How can I describe why I love this so much?
Is it the unabashed, but subtle (is that possible?) declaration of unconditional, unrelenting, unstoppable, unlikely, sisterly love between the two very different main characters?
Maybe it's the subtlety itself? You start out wondering why you're reading a book about a traitorous coward (and you think you're going to hate her), but a few paragraphs later, she starts describing her friend, giving you little anecdotes about her while suffering herself. It's not very long before you love her to death. I read a review once that perfectly captured it: "In the face of derision, torture and death, she rages and jokes and loves." You don't realize what's been happening to her in the beginning until you get to the end... and the layers begin to unfold as you're hooked into re-reading it.
Or the references to things? It helps if you love learning about literature or history... or appreciate the tender and dear parts of Peter Pan... Mothers keeping windows open for lost children; the universal desire to find Neverland; the innocence, faithfulness and fearlessness of youth; growing up; telling the truth. It's very literary... irresistibly intelligent.
The randomness? I admit, this made me laugh out loud... the main character described her stance once as like the "saint stuck full of arrows"... something that I had seen before - somewhere. In the midst of her suffering, she makes fun of herself. And I can't believe I'm laughing at (with?) someone who's being used and tortured by the epitome of evil.
The descriptiveness! "...people came in and found me doing a frantic imitation of an upside-down tortoise." (About flying...) "...to be alone at the top of the world, deafened by the roar of four winds and two cylinders, with all the Cheshire plain and its green fields and red chimneys thrown at her feet like a tartan picnic blanket."
And what the heck... the life lessons. Finding out what you really fear, realizing what really matters, learning life is always more complicated than you think.
So... go read it!
No comments:
Post a Comment