It's a man thing...., (I think) Options

[bemused]

This came out of a conversation I had with addreamy last night and I thought I'd post it, to set the ball rolling and see what anyone else thought. Reading this book after HP, the Inkheart books and the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness it struck me that there was a difference (apart from the fact that it's shorter). Seems to me it's a difference in temper and attitude - this book feels like a story built around an idea - brain more than heart. And I reckon that even if I hadn't known I could tell that Heroes of the Valley is written by a man (the others are all by women). I don't mean that in a negative sense, it just seems to me to have a different feel. Any thoughts?

[anguinea]

I agree with what you are saying, bemused, but I am trying to pin down what exactly makes me feel that. I did notice how short and direct the sentences are. Spare. Punchy. Tight.

But...is there more? Maybe it is because Halli is like a dog trying to understand English when it comes to feelings. Growth there is pretty limited, but I attributed that to boyishness, although Stroud's Aud character doesn't do much to challenge him. She is great, don't get me wrong. I love her, but, she's a low-maintenance dream girl! She has lots of good clear insights with no moods or expectations. Great for action-boys like Halli...or perhaps Stroud himself? :D

[bemused]

I think it's something about the emotional side of the book - the characters and the way the author feels about them. Until we meet Aud, Halli seems to me to be the only one he actually likes - perhaps Brodir too - and he gives a tolerant nod in the direction of the funny ones. The others are flat and rather limited. It's a boy's view - which you could compare to HP and the 'Harry-centred' storytelling - but it's the one part of Halli which never changes. He learns a tremendous amount about himself and his world but he doesn't learn that there's any more depth to people than he thought at first.

It's very much a book about an idea - what is heroism

(Also I reckon the business about women taking over as the 'Lawgivers' and the way that plays out is unlikely to have been written that way by a woman!)

[fawkes28]

Yes, I agree, bemused, about it being a guy thing. Jo and Cornelia Funke seem to be able to create these enchanting magical worlds, which really draw the reader in and at times forget that we really live in the real world. With this book, I wasn't as "taken-in". I honestly can't put my finger on it. It reminds of Eragon, which I only was able to read a few chapters.

For me, characters can make or break a novel so I am thinking that maybe it was Halli. While he was a unique character, I never really felt a connection to him. Even by the end of PS/SS, I was rooting for Harry, I connected to him.

Not sure if I am making much sense at all - lol

[cloudpic]

I agree, guys, (off-topic: that is my standard plural form of address even when the audience is entirely or mainly female, why is that??) Stroud has written a book which shines his light on ideas and their consequences more than upon people's hearts. Is that a gender thing? Men do seem to want to find a solution to a problem rather than talk it over, which is sort of the same thing.

I had some of the same trouble which has been mentioned here and in other threads with caring about the characters, particularly Halli. But I've had that trouble with women authors *cough*Austin*cough* (please don't throw things)... and love the characters of some male authors... Tolkien, Heinlein, Dickens, Twain, etc. But I think you have a point here. Men are from Mars etc. isn't entirely off base, is it? It is when Halli began to feel bad about the consequences of violence that he seemed to become a more complete character, no?

There was an analytical feel to the book. Maybe that's it?

Your comment about the sentence style reminded me of Hemingway, anguinea. Although I can admire his writing, I always came away feeling like my mouth was dry.

P.S. to fawkes: I'm thinking you made more sense than I just did!

[addreamy]

interesting observation, cloudpic - about the sentences.

Granted, i haven't read much, if any, hemingway.....but i tend to like that tight, punchy style of writing, and get completely bogged down in too much description. For example - as much as i absolutely adored Tolkein, there were whole stretches, and i do mean pages and pages and pages, of his writing that i simply skipped over as completely too florid.

so i don't know if sentence style is truly a "man" thing, so much as a combination of when the author lived and preference.

interestingly enough - i didn't seem to have any trouble "liking" halli. i am one of the few, i think, that doesn't need to absolutely identify or love a character to accept them as the protagonist and "like" them in the context of the story. the story itself draws me in as much or more than any one individual character. does that mean i would have been friends with him? hmmmm.

i don't know!

as an adult, he would have driven me nuts - but as a fellow child.....i might have been more like aud myself, so there is a good chance i might have befriended him.

the fact that i can consider him that way tells me he was pretty well-written, tho!

