It Should Be Better Than This
Feb. 12th, 2007 10:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shipperxEver read something and think that it should be better than it is?
Okay, so maybe 'read' is a stretch, it's more like listening to an audio book.
To explain: when things become hectic at work and it's 'put your head down and DRAW!' mode, many of us pull out audio books.*
Anyway, I'm snowed under at work (and still having to work nights on my sister's "God I hate this so much!" house) so I've pulled out the audiobooks. The book I've been listening to is "Homebody" by Orson Scott Card.
My brief review of the book can be summed up by reading the first line of this post. I'm frustrated because the book had the potential to be better than it is. I mean, there is an interesting premise (at least to me). A contractor buys an old house in order to restore and flip it, only he discovers that the house is both alive and haunted (these two things are connected). I give props to the fact that the reasoning is in fact quite metaphorical in a Buffyverse "demons represent issues" way. The reasoning behind the haunting is that the house takes possession of people seeking refuge, solace, or a home. Also, it's anot particularly subtle metaphor for people who become stuck in their lives because of grief or guilt. This all has potential for a complex haunted house story. Unfortunately, this good premise turns into a not so good book
The hero -- while all things honorable -- isn't particularly approachable or endearing. There's no reason for this. He never does anything wrong and he has a sympathetic back story due to his alcoholic ex-wife dying in a car wreck that also killed his daughter. He seems like a prime candidate for one of the people who become caught by the house... only he's never caught. He's never even tempted to be caught, and his not being caught is one of the many opportunities in the story which are never taken. He continues to mention being stuck in his life but the writer never plays out the metaphor with the hero. Why? It might have helped the story.
Secondly, I became frustrated with the way that the hero falls in love (more than once, apparently, though I would have only termed the first lust if the character himself hadn't termed it "love" later in the book. The first woman he falls for... I still maintain that he didn't fall for at all. She's the real estate agent who sells him the haunted house to begin with. She has a dark past in that she had experienced post-partum depression, nearly killed her daughter, and thus left her husband and child. So... if the metaphysical principles of the house is to capture people who are stuck in their lives (particularly due to guilt and grief) why is she not stuck in the house as well? In fact, given the way her story doesn't play out, why is she included in the story at all. The only thing I can come up with is some comparative analysis where when the hero describes Woman #1's house he discusses how it's a designer showcase that remains untouched, is empty of life, etc. I see how that could tie in, but considering the fact that after the hero discover Woman #1's tale of woe, he dumps her flat and doesn't see her again, it's not a strong connection. Honestly, if sort of feels like someone's fanfiction WIP where they start on a story, reach mid-way, change their mind and head in a different direction. And, in fact, at this juncture, the hero does in fact to an entirely different direction. To be specific, he moves on to Woman #2. . .
Or maybe I should just refer to her as a ghost. Now, when reading Woman's #2 appearance in the house the first night he sleeps there set off all kinds of "Dude! She's a ghost!" bells in my head. But, I admit the writer lulled those suspcions away when the Plumber, the Electrician, and the Cable Guy all three met her and didn't behave strangely about it either. Plus, she drank a Coke that hero bought her and ate pizza. So, while I suspected that Woman #2 who was introduced as a homeless squatter was in fact a ghost, I was slowly convinced otherwise until the writer later had the story reveal that she was in fact a ghost.
And, I'll say that the writer handled this particular revelation fairly well. The hero wants to know what caused the woman to become a homeless squatter, and Woman #2 tells the tale about how this particular house had been split up into apartments in the 1980s. She and her roomate had lived there during college. There was a confrontation between the roomates over cheating issues and in a fit of rage and argument, the woman killed her roomate. Unable to cope with that guilt, she just... never moved on. The hero insists that she's wrong. She couldn't have killed anyone. The woman insists that she knows good and damn well what she did. She blocked up the tunnel in the basement where she killed the girl. The body would still be there. So they trek down to the basement and the hidden room to prove to the hero that she had accidentally killed her roomate, and -- to the hero's dismay -- they do in fact discover a woman's body. To the heroine/ghost's dismay, she realizes that it isn't her roomates body, but her own. To cope with her own death she had rewritten events in her head. It had actually been a case of her roomate killing her.
And here is where I wonder how in the hell I'm supposed to look at the hero's love for this heroine. I gather from the rest of the story that I'm supposed to think theirs is a true love, only... yeah... I think he's screwed up as all hell. He didn't exactly fall for the ghost on sight. In fact, he didn't even like her (and not in a bicker/banter/I hate you because I want to screw you way. He just didn't care for her. Thought she was passive (which she was) and somewhat dull. In his head, he also compares her to his daughter, or at least who his daughter could have been if she had ever grown up. And, finally, he never fell in love with the heroine/ghost until he found out that she was a ghost! Really, until the point she confessed to having murdered her roomate, he had barely tolerated her, and by the end of the chapter when he discovered that she was in fact the ghost of a murdered woman, he fell head over heels in love with her. What the huh?!
