, didn't want to accept the responsibility of being an Abhorsen until her father sacrificed himself to defeat a Greater Dead creature. Lirael was looked down upon by the Clayr for not having the Sight, but she later realises that she was the Abhorsen herself.
Nope, it's not vaguely feminist. I'm just interpreting it that way.
Now I'll go finish the book. And rant more about it later.
If you thought the Inferi in HBP were scary enough, then be even scared-er with Nix's versions of the Dead. Mordicants, gore crows, Dead Hands, Shadow Hands...even the realm of the Dead is described beautifully in detail. Funnily enough, I keep thinking of that scene in Gladiator when the character played by Russell Crowe dies and ends up in this field where everything is grey...Nix describes the realm of the Dead as grey and without distance, and there's a main river in it, pulling spirits in its current through all the Gates and down to the Final Gate, where they would meet their final death.
And of course, Sabriel. She started off as a pretty impulsive character - only eighteen and quite ignorant of what went on in the Old Kingdom, having grown up in another much different place, Ancelstierre - but later she changes and finally understands that things are not always what they seem. She was frustrating me in the earlier chapters, doing things I thought were silly and thoughtless - but hell, if I were in her place, I would probably lose all control and go crazy. Anyway, she does change, and starts accepting her role as the new Abhorsen, and she grows up quickly, having faced death and danger so many times.
There's Mogget, the white cat with a pretty big mouth and a snarky sense of humour, but Nix doesn't tell us much about him, and we only know as much as Sabriel that Mogget is a servant of the Abhorsens and possibly not as innocent as he seems. But yeah, I like him :) and the fact that he's a talking cat does make him much more likeable.
Another character...Touchstone. Hah, I hated that name. Still do. No idea what his real name is, because he's under a magical binding. Didn't quite like him at first, but after he saves Sabriel's life and showed what he was really like, I did like him then. And his declaration of love for Sabriel is pretty much one of the funniest I've read this year -
"I love you...I hope you don't mind."
Oookay...I doubted that Romeo ever asked Juliet whether she minded at all. And sneaking into a lady's room in the middle of the night, tch tch.
But yeah, Touchstone. He married Sabriel in the end, as can be seen in Lirael, where they have one pain-in-the-somewhere daughter and an interesting son. The romance part in Sabriel was a bit random though, I thought.
Heh. I'm going on and on about some book that you haven't read yet. At least I think you haven't read it yet.
No more emo boys in ugly glasses and funny scars!
One great thing about Nix's plot...lots of girl power. First you have Sabriel as the Abhorsen, then Lirael as her successor. Then you also have the Clayr, the Sightseers, who are all female and pretty adept at Charter magic. So now we have heroines instead of handsome, dashing, deep-chested, staggeringly charming males coming from nowhere with their swords and awesome powers to save the world. And these ladies and girls are pretty normal too, with doubts and weaknesses. Sabriel, for one, didn't want to accept the responsibility of being an Abhorsen until her father sacrificed himself to defeat a Greater Dead creature. Lirael was looked down upon by the Clayr for not having the Sight, but she later realises that she was the Abhorsen herself.
Nope, it's not vaguely feminist. I'm just interpreting it that way.
Now I'll go finish the book. And rant more about it later.
posted by Lynn at
11:34 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home