The Beekeeper's Appprentice
Apr. 25th, 2008 01:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annundrielLast night I finished reading Laurie R. King's The Beekeeper's Apprentice. While I found it engaging enough, I don't think I'll be pursuing this particular series. Unfortunately, I had several issues with it that I don't think would be resolved by continuing.
If the problems I had with this book lay more with the plot, I think I could give the next one a go. However, my main issue here was with the characters. The "hook" for the story is that it's an original character who meets and becomes partners with Sherlock Holmes. Considering I've read mysteries where Jane Austen is the protagonist you'd think this would be right up my alley. Believe me, I thought it would be. But then I got into it and realized that it wasn't. Now, I don't know if that means that sort of thing is just not for me anymore or if it's just this particular series.
The main character is Mary Russell. When she's first introduced, she is fifteen years old and she stumbles upon the much older, retired Sherlock Holmes. I've been struggling with this age difference thing. I mean generally the difference in age between two characters that could possibly become romantically involved doesn't bother me. But here it does. Why? Because it's Sherlock Holmes? Probably. Were the characters all original, I probably wouldn't have the same issues here. I'd probably shrug off the gap in their years.
And I'd be fine if they were just partners, teacher and student, but I've looked some things up and apparently their relationship changes to something, as I mentioned above, of a more romantic kind. So I'm left here wondering, "What's the point of making the age difference so large?" and "Why fifteen?" Though Mary does age several years in the first couple of chapters or so.
But this all leads to my ultimate problem with the book. The age difference, the nature of Mary Russell, all makes it feel like wish fulfillment or fantasy on the author's part. Even the first person perspective adds to this feeling for me. As well as the outside framework of the story in which the author is mysteriously sent this manuscript that she turns into The Beekeeper's Apprentice.
What really doesn't help is that I feel like Mary reads as a bit of a Mary Sue. She's young but practically as clever as Holmes; she has a tragic past; she's a bit of a tomboy with long blonde hair and glasses; she's drawn in, with very little effort, to Holmes' home and "family." Were this not Sherlock Holmes I would probably feel differently about the brilliance of the wholly original character, but as this is its own form of fanfiction, I can't help but be a little bothered by it.
I was talking to Natasha about it last week and decided that it felt like the author had grown up reading Conan Doyle and wanted to do some idealized self-insertion because of her own love for Holmes.
And, okay, maybe this isn't what she's doing, but it bothered me and I couldn't stop thinking about it while I was reading.
I also thought the overall structure was a bit off. The momentum of the plot never built for me, and I felt like the narrative relied a lot on telling, not showing. Which, given that books aren't a visual medium in the way that television is, can be understandable. But there's a difference between letting the action happen and telling the reader that action has happened.
So there. This is sort of a strange experience for me, reading a book for pleasure and being intensely dissatisfied with it. It wasn't a bad book. I just found it lacking.
If the problems I had with this book lay more with the plot, I think I could give the next one a go. However, my main issue here was with the characters. The "hook" for the story is that it's an original character who meets and becomes partners with Sherlock Holmes. Considering I've read mysteries where Jane Austen is the protagonist you'd think this would be right up my alley. Believe me, I thought it would be. But then I got into it and realized that it wasn't. Now, I don't know if that means that sort of thing is just not for me anymore or if it's just this particular series.
The main character is Mary Russell. When she's first introduced, she is fifteen years old and she stumbles upon the much older, retired Sherlock Holmes. I've been struggling with this age difference thing. I mean generally the difference in age between two characters that could possibly become romantically involved doesn't bother me. But here it does. Why? Because it's Sherlock Holmes? Probably. Were the characters all original, I probably wouldn't have the same issues here. I'd probably shrug off the gap in their years.
And I'd be fine if they were just partners, teacher and student, but I've looked some things up and apparently their relationship changes to something, as I mentioned above, of a more romantic kind. So I'm left here wondering, "What's the point of making the age difference so large?" and "Why fifteen?" Though Mary does age several years in the first couple of chapters or so.
But this all leads to my ultimate problem with the book. The age difference, the nature of Mary Russell, all makes it feel like wish fulfillment or fantasy on the author's part. Even the first person perspective adds to this feeling for me. As well as the outside framework of the story in which the author is mysteriously sent this manuscript that she turns into The Beekeeper's Apprentice.
What really doesn't help is that I feel like Mary reads as a bit of a Mary Sue. She's young but practically as clever as Holmes; she has a tragic past; she's a bit of a tomboy with long blonde hair and glasses; she's drawn in, with very little effort, to Holmes' home and "family." Were this not Sherlock Holmes I would probably feel differently about the brilliance of the wholly original character, but as this is its own form of fanfiction, I can't help but be a little bothered by it.
I was talking to Natasha about it last week and decided that it felt like the author had grown up reading Conan Doyle and wanted to do some idealized self-insertion because of her own love for Holmes.
And, okay, maybe this isn't what she's doing, but it bothered me and I couldn't stop thinking about it while I was reading.
I also thought the overall structure was a bit off. The momentum of the plot never built for me, and I felt like the narrative relied a lot on telling, not showing. Which, given that books aren't a visual medium in the way that television is, can be understandable. But there's a difference between letting the action happen and telling the reader that action has happened.
So there. This is sort of a strange experience for me, reading a book for pleasure and being intensely dissatisfied with it. It wasn't a bad book. I just found it lacking.
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-26 12:57 am (UTC)I'm also fully aware that I have much lower standards of literature than a lot of people. Pretty much, so long as there's an interesting enough story in there somewhere, I'm happy. I have shelves full of romance novels to prove it.
♥
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-26 06:38 am (UTC)it was a lot of words that weren't dialog or action
Hmm, yes. I think that's what I was trying to get at when I said that it relied a lot on telling, not showing. For me it was this weird sort of non-action narrative. I dunno.
Maybe part of what makes me ok with the series is that I've never read any of the actual Sherlock Holmes novels.
See, I've never read anything by Conan Doyle either! I have a children's copy of Hound of the Baskervilles that I maybe read a chapter or two out of once and a complete collection that I've never touched. I've read other stories that explore Holmes from an outside perspective, but nothing that actually allows me to judge other people's views on his character.
OT, when I first saw your icon I thought Charlie Brown was trying to snuggle up to Linus. And then read over his shoulder. Oh, and now I've just plugged them into that scene in P&P where Darcy is reading and Caroline picks up a book and wanders around trying to be casual and get all up in his space at the same time.