Anyway, because she was lonely (an orphan) haunted by guilt (for a murder she didn't commit) she was trapped in the house for the next 20 years. But here's where the metaphysics/metaphors get weird. Why just her? If it was just a matter of her having been murdered there and that's why she became a ghost, I could understand it. But they screw with that interpretation by also having three little old ladies also trapped by the house... only they weren't murdered. They weren't even dead. And... they weren't in the house either. They were trapped by the house, but had moved into the old carriage house because apparently one of them was a witch and had power enough to pull them that for... only... uh... what was the point of that?
I mean, truthfully, though I think reader was to conclude that the house was malevolent, other than holding onto people it never did anything malevolent. It just... was. And the ghost never considered it to be malevolent even when she realized that she was a ghost, she admits that she'd been content in the house. So, if the old ladies were trapped either way, what was the advantage of being trapped in the carriage house? Why move there?
And it seemed the metaphysics were whatever suited the author because in the story, the house "became alive" because it was unique, constructed out of love and filled by love. So, my question was, why was it then malevolent? The explanation was that bad men had lived there (running a whore house and a speak-easy in the 1920s. The old ladies were in fact ex-ladies of the night). They say that the "bad men" twisted the soul of the house. But they later say that the ghost "took the edge" off the evil because she had been living there 20 years and was a good person... my question then was, if the old ladies were also good, why not live in thenot so evil house so that their good souls could rehabilitate the house? Huh? Again what was the difference living in the house or the carriage house. Stuck was stuck either way.
And then there was the fact that by the flipper rehabilitating the house, he was making it stronger... turned out that the stronger he made it, the more "alive" he made the ghost (who he was conveniently in love with). . .which, again, would have worked had it been a case of the house using the ghost to take hold of him... but, no. Apparently, it was just making the ghost more alive. Oh, and it was killing the old ladies.
What?! It was really brought into the story that abruptly (again making the book seem like an unplotted WIP). The old ladies had begged from the start that he not renovate the house but tear it down. But, when the hero said he'd sunk his money in it and was planning to rehabilitate the house, they still fed him soup, and made him cookies... that is until SUDDENLY they hated him and said he was killing them. It was that abrupt. They were so pissed off that he hadn't listened to him. Well?! I must have missed the point where any of them had told the man that his renovating the house would kill them. What did they expect? Seriously, I swear this thing was plotted like a WIP someone was making up on the spot.
And thematically, why was the house KILLING them? Because they were stuck? They had apparently been stuck for 80 years! Why was it just now killing them. And... uh... considering that it had been holding them for 80 years, and considering it had been holding them since their days of prostitution, and considering that one of them had been married before she became a prostitute, even if I'm pushing it so that they were child prostitutes of 13, that made the old ladies NINETY-THREE YEARS OLD! How did they know it was the house killing them instead of... you know... old age?
The dilemma became that if he completed the renovation he might save the ghost but he'd kill the little old ladies. And, I couldn't help the terrible thought of the fact the old ladies were in their ninties. I didn't see why not one of themnever suggested that they'd lived long lives and the poor ghost had been killed as an ingenue-twenty-three year old who had never been allowed a life.
It all worked out in the end with the ghost taking over the body of the woman who had murdered her in 1987, and then they'd torn down the 100 year old house. It was all supposed to be a happy ending.
Except I, as a reader/listener, wasn't happy. I wanted the supernatural metaphysics to make sense. If you establish rules in your fictional universe I want them adhered to, not so clearly malleable that they're adjusted on whims to whatever situation that pops up just to serve the story. I'm not asking that the writer be inflexible. Things can adapt, but in a novel where he has all the material at hand, the author could have reworked the novel so that the rules were more consistent. While he was at it, he could have removed the superfluous plot with the real estate agent. Really, professional novels shouldn't read like written-on-the-fly WIPS. I can forgive a WIP whose plot suddenly turns left into an entirely different story, but professional novels are supposed to have editors!
And the truly frustrating thing is that there was an interesting idea here. This could have been a better novel. The idea behind the haunted house story was good, and in establishing that the author had done something interesting. Then the author didn't bother to follow the metaphor to see where it took him. Instead, he followed a fairly predictable plot (except for the total WTF? moments) It's frustrating because this book could have been so, so much better. I think those are the most annoying books to read. It's not quite bad enough to throw across the room, but it's not good enough to actually enjoy either.
Sigh.
