Od Magic

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I enjoyed this a lot. Patricia McKillip is a writer whom I admire immensely, and always buy immediately in hardcover, but her books, though poetic and as beautiful as the covers by Kinuko Craft, are sometimes strangely inaccessible. It seems a bit odd, therefore, that I've been so loyal to her over the years as I have - other authors have been relegated to the "buy in paperback" or even the "get from library" list, but not McKillip. Her latest novels have been gettimg more and more plot driven, and more kind of "in the moment"; it's hard to explain what I mean if you haven't read her work, but her books are often so dreamlike and almost surreal that, though beautiful, they are hard to get hold of. Her characters have seemed more ciphers than real people, and it has been hard sometimes to work out what, if anything some of her books (say, Atrix Wolf) have been, exactly, "about"... But Od Magic was lovely. I suppose some might say that one of the reasons I liked it so much is that it is essentially a revisiting of the Riddle Master books in many ways, and I've always been waiting for another book like that one. But I found myself reluctant to finish this one, and that's always one of the best things I can say about a reading experience.

Comments

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I adore Ondaatje. I haven't read Anil's Ghost (it's on some mental reading list for the future), but The English Patient is marvellous and I also loved In the Skin of the Lion. You might also like Timothy Findlay, who is not quite so poetic, but similar in some ways. And I think you would _definitely_ like Jeanette Winterson - try Sexing the Cherry or The Passion.

Honestly, I could slaughter high school English teachers with pretensions who could put students off reading for life by forcing them to slog through something like To the Lohthouse. Don't get me wrong - it's a pure and perfect novel and I adore it, but I don't think I would ever teach it. Maybe Dalloway (I'm thinking about it for 286), or Orlando, but it would need really really good teaching... I'm glad you were able to get something out of it - but what about the rest of the class?

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To The Lighthouse, for some reason, just made sense for me. I guess it worked because at the time, I was a highly confused person, and the writing was confused enough to be on the same wavelength as I was. To me, this book was about aspirations gone wrong, being ship-wrecked, and taking one last go at getting to the place you want to be as a person. I was feeling all of those things myself back then.

Others, as far as I know, were highly confused. My friends were all in the same class and jealous of me for having this "bond" with Woolf. None of them pursued literature. But this teacher we had was a really pompous piece of work. I've talked about him with other instructors I've had at Camosun and they've all been blown away with what the public school system lets teachers get away with.

I can put him into context by paraphrasing one event: he kept me out of post-secondary because he told me I could not write. He said that I shouldn't even try because I just didn't get it. I'm a writing major now.

Anyway, I have read some short sotries by Findlay, and one novel called Spadework. I agree, not as poetic as Ondaatje, but Findlay had a simplicity that made his work elegant. Winterson, eh? I've not heard of her. I can try her out, maybe next summer when I have the time to read for myself! I seriously don't read for pleasure during the year because I have so much other reading to do!!