Gwyneth Jones is Brilliant, Part II

[ursula]

Recs for greythistle, and the rest of the world.

Gwyneth Jones is a good writer, but she can be artsy to the point of completely obscuring her plots. I've read all her adult novels you can get in the States, I think, and some that you can't always; I haven't read the YA Ann Hallam stuff, though I've thought about it once or twice.

Divine Endurance is among my favorites. It's set in a post-apocalyptic Indonesia, and is in some sense a fable about the dangers of gaining one's heart's desire.

Flowerdust is a sequel to Divine Endurance; it takes place simultaneously with the action of Divine Endurance, and though in some ways it's easier to follow (it's about a drug scandal, and a rebellious love between two young people of different sexes), I don't think it would stand on its own.

The White Queen series has as general theme, "Aliens show up and civilization degenerates." I read these as they came out, which means early high school for the earlier books, and found them very confusing; a more sophisticated reader might enjoy them more, but I suspect they still function best as essays, rather than as novels. In particular, the last book revolves around a character who is an alien reborn in a human body, who therefore doesn't understand either humans *or* aliens, and the grand denouement comes as an utter surprise to her, and thus to the reader, which I found frustrating.

Bold as Love and its sequel are difficult to find in the US, though Bold as Love won the Arthur C. Clarke award a while back (ironic, given my feelings about Clarke); apparently the publisher is causing problems. These are about rock stars taking over Britain, and are near-enough future to be accessible. I don't know why these aren't stunningly popular: they're simultaneously beautiful and grim, and also darkly funny, in a way that puts Gibson to shame. Babbling about the second book is in a previous entry.

Comments

Gwyneth Jones

[threeoranges.livejournal.com]

These are about rock stars taking over Britain, and are near-enough future to be accessible. I don't know why these aren't stunningly popular: they're simultaneously beautiful and grim, and also darkly funny, in a way that puts Gibson to shame.

I came across you via ajhalluk's reinstated LJ, before you wonder where this complete stranger sprang from :-)

I'm writing because I believe I can answer this question. I first discovered Jones's work as a result of a Bryan Talbot/Gwyneth Jones book signing at the Forbidden Planet store on Oxford Street, London in July 2002. I'd gone along purely because of my love for Talbot's graphic novel THE TALE OF ONE BAD RAT, and expected to have to join a queue of similarly ravenous fans to speak to him. Imagine my surprise, then, to discover that I was all alone in front of the table containing Mr Talbot and Ms Jones. After Mr T had signed three copies of RAT Ms Jones was still sitting there observing, and I felt so bad about her being neglected that I picked up a copy of BOLD AS LOVE, did the old "hey this looks interesting, I think I'll give it a go" spiel that fools no-one, and got both her and Mr T (frontispiece artist) to sign it. Didn't get round to reading it until six months later, from whence I came to understand why Ms Jones had said there was a film option on the second book, but not the first.

It's because the premise is so bleedin' unbelievable. No, really, it is. Rock star wipes out UK politicans in a hail of bullets and it automatically becomes a coup d'etat a la South America? Thousands of ministers, political assistants, ambassadors of democracy sit on their hands and do nothing whilst a bunch of ROCK STARS easily take control of the country? Furthermore, I have to wonder what sort of chemicals Jones was on to think that government by rock stars was a good idea, let alone a credible one. Prime Minister Jagger? Oh please.

And what do these rock stars do once they've taken control? Greet each other with annoying formulae (like "Hi, rockstar!" "Hi, other rockstar!"), indulge in wangsty three-way sex and hold concerts to "unite the nation" in which Jones can describe her Mary Sue Fiorinda's "set" in miniscule detail. ("She drove them wild with her red corkscrew ringlets, her flower-frail body, her queen-like bearing," etc. etc. etc. Oh please.)

Yes, Fiorinda is a Mary Sue. She's stunningly beautiful, far too young for her level of brain power, has Important Parent, bucketloads of charisma, early trauma, a "suck it bitch!" attitude and damn if she isn't actually revealed to be magic as well! Oh, and she has two gorgeous men drooling over her and practically fighting each other to be first in her affections. ("Well, Fi, we're not actually gay, but we'll try to be gay if it means we can all live together in one big cosy threesome." Oh DEAR.)

My husband asked, upon reading the back cover, whether this wasn't a parody; he thought it must have been a comic alternative universe in which whacked-out druggy rock royalty were unexpectedly assigned to the chambers of office and had to cope with bureaucracy. How then was I to explain to him that Jones' alternative universe was deadly serious, and she truly did believe that a bunch of spoiled selfish brats would do a far better job of running the country than politically-educated students, party activists, people who've actually thought about the problems of government? (Not that I'm in favour of the present govt, but at least they have some idea of social problems. Even if they then blatantly ignore them.)

The true tragedy is that Jones's prose at its best is incandescent. She truly catches fire when writing about rockstars and their posturing. Had she kept this as a saga of rock people in their own little world I would be praising it to everyone I know. But... Anyway, that's my take on why it's never likely to be popular: I consider myself an omnivore reader but I simply couldn't swallow this. I do agree her prose is excellent: if she can find a less ludicrous premise she deserves success.

Re: Gwyneth Jones

[ursula]

The difference between our reactions seems to be based on whether or not we think Jones has a sense of humour: I don't believe she is deadly serious. I think she's writing satire.