I will keep in mind his rules for a haunted house, though. I might actually turn it into a WIP one day.
* I'm not sure why it's entirely possible to listen and draw at the same time (and utterly impossible to listen and even read an e-mail), but I suspect that it has to do with different sides of the brain.
Okay, so maybe 'read' is a stretch, it's more like listening to an audio book.
To explain: when things become hectic at work and it's 'put your head down and DRAW!' mode, many of us pull out audio books.*
Anyway, I'm snowed under at work (and still having to work nights on my sister's "God I hate this so much!" house) so I've pulled out the audiobooks. The book I've been listening to is "Homebody" by Orson Scott Card.
My brief review of the book can be summed up by reading the first line of this post. I'm frustrated because the book had the potential to be better than it is. I mean, there is an interesting premise (at least to me). A contractor buys an old house in order to restore and flip it, only he discovers that the house is both alive and haunted (these two things are connected). I give props to the fact that the reasoning is in fact quite metaphorical in a Buffyverse "demons represent issues" way. The reasoning behind the haunting is that the house takes possession of people seeking refuge, solace, or a home. Also, it's a
The hero -- while all things honorable -- isn't particularly approachable or endearing. There's no reason for this. He never does anything wrong and he has a sympathetic back story due to his alcoholic ex-wife dying in a car wreck that also killed his daughter. He seems like a prime candidate for one of the people who become caught by the house... only he's never caught. He's never even tempted to be caught, and his not being caught is one of the many opportunities in the story which are never taken. He continues to mention being stuck in his life but the writer never plays out the metaphor with the hero. Why? It might have helped the story.
Secondly, I became frustrated with the way that the hero falls in love (more than once, apparently, though I would have only termed the first lust if the character himself hadn't termed it "love" later in the book. The first woman he falls for... I still maintain that he didn't fall for at all. She's the real estate agent who sells him the haunted house to begin with. She has a dark past in that she had experienced post-partum depression, nearly killed her daughter, and thus left her husband and child. So... if the metaphysical principles of the house is to capture people who are stuck in their lives (particularly due to guilt and grief) why is she not stuck in the house as well? In fact, given the way her story doesn't play out, why is she included in the story at all. The only thing I can come up with is some comparative analysis where when the hero describes Woman #1's house he discusses how it's a designer showcase that remains untouched, is empty of life, etc. I see how that could tie in, but considering the fact that after the hero discover Woman #1's tale of woe, he dumps her flat and doesn't see her again, it's not a strong connection. Honestly, if sort of feels like someone's fanfiction WIP where they start on a story, reach mid-way, change their mind and head in a different direction. And, in fact, at this juncture, the hero does in fact to an entirely different direction. To be specific, he moves on to Woman #2. . .
Or maybe I should just refer to her as a ghost. Now, when reading Woman's #2 appearance in the house the first night he sleeps there set off all kinds of "Dude! She's a ghost!" bells in my head. But, I admit the writer lulled those suspcions away when the Plumber, the Electrician, and the Cable Guy all three met her and didn't behave strangely about it either. Plus, she drank a Coke that hero bought her and ate pizza. So, while I suspected that Woman #2 who was introduced as a homeless squatter was in fact a ghost, I was slowly convinced otherwise until the writer later had the story reveal that she was in fact a ghost.
And, I'll say that the writer handled this particular revelation fairly well. The hero wants to know what caused the woman to become a homeless squatter, and Woman #2 tells the tale about how this particular house had been split up into apartments in the 1980s. She and her roomate had lived there during college. There was a confrontation between the roomates over cheating issues and in a fit of rage and argument, the woman killed her roomate. Unable to cope with that guilt, she just... never moved on. The hero insists that she's wrong. She couldn't have killed anyone. The woman insists that she knows good and damn well what she did. She blocked up the tunnel in the basement where she killed the girl. The body would still be there. So they trek down to the basement and the hidden room to prove to the hero that she had accidentally killed her roomate, and -- to the hero's dismay -- they do in fact discover a woman's body. To the heroine/ghost's dismay, she realizes that it isn't her roomates body, but her own. To cope with her own death she had rewritten events in her head. It had actually been a case of her roomate killing her.
And here is where I wonder how in the hell I'm supposed to look at the hero's love for this heroine. I gather from the rest of the story that I'm supposed to think theirs is a true love, only... yeah... I think he's screwed up as all hell. He didn't exactly fall for the ghost on sight. In fact, he didn't even like her (and not in a bicker/banter/I hate you because I want to screw you way. He just didn't care for her. Thought she was passive (which she was) and somewhat dull. In his head, he also compares her to his daughter, or at least who his daughter could have been if she had ever grown up. And, finally, he never fell in love with the heroine/ghost until he found out that she was a ghost! Really, until the point she confessed to having murdered her roomate, he had barely tolerated her, and by the end of the chapter when he discovered that she was in fact the ghost of a murdered woman, he fell head over heels in love with her. What the huh?!
