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goblin emperor
Mar. 22nd, 2019 02:54 pmvia https://ift.tt/2Wg8rIY
argh i have been trying to get the time to write up a proper reaction post to it for like a week now but i have not had the time and i’ll have to return the book to the library soon.
I had to read it twice, the first time just– my normal way of reading to get through, I can’t slow down it’s just not how I do, but there were a few scenes that were definitely marred by me being like “ok I have no idea who that character is so this would be really really Meaningful right now if I had any idea whomst the fuck is speaking”, so then I sat down with a piece of notepaper and cross-referenced with the glossary in the back and figured out who everyone was, exactly as I did not have the patience to do with War and Peace which is why I didn’t finish that book, and actually mostly I could read the book without referring to the glossary after I wrote the names down on the bookmark, it’s just that people have first and last names and the titles are confusing if you don’t understand that there are formal Mr and Mrs-style titles for different levels of people so that weird name you’ve seen before is actually just the word “Mister” and it’s not often apparent why there’s a difference but I mean
*jazz hands* worldbuilding
(I endorse this)
but of course what’s really phenomenal about the book, which nobody had explained to me going in, is that it’s the story of how the protagonist, a badly abused young man with a deeply ingrained internal sense of morality, holds up under suddenly becoming the Emperor of a nation, both in the large things– no one takes him seriously– and in the small things– the Emperor is expected to begin conversations but he spent his childhood and adolescence being beaten for speaking too much– and it’s beautifully and often-indirectly described in a myriad of tiny details as well as the large sweeping events. Definitely pings all my deep-seated unreliable-narrator kinks efficiently (!!! the scene where he tells off his cousin’s wife, and the bodyguard he thinks hates him is making small noises behind him and he thinks the man disapproves and it’s really the sound of the guard’s soul leaving his body at the thought that anyone would harm this child who he very! clearly! cares for! and who doesn’t understand that. !!! I cried, reading it.)
So, wholehearted rec, but no time to make like, a deep response to it, alas, which I’d love to. Some other time, perhaps; I’ll doubtless return to this book sometime in the future.
It was a lovely consolation for it still being winter to read a book set in winter, at least; more atmospheric, anyway.
If you haven’t read it, protip: the glossary and list of characters is in the back, make yourself a little bookmark with the forms of address on it, and if you get confused write down the characters’ first and last names, because sometimes they’re referred to suddenly as the other one and you just have to keep up. It’s clearly part of the story but it’d probably flow better if you just went into it prepared for that.
Someone saw me reading and taking notes and was like what are you doing and i would not bother with that and I looked up and was like the more fool you.
(Your picture was not posted)
argh i have been trying to get the time to write up a proper reaction post to it for like a week now but i have not had the time and i’ll have to return the book to the library soon.
I had to read it twice, the first time just– my normal way of reading to get through, I can’t slow down it’s just not how I do, but there were a few scenes that were definitely marred by me being like “ok I have no idea who that character is so this would be really really Meaningful right now if I had any idea whomst the fuck is speaking”, so then I sat down with a piece of notepaper and cross-referenced with the glossary in the back and figured out who everyone was, exactly as I did not have the patience to do with War and Peace which is why I didn’t finish that book, and actually mostly I could read the book without referring to the glossary after I wrote the names down on the bookmark, it’s just that people have first and last names and the titles are confusing if you don’t understand that there are formal Mr and Mrs-style titles for different levels of people so that weird name you’ve seen before is actually just the word “Mister” and it’s not often apparent why there’s a difference but I mean
*jazz hands* worldbuilding
(I endorse this)
but of course what’s really phenomenal about the book, which nobody had explained to me going in, is that it’s the story of how the protagonist, a badly abused young man with a deeply ingrained internal sense of morality, holds up under suddenly becoming the Emperor of a nation, both in the large things– no one takes him seriously– and in the small things– the Emperor is expected to begin conversations but he spent his childhood and adolescence being beaten for speaking too much– and it’s beautifully and often-indirectly described in a myriad of tiny details as well as the large sweeping events. Definitely pings all my deep-seated unreliable-narrator kinks efficiently (!!! the scene where he tells off his cousin’s wife, and the bodyguard he thinks hates him is making small noises behind him and he thinks the man disapproves and it’s really the sound of the guard’s soul leaving his body at the thought that anyone would harm this child who he very! clearly! cares for! and who doesn’t understand that. !!! I cried, reading it.)
So, wholehearted rec, but no time to make like, a deep response to it, alas, which I’d love to. Some other time, perhaps; I’ll doubtless return to this book sometime in the future.
It was a lovely consolation for it still being winter to read a book set in winter, at least; more atmospheric, anyway.
If you haven’t read it, protip: the glossary and list of characters is in the back, make yourself a little bookmark with the forms of address on it, and if you get confused write down the characters’ first and last names, because sometimes they’re referred to suddenly as the other one and you just have to keep up. It’s clearly part of the story but it’d probably flow better if you just went into it prepared for that.
Someone saw me reading and taking notes and was like what are you doing and i would not bother with that and I looked up and was like the more fool you.
(Your picture was not posted)
