The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge

The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge

By M.T. Anderson and Eugene Yelchin

Uptight elfin historian Brangwain Spurge is on a mission: survive being catapulted across the mountains into goblin territory, deliver a priceless peace offering to their mysterious dark lord, and spy on the goblin kingdom — from which no elf has returned alive in more than a hundred years. Brangwain’s host, the goblin archivist Werfel, is delighted to show Brangwain around. They should be the best of friends, but a series of extraordinary double crosses, blunders, and cultural misunderstandings throws these two bumbling scholars into the middle of an international crisis that may spell death for them — and war for their nations. Witty mixed media illustrations show Brangwain’s furtive missives back to the elf kingdom, while Werfel’s determinedly unbiased narrative tells an entirely different story.

Soooooo, okay, I really wanted to like this more, and I should have, but I couldn't enjoy it much because Brangwain Spurge was such a DICK.  I spent most of it wanting him to fall into a deep crevasse and die, while simultaneously being very fretful about Werfel's house, job, life, and his pet, because no one seemed to care about Werfel.  And his pet icthyod.  BEKKY!!!!!! Her getting smacked around is a direct result of Spurge's assholery and I for one do not forgive him.

Anyway, it's a very clever and well executed idea, that we're getting two different stories, from the goblin perspective and the elfin perspective (and for those of us who are kind of thick, like me, both the comments about Spurge's pictures not matching their actual appearances at all plus finally getting to see Werfel at the end made it very clear that Spurge is a liar and a FUCKTARD).  As clever as it was though, it was actually pretty depressing too, the way that everybody seemed bound and determined to go to war, although it sounded like that was mostly on the elf king's side of things, since most of the goblins were pretty nice to Spurge until his true colors showed through.

What a rude fucking houseguest.

Anyway, I also realized upon finishing that the author, M.T. Anderson, was also responsible for one of the most horrifying deaths and autopsies in "young adult" fiction (The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing: Traitor to the Nation), such that, despite being an otherwise excellent book, I have been unable to bring myself to re-read it so that I can finally read the sequel.  Given these products, I'm a bit worried about the inside of Anderson's head - it seems like it might be a most distressing place.

Anywhoodle, I'm glad that Werfel and Spurge are buddies now, but I haven't forgotten that Werfel's house was firebombed because of Spurge, and I do not forgive him.  Not to mention, now that both leaders and a ton of people got killed in the end, both countries are incredibly unstable right now, and I am very concerned about future wars. 

Ten Second Reviews

The House with Chicken Legs

By Sophie Anderson

This is like a middle school reader version of Baba Yaga, where she adopts like an eleven year old girl and then shit happens.  I will be very honest: I did not finish this one and only sort of limply flipped through the final pages (Baba never comes back?!).  Among other things, a kid from the Lake District in England tells our heroine Marinka that he is really into " soccer". It brought me in mind of the first Harry Potter book, in which things just got semi-randomly changed for an American audience (because we do not know what a philosopher is, I suppose) and that was twenty-three years ago (sniff) and we've all come a long way since then, and frankly a little cross-cultural contamination is good for the soul anyway.  Let's raise some fricking cosmopolitans.  Anyway, this may be impolite, but I want to shout out to Nine Witch Tales which is actual witch horror for middle school readers, because back in the 60s they didn't care about "mental health" or "not terrifying young readers".

Fatal Inheritance

By Rachel Rhys

This one was certainly nicely atmospheric - and I don't mean it's suspenseful or thrilling, but that it feels nicely of the time and place, i.e., 1948 post-war French Riviera.  I went along for the ride, but I did have some bugaboos: Eve's a doormat until she needs to be otherwise for the sake of the plot, and then she'll quietly subside again.  I never really got a feel for her personality - is she chafing, is she demoralized, is she seizing her opportunity here, what is it?

And the solution to the mystery bugged too.  So her mysterious inheritance is basically unrelated to the "accidents" which keep befalling her, since those are just about the lost Nazi art smugglers who want to get into the house.  And the art is in Guy Lester's house because...? I never made the connection of when and how it got buried behind the wall, and why it needed to be removed conveniently when Eve was still in the house.  Smugglers really demand punctuality and courtesy when removing stolen items, I guess.

But the tagline, "She didn’t have an enemy in the world…until she inherited a fortune." isn't really true: she didn't have an enemy because she inherited a fortune, she sort of just managed to wander into a criminal ring simultaneously with inheriting a fortune.  It's not a very surprising mystery (you know who is mysterious and angry but falling in love with her, and who is mysterious and nice but secretly using her very early on, and the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad thing that Guy Lester did is clear about halfway into the book, although they save the "revelation" for much later) but it's not a bad piece of fiction, and it's such an interesting setting that the novelty at least, should keep you going until the end.

