continued reading
Oct. 14th, 2004 02:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7This morning's selection was Tony Hillerman's 1998 novel, The First Eagle.
I have little to say about it save that I admire his blunt and straightforward style. I am hardly aware of it when I am reading. The story is paramount, the scenery tied in with the mythology tied in with the organic thought processes of his characters (particularly the two main Navajo ones), the whole culture so lovingly depicted.
And there's hardly a mention of eye color, except sometimes the Navajos' somewhat bemused wondering at the strange paleness of blue eyes, ever tied in with the humorously wry observation that 'all whites look alike'.
The latter part of the morning and the early afternoon have been pleasantly absorbed with Ellis Peter's The Summer Of The Danes, which is one in her series of books about the detective monk Brother Cadfael. This one takes place in Wales in 1144.
She does a bit of wittering on about eye color (the main female, Heledd [a spirited 18-year-old who is being sent off to be married and runs off in the chaos of the Danish invasion] has "purple-black" eyes. I have never seen such a thing and don't find it compelling. But she is otherwise a good, vividly-described, interesting heroine.
My only real complaint with Peters is that she has an occasional propensity for the comma-splice, in both dialogue and description. Oh well. It could be worse.
I am going to quote a passage, and the reason is that I found it far, far more romantic and compelling than anything at all in that less-wretched-than-I'd-feared lavender paperback.
This is the first encounter of an unlikely pair who become the book's understated love story. The background is that Heledd decided to flee her arranged marriage in the confusion following the announcement that Danish raiders from Dublin (which was a Danish city for centuries) have been sighted at the coast near Anglessey, coming to involve themselves in a dispute between a powerful Welsh chieftain and his ambitious brother. Cadfael has run off to find Heledd and has just caught up to her where she was hiding in the woods, and has just convinced her to come to safety with him because a Danish raiding-boat is nearby.
I just want to say that I found this scene far more striking and romantic than anything in any of the other books I'd read so far.
p. 120-121.
I have little to say about it save that I admire his blunt and straightforward style. I am hardly aware of it when I am reading. The story is paramount, the scenery tied in with the mythology tied in with the organic thought processes of his characters (particularly the two main Navajo ones), the whole culture so lovingly depicted.
And there's hardly a mention of eye color, except sometimes the Navajos' somewhat bemused wondering at the strange paleness of blue eyes, ever tied in with the humorously wry observation that 'all whites look alike'.
The latter part of the morning and the early afternoon have been pleasantly absorbed with Ellis Peter's The Summer Of The Danes, which is one in her series of books about the detective monk Brother Cadfael. This one takes place in Wales in 1144.
She does a bit of wittering on about eye color (the main female, Heledd [a spirited 18-year-old who is being sent off to be married and runs off in the chaos of the Danish invasion] has "purple-black" eyes. I have never seen such a thing and don't find it compelling. But she is otherwise a good, vividly-described, interesting heroine.
My only real complaint with Peters is that she has an occasional propensity for the comma-splice, in both dialogue and description. Oh well. It could be worse.
I am going to quote a passage, and the reason is that I found it far, far more romantic and compelling than anything at all in that less-wretched-than-I'd-feared lavender paperback.
This is the first encounter of an unlikely pair who become the book's understated love story. The background is that Heledd decided to flee her arranged marriage in the confusion following the announcement that Danish raiders from Dublin (which was a Danish city for centuries) have been sighted at the coast near Anglessey, coming to involve themselves in a dispute between a powerful Welsh chieftain and his ambitious brother. Cadfael has run off to find Heledd and has just caught up to her where she was hiding in the woods, and has just convinced her to come to safety with him because a Danish raiding-boat is nearby.
I just want to say that I found this scene far more striking and romantic than anything in any of the other books I'd read so far.
Suddenly the tiny open glade was boiling with large, bare-armed, fair-haired, leather-girt men, and out of the thicket facing him erupted an even larger man, a young giant, head and shoulders above Cadfael's sturdy middle height, laughing so loudly that the hitherto silent woods rang and re-echoed with his mirth, and clutching in his arms a raging Heledd, kicking and struggling with all her might, but making small impression. The one hand she had free had already scored its nails down her captor's cheek, and was tugging and tearing in his long flaxen hair, until he turned and stooped his head and took her wrist in his teeth. Large, even, white teeth that had shone as he had laughed, and now barely dented Heledd's smooth skin. It was astonishment, neither fear nor pain, that caused her suddenly to lie still in his arms, crooked fingers gradually unfolding in bewilderment.
p. 120-121.
