I suspect that my dissatisfaction with Charles de Lint’s Widdershins will not be shared with many of my Gentle Readers. It is, I think, the sort of thing referred to as Hard Fantasy, which should certainly not be a strike against it. And the emphasis on character development should also be a plus for many people. I don’t mind a little bit of character development, but having at least six and I think perhaps eight characters have epiphanic growth experiences in one book was a bit much.
Also, it had one of the things that really gets up Your Humble Blogger’s nose: after the Big Conversation wherein Protagonist is told by Advisor that she (or he, of course, but Protagonist, anyway) is just unable to face Subject Matter because of Unresolved Character Issue, Protagonist goes home and muses. Perhaps Advisor is right about Unresolved Character Issue, muses Protagonist whilst preparing a lonely supper. Perhaps I should address Subject Matter head-on. But then, Character Issue is Unresolved. Protagonist pours a single glass of chardonnay. No, maybe Subject Matter is important, but I don’t have to deal with it now.
And meanwhile, I’m thinking “Excuse me? Reader here. I was, in fact, present during the previous conversation. I didn’t skip ahead. I promise. And if I had skipped ahead, which I didn’t, I would skip ahead to a scene where something was actually occurring, not another scene discussing the same thing I skipped the last scene. And while I’m at it, I should probably mention that I am trying, here, to maintain a pleasant fiction—purely for my own enjoyment—that when Protagonist is forced by the demands of the plot to address Subject Matter, and in doing so Resolve Character Issue, that the demand does in fact emerge from the narrative, rather than as an imposition by the cold hand of the author. And you’re not helping. I mean, even if you handle the actual scene with subtlety and grace later in the book, it’s too late, innit? I mean, you’ve just fucking announced—twice, mind you, twice—that this is not a book about Protagonist battling Antagonist to achieve Goal, no, it’s about Protagonist Resolving Character Issue. A bit hard for me to care about Antagonist and Goal, then. I mean, there’s four hundred pages of Antagonist and Goal, and all the time, I’m going to be thinking she’ll have to face Subject Matter soon, eh? And then that’ll be Character Issue resolved and the book can go back to the library.
Sources of Reader Pleasure, of course. Your Humble Blogger finds it a lot easier to suspend disbelief in bogans and animal spirits than to suspend consciousness of authorial intent. I want them to sneak that stuff in when I’m not looking, so the Character Development comes as a nice bonus to the plot payoff, rather than the other way around.
chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.