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[http://users.livejournal.com/belladonna_/]

 Okay, so I finally broke and checked out The Harlequin from my library. Yes, I feel dirty. 

Well, first some general comments. This novel was confusing. It was like there was a plot, but then there wasn't. I counted... they spend something like150 pages dicking around at the hospital, having various theraputic smecksing and sue-ish justification conversations.  Sometimes, I just wish Anita could get in her car and drive to 7-11 without encountering three corpses and an orgy on the way. Wait, make that three orgies and one corpse...

The first question is, didn't Sylvie used to be gay? Like super gay? As in, she would have had a go at being lupa, only she's gay? As in, it was presented as a more horrendous-er tragedy that she'd been raped, because rape (in LKH-verse) apparently isn't as upsetting if you like the peen to begin with? (All my books are packed in storage or I'd look it up myself.)

Okay, I guess that's really just one question. Most of the rest is general eye-rolling, scoffing noises. And at the end of the book, when Anita beat the bad guys with love, I threw up a little... in my soul.

I should have written down my specific complaints while reading. It's all just blurred into one dissatisfying lump.

Comments

[easol.livejournal.com]

Yes, she totally used to be gay, and it was a striking part of one of the plots, not just a throwaway mention. LKH blamed the error on a copyeditor, the dumbass.

And like you, I puked inwardly at "defeating you through the power of LOVE!" Has LKH been watching too much Sailor Moon recently?

[sailorcoruscant.livejournal.com]

Not even Sailor Moon was that bad with the whole "power of love" thing. It had its moments, but the crotch of doom will always win.

[easol.livejournal.com]

And SM thankfully was not taken uberseriously ALL the time.

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

Defeat through the power of love?

Um...LKH? Madeleine L'Engle called. She wants her plot point back.**




**L'Engle must be really tired of having A Wrinkle in Time ripped off by mediocre writers. Rowling stole the same plot point for Deathly Hallows, and she didn't handle it well either.

[easol.livejournal.com]

She died a couple months ago. But yeah, if I were her I'd be sick of it.

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

Did she? I'm very sorry to hear that. But I bet she was thoroughly sick of it.

[estllechauvelin.livejournal.com]

That would explain the spinning sound.

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

Good one.

[pandorasblog]

Maybe that's also where Russell T. Davies got it from... I see you're in the UK, or I wouldn't have mentioned that, since I don't think the Americans have seen DW season three yet.

I just have so much trouble understanding how a bossy, mean, miserable so-and-so like Anita has enough love in her to effect such a solution...

[pandorasblog]

(Jism, maybe, but not love...)

[lovemefearme.livejournal.com]

O'kay its been such a long time sense I read A Wrinkle in Time What did Rowling steal?

[clover-elf-kin.livejournal.com]

...well hi there. XD

I'm pretty sure they mean that whole "defeat the enemy with the power of love" thing; in A Wrinkle in Time, that's how Meg defeated IT and got Charles Wallace back, by just standing there and loving him. Sounds a lot like how Lily saved baby Harry...

[brandiweed.livejournal.com]

To be fair, overcoming evil with the power of love is a well-worn idea.

[clover-elf-kin.livejournal.com]

Huh. I did not know that. ^^ Off the top of my head, I really can't think of any others where love literally defeated someone (scenes like Amelia's defeat of Xellos simply through the power of positive thinking notwithstanding). What examples do you know?

[brandiweed.livejournal.com]

Amusingly enough, this turned up recently as a topic on RPG.net, and though what constituted "evil defeated by love" got a bit broad, stories included

Stardust
Stephen King's IT (well, underage group sex, anyway)
The Fifth Element
Yellow Submarine
The Princess Bride (which also fell into that subset of "love can rescue/resurrect a fallen hero")
The Shining
Star Wars: Return of the Jedi

[lovemefearme.livejournal.com]

Yes, it does. Lily's magic and loved got all happy with each other and made poor little baby Harry, SUPER!Harry. Thats kind of funny... such odd images in my head now.. I really wish I was an arttest.

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

Several themes. Love is the most powerful weapon. The arch-villain cannot tolerate love. A child/teenager must face down the ultimate evil on the planet--risking death in the process--for the sake of a brother/some friends.

The difference is in the execution. Both L'Engle and Rowling have arch-villains who don't know what love is--IT and Voldemort, respectively. And both of their protagonists, Meg Murry and Harry Potter, are told by their elders that they'll have to use love to fight the ultimate evil, and that no one else can do it for them.

The problem is that while Meg is shown to love her little brother Charles Wallace all through the book, Harry isn't a very emotional boy, and he mostly notices his friends when they're absent. Where Meg goes back to Camazotz terrified, confused and determined, Harry goes off to die because he thinks that's what Dumbledore wanted him to do--and gets a pep talk from the Marauders (minus Peter) and Lily about how proud they are that Harry's going to die. Meg struggles to overcome her fear and save her little brother; Harry comes out of the woods, stands in front of Voldemort, and feels nothing.

It's as if Rowling couldn't bear to have brave brave brave brave young Harry frightened or struggling, so she just eliminated that bit.

So...yeah. Same theme, but handled very differently.

[lovemefearme.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I think I need to read A Wrinkle in Time again it sounds so much more interesting then Harry does at the moment.

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

What was really -- I dunno -- affecting about L'Engle's plot point (to me) was that the heroine encountered something she could not love, and then had to turn it onto another subject that she was capable of loving. (Trying to remain unspoilery there.^^) It wasn't just a blanket "you can love" thing. She actually ran up against a big damn limitation. I've never seen any other author do the "power of love" thing with that much complexity (and I'm not even saying that it's all THAT complex. But it worked. At least on my 14-year-old self. ^__^) Let alone acknowledging that love can actually get you into a lot of trouble. (Okay, I have seen that last done.)

Has any other fantasist managed to make that work? The "I win because I love"? (I was going to add "without being cheesy" but "cheesy" is entirely subjective whereas "with complexity" can probably be argued.)

(And no, I have not read "Deathly Hallows.")

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

She's the first writer I ever saw tackle the points you mentioned. Most writers bypass them completely, or miss important aspects.

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

(Good grief. Sorry about the previous mess, just in case you have these delivered by e-mail.)

I want to see a fantasist (particularly for young people) do something where it is love that gets you in trouble, or allows you to be manipulated. A villain that goes around chortling "Yo ho I am evil!" is less affecting for me. Actual evil people rarely if ever think they're doing wrong. (Hell, didn't even Voldemort twistedly "love" his super master race?)

[hellozombies.livejournal.com]

All this talk about A Wrinkle in Time has me pulling my very worn paperback off the shelf.

As much as I loved that book, my favorite L'Engle novel was A Swiftly Tilting Planet. The best part about it? Each time I read it, I pick up on something new that I missed the last time.

It's almost like it's a bunch of books in one or something! /dorky and tired.