Still choosing books (The Starless Sea)

[radiantfracture]

What do we think about Erin Morgenstern's The Starless Sea as the novel for a first-year lit course?

A friend recommended it. I've just started reading -- well, I'm up to about page 50 -- and feel cautiously optimistic.

It has the advantage of taking up the idea of games and of being a game (it would appear so, anyway), which is one of my themes or lenses or whatever. It has the disadvantage of being alarmingly long, but I could work with that.

I really want there to be a magic answer to this problem of the Novel that just softly descends on me like, well, you know, starlight. Snow.

{rf}

Comments

[sabotabby]

So I loved it?? I wanted to disappear into its world so much—it actually didn't occur to me that it was a long book. I guess it is? I read it pretty quickly. And yeah, it fits well with the game thing.

The critique I keep hearing is that it lacks structure and the ending feels abrupt, which may very well frustrate first years who haven't read any non-commercial fiction. I find it a feature, not a bug.

[radiantfracture]

I like the world a lot too. I'm enjoying it.

[oracne]

Side note - have you read The Galaxy Game by Karen Lord?

[radiantfracture]

No! It sounds promising. Is it a book that is also a game?

[oracne]

There's a sport that seems like a secondary thing in the plot, but it actually turns out to be more important than it looks. Not in a huge dramatic way, just a slow realization, at least for me.

[radiantfracture]

Oo that sounds neat.

[oracne]

I wrote about it here: http://victoriajanssen.com/2021/11/tbrchallenge-competition-the-galaxy-game-by-karen-lord/

[princessofgeeks]

I have not read it.

What are you looking for in the ideal novel for the class?

[radiantfracture]

The ideal novel? Well. Let's see. (Cracks knuckles)

(Note: This is a general literature survey course. The book does not have to be speculative fiction of any flavour, though that is welcome.)

Ideally, the novel is rewarding to look at through the course’s three lenses: literary analysis, decolonialism, and games; but just one or two of those would also work.

So for example, it has strong prose, so that I can demonstrate literary analysis effectively with the students.

It engages somehow with the power of story and storytelling, the work a story can do in a life.

It engages with the idea of games or is itself, in some sense, a game, or at least has an interesting structure that the students and I can explore.

It offers easy entry for someone’s first-ever lit course. That usually means fairly modern prose, reasonable length (<300 pg), and something they can identify with or grab onto (patent pending).

It has some kind of momentum, see above; it doesn’t need to have a conventional plot, but there is a motive to keep turning pages.

It has diverse characters; it is not sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, classist, etc., or if it is, it is so briefly and non-fatally in a way that I can isolate and address in class.

Ideally, the author is not a dead white straight cisgender guy.

For my own personal preference, it is formally experimental, lyrical, and/or one of those uncategorizable books that is a genre unto itself. But that’s just for me.

You see why I struggle.

[elusis]

Andrew Greely's "God Game" might serve, but it does have the problem of violating your final preference (though "dead white straight cisgender celibate priest" is a twist I guess?) and I haven't read it in years to see whether the Suck Fairy has visited. And you could then provide an excerpt of "At Swim Two Birds" to illustrate intertextual relationships.

[radiantfracture]

dead white straight cisgender celibate priest" is a twist

Ha, true.

Thank you!

[princessofgeeks]

That is really cool as a list. And I see why it's hard to meet all the criteria!

I am not well-read enough to be of much use but the first thing I thought of was Alice in Wonderland, and also Engine Summer.

The City and the City might work.

But these would be defining GAME very broadly and of course they were all written by men.

The Egypt Game fits everything, but it's YA.

What a great thing to ponder, thank you for the details. I bet your commenters give you some wonderful ideas.

[elusis]

What about "This is How You Lose the Time War"? Short, 50% of authorship is a WOC, game-based?

[radiantfracture]

This is How You Lose the Time War

I haven't read it, but judging from the sample, I really like the prose. I'm a bit worried about the level of violence -- what's your take on that?

[elusis]

Good question. I have one of those annoying brains that more or less immediately forgets 99% of everything about most books as soon as I finish them - aided, probably, by most of my book reading happening just before I fall asleep or when I wake in the night. So I honestly couldn't tell you? But it's a novella, so a read-through won't take long. And it won the Nebula and the Hugo!

[radiantfracture]

Sold!

[elusis]

[squeal]

[radiantfracture]

You know, I thought of Alice in Wonderland too. It is one of the big books-as-games.

I'll look into the Egypt Game. Thank you! These are good ideas.

I haven't read Engine Summer, but I love Little, Big.

[marycatelli]

I didn't like it. Some glimmering moments but it didn't cohere. I'd choose something else.

[radiantfracture]

Hmm, any suggestions for something with similar properties? -- formally interesting, thinking about stories and games?

[marycatelli]

Have you considered The Night Circus?

Or Except the Queen by Jane Yolen and Midori Snyder

[radiantfracture]

Thank you!

Have you considered The Night Circus

I have, but I bounce off the prose a bit -- not the story. I find the sentence-level writing stronger in The Starless Sea.

I will check out Except the Queen!

[juushika]

I'd say no (and I really liked The Night Circus, so my issues were with this book, not the author's style)--it's long and, in the second half, sort of rambly. It hits things on your list (lyricism, diversity, about storytelling), but in a sort of diffuse way bc of how it rambles, which doesn't strike me as great for a class.

[radiantfracture]

which doesn't strike me as great for a class

It's true that something that might be pleasurable to read on my own isn't always very teachable.

Someone above suggested /This is How You Lose the Time War/ -- what do you think of that, if you've read it?

[juushika]

Not yet, unfortunately, despite that I like Amal El-Mohtar!

[yarrowkat]

i'd say no. it has a lot of initial promise, and then fails to meet that promise pretty badly. beautiful world building! which she then basically doesn't do anything with. the love-interests never even have a real conversation with each other and yet there's all this "willing to die for you" nonsense - it's problematic.

her Night Circus is much, much better.

[radiantfracture]

it has a lot of initial promise, and then fails to meet that promise pretty badly.

I'm hearing a lot of similar comments. Too bad -- I really am enjoying the worldbuilding, but I'm only about 1/4 in.

Someone above suggested /This is How You Lose the Time War/ -- any thoughts on that book?

[yarrowkat]

i haven't read that one yet! i've heard that it's fun and interesting but not character-driven, so i personally might not pick it up because that's kind of my MO, but that certainly doesn't rule it out for a class.

[radiantfracture]

Now having read it, I think that's right -- the characters and to some extent the setting are not really the strength of it -- more the structure and the language.

[carbonel]

Adding my $.02 that I think The Night Circus is a much better book and would fit your requirements as well.

[radiantfracture]

Noted! Someone above suggested This is How You Lose the Time War -- any thoughts on that one?

[carbonel]

To me, it reads practically as poetry. It's the prose that makes the story more than the actual content. It's quite short, for what that's worth.