Anyway, because she was lonely (an orphan) haunted by guilt (for a murder she didn't commit) she was trapped in the house for the next 20 years. But here's where the metaphysics/metaphors get weird. Why just her? If it was just a matter of her having been murdered there and that's why she became a ghost, I could understand it. But they screw with that interpretation by also having three little old ladies also trapped by the house... only they weren't murdered. They weren't even dead. And... they weren't in the house either. They were trapped by the house, but had moved into the old carriage house because apparently one of them was a witch and had power enough to pull them that for... only... uh... what was the point of that?
I mean, truthfully, though I think reader was to conclude that the house was malevolent, other than holding onto people it never did anything malevolent. It just... was. And the ghost never considered it to be malevolent even when she realized that she was a ghost, she admits that she'd been content in the house. So, if the old ladies were trapped either way, what was the advantage of being trapped in the carriage house? Why move there?
And it seemed the metaphysics were whatever suited the author because in the story, the house "became alive" because it was unique, constructed out of love and filled by love. So, my question was, why was it then malevolent? The explanation was that bad men had lived there (running a whore house and a speak-easy in the 1920s. The old ladies were in fact ex-ladies of the night). They say that the "bad men" twisted the soul of the house. But they later say that the ghost "took the edge" off the evil because she had been living there 20 years and was a good person... my question then was, if the old ladies were also good, why not live in the
And then there was the fact that by the flipper rehabilitating the house, he was making it stronger... turned out that the stronger he made it, the more "alive" he made the ghost (who he was conveniently in love with). . .which, again, would have worked had it been a case of the house using the ghost to take hold of him... but, no. Apparently, it was just making the ghost more alive. Oh, and it was killing the old ladies.
What?! It was really brought into the story that abruptly (again making the book seem like an unplotted WIP). The old ladies had begged from the start that he not renovate the house but tear it down. But, when the hero said he'd sunk his money in it and was planning to rehabilitate the house, they still fed him soup, and made him cookies... that is until SUDDENLY they hated him and said he was killing them. It was that abrupt. They were so pissed off that he hadn't listened to him. Well?! I must have missed the point where any of them had told the man that his renovating the house would kill them. What did they expect? Seriously, I swear this thing was plotted like a WIP someone was making up on the spot.
And thematically, why was the house KILLING them? Because they were stuck? They had apparently been stuck for 80 years! Why was it just now killing them. And... uh... considering that it had been holding them for 80 years, and considering it had been holding them since their days of prostitution, and considering that one of them had been married before she became a prostitute, even if I'm pushing it so that they were child prostitutes of 13, that made the old ladies NINETY-THREE YEARS OLD! How did they know it was the house killing them instead of... you know... old age?
The dilemma became that if he completed the renovation he might save the ghost but he'd kill the little old ladies. And, I couldn't help the terrible thought of the fact the old ladies were in their ninties. I didn't see why not one of themnever suggested that they'd lived long lives and the poor ghost had been killed as an ingenue-twenty-three year old who had never been allowed a life.
It all worked out in the end with the ghost taking over the body of the woman who had murdered her in 1987, and then they'd torn down the 100 year old house. It was all supposed to be a happy ending.
Except I, as a reader/listener, wasn't happy. I wanted the supernatural metaphysics to make sense. If you establish rules in your fictional universe I want them adhered to, not so clearly malleable that they're adjusted on whims to whatever situation that pops up just to serve the story. I'm not asking that the writer be inflexible. Things can adapt, but in a novel where he has all the material at hand, the author could have reworked the novel so that the rules were more consistent. While he was at it, he could have removed the superfluous plot with the real estate agent. Really, professional novels shouldn't read like written-on-the-fly WIPS. I can forgive a WIP whose plot suddenly turns left into an entirely different story, but professional novels are supposed to have editors!
And the truly frustrating thing is that there was an interesting idea here. This could have been a better novel. The idea behind the haunted house story was good, and in establishing that the author had done something interesting. Then the author didn't bother to follow the metaphor to see where it took him. Instead, he followed a fairly predictable plot (except for the total WTF? moments) It's frustrating because this book could have been so, so much better. I think those are the most annoying books to read. It's not quite bad enough to throw across the room, but it's not good enough to actually enjoy either.
Sigh.
I will keep in mind his rules for a haunted house, though. I might actually turn it into a WIP one day.
* I'm not sure why it's entirely possible to listen and draw at the same time (and utterly impossible to listen and even read an e-mail), but I suspect that it has to do with different sides of the brain.