I agree that Fiorinda edges Mary Sue-dom, though I don't think she's too smart, just too pretty. I also found the threesome a rather refreshing substitute to the ordinary love triangle. I've definitely known people who would try that solution, though of course one expects a messy outcome.

Re: Gwyneth Jones

[threeoranges.livejournal.com]

If Jones is writing satire... Satire of what? If this were an everyday story of rockstars, the petulant spoiled children that they are, being forced to face reality and grow up sharpish, then I would recognize it as satire. If they were likewise shown as hopeless but no more hopeless than the shower already in power, then I would regard it as satire.

But no; Jones gives us a bunch of rock stars thrust unexpectedly into positions of power and behaving like they've had leadership lessons from the cradle. There they are, issuing orders, dealing with other countries, one of them even going so far as to get a brain implant to deal with the pressures of high office. They don't put a foot wrong. Jones presents them as the best possible leaders for the country.

How am I supposed to see this as satire when she gives no indication of it? I know these are rock stars, but Jones at no point encourages us to laugh at this lot. On the contrary, she seems to think that if you can do a decent set, those are sufficient credentials for you to go out and rule the world.

And before you say that she's just satirizing rock stars and politicans as being two different but related types of performer, may I just say that the two aren't related. Politics requires one to have a sense of the wider world; rock music, due to its sheer artificiality, requires one's worldview to shrink to one's immediate circle. Any satire which says that rock stars are knowledgeable socially-aware people who could run the country as well as seasoned politicians is just LYING.

As for Fiorinda, the focus is on her throughout, even down to that stupid Queen Elizabeth get-up at the Big Rock Concert. Jones wants her

Re: Gwyneth Jones

[threeoranges.livejournal.com]

Jones wants her to be the Uncrowned Queen of England. Gah. ;-)

Re: Gwyneth Jones

[ursula]

Have you read the sequel to Bold as Love? I can't quite tell: that's the source of most of the wangsty three-way sex, but it's also where they fuck up ruling Britain and talking to other world leaders, and fuck up badly.

And have you read Nancy Kress's Beggars trilogy? (I'm thinking of other series in which civilization and government decay rapidly over the course of the books; there's a closer analogy with a series by Peter Dickinson where Arthur shows up again, but I haven't read the Dickinson in years.)

Re: Gwyneth Jones

[threeoranges.livejournal.com]

I did try the second book - hence I know about the wangsty threesomes ;-) - but I'm racking my brains to think of the actions which count as "fucking up". Yes, one of them gets kidnapped and has his brain implant removed somewhat nastily, but is he to be considered as having "fucked up badly" because some bad guys kidnapped him? Should the blame not be placed upon the bad guys instead?

You'll have to enlighten me as to how they fucked up, as I can't remember their specific faults: all I can remember is that Jones treated them like they were the saviours of Great Britain ;-)

Re: Gwyneth Jones

[ursula]

Sage goes off and communes with the Oversoul or whatever instead of running the country at all, and miscellaneous secondary rock-stars (and at least one career bureaucrat) stand about while their country is quietly taken over by a zombie.

There appears to be a third book. Since I have to wait for it to journey across the Atlantic and most of a continent, I cannot tell you what happens in it, though Amazon says that it begins in Mexico, so perhaps they stop dictating?

Re: Gwyneth Jones

[ursula]

As I see it, the joke is on the institutions, not the people. The argument is that the institutions of democracy have become so meaningless to the average citizen that they are no longer legitimate; and that it takes a rock star to make anyone care.

The problem of succession has not been solved. I think Jones realizes that.

Mind you, I also think Jones is funny, in the way that Gibson and Neal Stephenson are funny: the twists and turns of technological and social and magical innovation, the evil Ancient Celts, the half-melted refrigerator, Gibson's half-sentient creatures eating graffiti.

Re: Gwyneth Jones

[threeoranges.livejournal.com]

As I see it, the joke is on the institutions, not the people. The argument is that the institutions of democracy have become so meaningless to the average citizen that they are no longer legitimate; and that it takes a rock star to make anyone care.

But the average person's reaction to all of this upheaval is never described, which is again why it seems so fake. At least in P.D. James's THE CHILDREN OF MEN we got a good idea of how people were reacting to upheavals (the hook for her tale being that reproduction had stopped dead in the world); we got insanity manifesting itself in delusions of motherhood, and mass euthanasia of the elderly. We never see the people of Great Britain in Jones's world, just the rock artists and their entourage. This is because it's a dictatorship, and the people don't matter. So why should having rock stars in power make the populace of Great Britain care if the populace of Great Britain's opinion doesn't matter anyway?

As I keep saying, Jones seems to have tailored her situation to make these three look like saviours of the nation. And... they're rock stars. It's all ludicrous.

I also admit that Jones has a lot of savvy and it's recognizable in the prose she writes. Humour? Maybe. But if she had more humour she'd have found the idea of rock stars running the country so laughable she probably wouldn't have written it in the form in which it currently exists. Either that, or the "ludicrous idea taken seriously" is a solid genre in fantasy fiction, and I'm laughing at something which has already established itself firmly enough to need no explanation (not unlike the slash genre in HP fanfiction).

Re: Gwyneth Jones

[ursula]

I was wrong about solving the succession problem. She doesn't.