Speak

Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson

From her first moment at Merryweather High, Melinda Sordino knows she's an outcast. She busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops - a major infraction in high school society - so her old friends won't talk to her, and people she doesn't know glare at her. She retreats into her head, where the lies and hypocrises of high school stand in stark relief to her own silence, making her all the more mute. But it's not so comfortable in her head, either - there's something banging around in there that she doesn't want to think about. Try as she might to avoid it, it won't go away, until there is a painful confrontation. Once that happens, she can't be silent - she must speak the truth.

This book has been on my periphery for awhile, but it was still surprising to me that it has a tenth anniversary edition already - ten years ago this should have been exactly the kind of book I was reading. Maybe if I had, it would have had a bigger impact on me, like The Luckiest Girl in the World, which is all kinds of melodramatic and over the top but remains one of my favorite "serious topic" books. Reading Speak for the first time as an adult, long since gotten over any high school scars, there is less of an emotional impact, less forgiveness for mood over technique. In less obtuse terms, I just didn't buy into the plot. Back in the day, that wouldn't have been a problem - books that I connected with as a teen were put into continuous rotation regardless of minor flaws. But reading it for the first time, it niggles at me, and distracts from my enjoyment of it. And there is a lot to be enjoyed from Speak; it is a good book, an excellent book for young teens especially. Speak is about Melinda, and from a character development standpoint, it's an amazing piece of work. I truly believed in (almost) all the characters, as they were written very realistically, and the internal viewpoint style of the book lends itself well to a thoughtful look at Melinda's feelings and struggles. Having a less than perfect memory of my own high school years, I can't argue with the author's depiction here - although from my own perspective, few have managed puberty with the grace and goodwill that I demonstrated time and again in the face of everlasting ridiculousness on the part of other people.

While I am willing to believe in the character and life of Melinda, I am not willing to suspend all my disbelief (and a little bit of disappointment) in the plot she must navigate. It doesn't take a detective to read between the lines of the front cover flap, but in case you are easily startled the rest of this review involves a major ***SPOILER***SPOILER***SPOILER*** (although to be fair, it's only a spoiler if you've been under a rock since your early letter-learning days). The book begins at the beginning of school, maybe a few weeks after Melinda called the cops on a teenage party where she was raped, pissing off all her friends, and this is where my imagination begins to stretch. Since the book never covers this time period, we are left wondering why not a single one of her friends asked her why she called. I find it hard to believe that not one of her friends from who knows how long didn't stick by her, at least until Melinda had the opportunity to drive them away as she does someone else later in the book. It made me question just how valuable these friends are in the first place, if they can't forgive one summer faux pas against the years they knew Melinda. And yes, Anderson does try to make even older readers understand the depths of betrayal of the cop-calling (one student's sibling lost their job, or some such thing) but I think the more natural reaction isn't the flat-out hate that Melinda has to deal with, but more of an insidious lack of trust. I feel like the reactions of the other kids are so overblown that it becomes cartoonish, while a more realistic rendering would have been more powerful - trying to fight outright hate is (true story) easier than fighting smoke, the frustration of trying to prove the negative, that you aren't untrustworthy. The matter of Melinda's age also bugged me - it's such a small detail, but she's a full year younger than she should be as a freshman, which made her younger at the time of the rape, and the moment of reveal is done such that I feel like it's just to manipulate the reader, trying to add shock value, a look-how-awful-because-so-young! moment. The mere fact of the rape is appalling by itself, and even though I am sure Anderson didn't intend the age thing to come off the way it did, well, it did to me.

And while we're on the subject of unnecessary overexaggeration, I would like to get the matter of the rapist off my chest. WHY IS HE PURE EVIL? I mean, yes, of course, he is terrible, because anyone who does that to a girl is terrible, but why is he so dumb as to attempt to do it again after she accuses him and her friends don't even believe her? It is nice to prove Melinda's strength and healing after the course of the book, but how insane was that whole scene? To be fair, I was on the edge of my seat biting my nails just as much as the next person, but even while I was terrified for Melinda, I was thinking, "Oh, come on." Part of the reason for the book's endurance is the realistic treatment of teenagers and rape, and all of a sudden there is a too-perfect opportunity for Melinda to change her future the way she can't change her past, and I just don't buy it. I can't help picturing people who have their own struggles to conquer, reading this book and finding hope, but then being like, "Well, since I didn't get cornered by my rapist again and fight him and win and everyone believes me this time, it's not a good ending." Not only are there other ways to prove your strength besides ass-kicking your former rapist, those are much more common. I guess, in the long run, I would have preferred a book that took the hard way out, the way without a tidy bow, the way that has to accept that even without the opportunity to expose your rapist for the scum he is and prove your own strength and non-victimness, you can live without fear or shame.

So give this to every young girl you know, but give it to them before they grow up and become too cynical to read this books for all of its gifts, and none of its flaws. In short, mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys.