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Allison Hurd's Reviews > The Sudden Appearance of Hope
The Sudden Appearance of Hope
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I woke up early and was able to finish this in time for today's shower thought to be "This book is like the unedited full version of 'Nights in White Satin' by the Moody Blues."
The parallels: it's got some objectively beautiful, moving parts, perhaps leaning a bit towards pathos but hey, it works. And then it goes on and you think "my, this is a bit longer than I recalled." And then it fades out and you think "I wonder if this was all strictly necessary, but it's over n--" but it is not over now, for now the poetry begins! After the entire story is over! And you listen, moving from moved to bemused to a bit igry. And then the gong happens. Or, in this case, the final chapter.
But it's still, like, a quality piece just entirely too long and precious.
CONTENT WARNINGS (a list of topics): (view spoiler)
Things that I loved:
-The premise. This is the second book by North I've read and she really invests in her "what ifs" to the point that everything makes so much sense, and is at once entirely practical and staggering to think about.
-The character. Who would you be if you weren't ever remembered? I think the author did a fantastic job meeting and creating this woman.
-The social ills. It's been done before but it's always somewhat vindicating to see advertising as mind control.
-The humanity. Everyone is just such a careful person, with their own motives and hurts and loves. Hope is a monster who works with monsters and yet all of them wear their human skins so easily.
Things that did not work for me:
-The philosophy. We kept having "Humanities 101" type interludes that I felt were not meshed well into the story and became sort of self-serving.
-The plot. The particulars did not feel nearly as fleshed out to me as the ideas, which meant it was drawn out, random, and many times things would happen and I'd have to make quantum leaps to figure out what the character had just realized. Also, some of the things that happened I still don't understand. Why did Evard react like that in the cafe? That was so out of character. And same with Matisse!
-The length. It should have been about 100 pages shorter but...
-The final chapter. ...we needed the gong finish. Ending on 106 apparently trumped the need for a tightly woven story, which makes me wonder, is this a symbol, a flourish? Or is the author seeking perfection? Either way, this diminished the success of the earlier ideas for me.
I think Claire North is an immensely intelligent, imaginative, empathic author and I'm glad to spend time with her art. I just wanted to spend a bit less time. And seriously, where are all the developmental editors hiding? Do publishers have them in the basement??
The parallels: it's got some objectively beautiful, moving parts, perhaps leaning a bit towards pathos but hey, it works. And then it goes on and you think "my, this is a bit longer than I recalled." And then it fades out and you think "I wonder if this was all strictly necessary, but it's over n--" but it is not over now, for now the poetry begins! After the entire story is over! And you listen, moving from moved to bemused to a bit igry. And then the gong happens. Or, in this case, the final chapter.
But it's still, like, a quality piece just entirely too long and precious.
CONTENT WARNINGS (a list of topics): (view spoiler)
Things that I loved:
-The premise. This is the second book by North I've read and she really invests in her "what ifs" to the point that everything makes so much sense, and is at once entirely practical and staggering to think about.
-The character. Who would you be if you weren't ever remembered? I think the author did a fantastic job meeting and creating this woman.
-The social ills. It's been done before but it's always somewhat vindicating to see advertising as mind control.
-The humanity. Everyone is just such a careful person, with their own motives and hurts and loves. Hope is a monster who works with monsters and yet all of them wear their human skins so easily.
Things that did not work for me:
-The philosophy. We kept having "Humanities 101" type interludes that I felt were not meshed well into the story and became sort of self-serving.
-The plot. The particulars did not feel nearly as fleshed out to me as the ideas, which meant it was drawn out, random, and many times things would happen and I'd have to make quantum leaps to figure out what the character had just realized. Also, some of the things that happened I still don't understand. Why did Evard react like that in the cafe? That was so out of character. And same with Matisse!
-The length. It should have been about 100 pages shorter but...