("guys" is the generic group slang term i learned growing up - and i have never differentiated it into gender)

[bemused]

I had some of the same trouble which has been mentioned here and in other threads with caring about the characters, particularly Halli. But I've had that trouble with women authors *cough*Austin*cough* (please don't throw things)... and love the characters of some male authors... Tolkien, Heinlein, Dickens, Twain, etc. But I think you have a point here. Men are from Mars etc. isn't entirely off base, is it? It is when Halli began to feel bad about the consequences of violence that he seemed to become a more complete character, no?

Yes - I certainly didn't mean 'I only like books by women' or 'I like books by women better'. Here speaks one who is currently reading Lord of the Rings for perhaps the thirtieth time and will undoubtedly read it again. It's so difficult trying to pick up an idea like this and run with it because it immediately sounds divisive. But sometimes I think there is a difference in the approach to a story and I think I could feel it in this book.

I didn't much care for Halli at first, but my real problem was the other part one characters - his family and others. The way they were written made me want to say 'if you think so little of them, dear author, why should I care what happens to them.' It was the story that kept me going - well, and you lot. I started to like Halli when he gave Snorri his father's knife - acting so completely against his own interests.

[kneazly]

Halli seems so self-involved and selfish at the beginning--much like some real adolescents! However, by the end he puts his life on the line to save his farmstead, and shows real leadership. So there's been a lot of growth. When he gives the knife to Snorri, it seems the illogical thing to do, but it is the first time he shows any concern for others (besides his uncle).

Maybe the reason the writing feels slightly "distanced" is because Stroud seems to be deliberately following patterns of legends and folk tales. It doesn't seem so organic to the book, as the patterns feel in something like Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter--to me, those books follow the patterns not because the author sat down and said, "I'm going to write a book in the pattern of the Hero's Journey," but because that was the pattern that was necessary to the story. (Though I'm sure certainly Tolkein and most probably Rowling were very aware of these patterns.) Heroes of the Valley somehow feels the other way around. Maybe it's just a little clunkier in its use of the patterns. While I like the legends preceding the chapters, I feel forced to make connections between the legends and the story. And I kept feeling that I should be saying in my head--Oh, this bit is like X in a particular fairy tale. Certainly when Halli gives Snorri the knife, I was strongly reminded of all those fairy tales where the hero is later rewarded for a kind action--like the one where the girl gives an old woman a drink at the well and is rewarded later by jewels every time she speaks. And Halli's character seems so based on the "youngest son" tales, where the youngest son, who is disregarded by all, suddenly proves to be cleverer and better than his brothers.

On a slightly different note, I was not convinced the Trows really existed at the end of the book. Could not the first fight in the hills beyond the cairns been with the dead? The noises described seem the same. I think it was left in doubt.

[bemused]

Oh, that's interesting, kneazly. I was expecting to find that the Trows weren't real because that was the directing we seemed to be going. But then at the end, I thought there was a change of direction and they were real, just as Svein was real and had really died defending the Valley. Wasn't there a suggestion that the Trow claw which finished Svein off wasn't as fake as Halli had assumed.

I think you're right, though, that the first fight was with the dead and not the Trows.

[kneazly]

It was Halli who wondered whether the Trow claw was real after all--and I think it could have been, but it was never definitively stated. I just wondered whether in the scheme of the legends the Trows were simply an ancient enemy that had been defeated, rather than a malevolent species. The bones that Halli and Aud found seemed human, and they leaped to the assumption that this was a Trow cave and these were unfortunate victims. But the cave could have been a residence for humans, or even an ancient burial place.

[mlwl]

Hey all!
I've been thinking this over a while... I feel like part of it may be the "manly" thing, but I also feel like both Paolini & Stroud were trying hard to mimic the fantasy-adventure style that was popular in the first half of the last century. Those two are very similar, but it's also why I thought I hated fantasy for 2/3 of my life... The Black Cauldron is VERY much this way. When I read it, I felt very much like there was no character development - they talked for a few pages, and nothing got resolved, and then OMG AN OGRE. Thank goodness this one wasn't anywhere near that bad, but it was fairly similar to another "standard" - The Once and Future King. Again, there is more focus on the brain & the action than on the relationships there. Of course, that was a very male-dominated arm of the genre, too, so... yeah. Full circle. XD