-The final chapter. ...we needed the gong finish. Ending on 106 apparently trumped the need for a tightly woven story, which makes me wonder, is this a symbol, a flourish? Or is the author seeking perfection? Either way, this diminished the success of the earlier ideas for me.
I think Claire North is an immensely intelligent, imaginative, empathic author and I'm glad to spend time with her art. I just wanted to spend a bit less time. And seriously, where are all the developmental editors hiding? Do publishers have them in the basement??
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Reading Progress
April 19, 2017
– Shelved
April 19, 2017
– Shelved as:
to-read
February 22, 2020
–
Started Reading
February 22, 2020
– Shelved as:
fem-author
February 22, 2020
– Shelved as:
fantasy
February 23, 2020
–
3.78%
"Welp. There goes my productivity this week. All gone, gotta keep reading."
page
18
March 4, 2020
–
Finished Reading
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Gabi
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rated it 5 stars
Mar 04, 2020 05:55AM
This review makes me curious. Nicely said, Allison.
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Thank you! I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on this :) I think my lesson here is "listen to North's books, don't eye read"
Kudos for writing a review where I had to look up two terms: "igry" and "developmental editor." ;)
Haha! I love the word igry. It's nice to be able to express that quickly.And I'm on on crusade for developmental editors! We need them! If you're not gonna take a decade to perfect a book, you need a team! This is the hill I will die on!
It's somewhat of a mushy concept for somebody who's "just a reader" but we do develop a sense of when a book's been carefully shaped, or not (or somewhere in the middle), I think.
Oh, interesting! Can you say more about that? So many times I feel like I see the outline in the book (or the hours just stream of consciousness typing without an outline). How does the storycraft factor into your reading?
Called on to explain it... (flees, leaving only a trail of dust behind)More seriously, pacing is part of it, but not the whole thing, and you're definitely onto something when you say you can see the outline or lack thereof. Or something like the "incomplete spiral" you were talking about in your review of Blackfish City. Another example is the couple of Malazan books I've read, which were put together in a very specific way, wandering around for quite a while, with a big action-and-emotion kaboom in the last few chapters.
Deconstructing something that's "just part of the experience" is hard! :D
ETA I think Jo Walton is excellent at ferreting out what I'm clumsily trying to express in her essays on various books in What Makes This Book So Great (et al.)
Haha but you did good! Thank you for your explanation, it's interesting to me how this looks to other people :)
Stephen King is a great example of someone who doesn't use an outline and just goes where the story goes. Sometimes it works out, and sometimes it doesn't. He is notoriously unable to satisfactorily end his stories on a consistent basis, and too often (and more the older he's gotten) the ideas within them are wishy-washy and muddled or just plain bad. Sleeping Beauties was a prime example of that. He (and his son) write a "feminist" book that claims to show what female empowerment looks like but actually ends up just... horrifically and embarrassingly bad. I felt the angry AND the igry (thanks for that one!) much while reading it. But then you have someone like Tayari Jones (author of An American Marriage) who let the story go where it went, and it ends up to feel real and honest and powerful.
For me, I think it's more in the editing process and the clarity of the ideas than whether there's an outline or just a general spark that inspires the need to write and then just seeing where it goes. An outlined story can feel too stilted, like the writing just exists to get the plot from point A to B to C, etc... but a see-where-it-goes approach can be unfocused and muddy and messy.
I'm going to join your crusade for dev editors. Where's the first meeting? :)
Woohoo! I shall print our SPEW badges and get back to you with a meeting place :D(For the record, I am also ambivalent on whether someone outlines (planners) or just follows the story (pantsers), but I do demand the story be sanded down afterwards in editing, and if need be, someone with the authority to say "I don't understand this, please make it make sense")
Society for the Protection of Every Writer's Editor of Development. SPEWED. I love it. :P
NAILED IT!!! Well done, you'll get a promotion in our society.
Allison wrote: "NAILED IT!!! Well done, you'll get a promotion in our society."Wooo!
