This may come as a shock to you, Harry, but I don't have an ax with me

[sovay]

Today has been marked mostly by hours of pre-holiday errands and a vision-troubling level of headache, which may somewhat foreshorten this post. The evening has been marked by reading four books starring Harry Dresden. I believe I have hurt myself.

Between the weird casual chauvinism and the general air of having been written by a yak that wanted to be Raymond Chandler (I am insulting either Chandler or yaks), I was not impressed with Storm Front (2000). There was a reason I didn't read these books at the time. rushthatspeaks had promised me a character I would love, however, and so I persevered. Fortunately, the library was missing the next three volumes and by the time of Death Masks (2003), Butcher's style had improved to the point where it was no longer actively contributing to my headache and Rush was quite right about the character; I warmed to him instantly, even though he was more of a cameo. And then there was a lot of confused vampirism and I got to Dead Beat (2005). Rush—

"If I tell you this," I said quietly, "it could be bad for you."

"Bad how?"

"It could force you to keep secrets that people would kill you for knowing. It could change the way you think and feel. It could really screw up your life."

"Screw up my life?" He stared at me for a second and then said, deadpan, "I'm a five-foot-three, thirty-seven-year-old, single Jewish medical examiner who needs to pick up his lederhosen from the cleaners so that he can play in a one-man polka band at Oktoberfest tomorrow." He pushed up his glasses with his forefinger, folded his arms and said, "Do your worst."

Waldo Butters is also brilliant enough that he thinks of forensic science as something anyone can pick up if they don't mind the technical terms, geeky enough to forget how terrified he is of zombies when given the chance to research them, and he has mildly mad science hair ("[it] gave him a perpetual look of surprise that stopped just short of being a perpetual look of recent electrocution"). Apparently I have some kind of type.

I don't think I will be eagerly scouring the bookstores for the rest of this series, but someone should tell me whether they're the sort of thing worth persisting with just for love of supporting characters. It is quite likely that I will keep an eye out for a secondhand copy of Dead Beat, even if the Latin is consistently ungrammatical and the mysterious book should really have been called Das Lied des Erlkönigs. The Tyrannosaur was pretty crowningly awesome.

And now I am going to shower, because I don't feel well at all.

Comments

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

Okay, then I'll ask for less nausea, too! How about none?

My wife thinks Harry's a dumbunny. Not that wizard Harry OR that wizard Harry; the other Harry, the one in the empire-waist gown. I'm so sad over this. /Harry discourse/threadjack

Clearly they need to invent something akin to a pocket neurologist for times like this. Oh, and do I need to see Arsenic and Old Lace ?

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

The atrocious German of that title is a thing about which Harry needles the author of said book in a later volume, fwiw.

[sovay]

The atrocious German of that title is a thing about which Harry needles the author of said book in a later volume, fwiw.

Thank God. I spent the whole book expecting to find out it was some kind of ersatz twentieth-century occult forgery by someone who didn't know German from an elbow in his ear and then it worked, which made me very sad.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Not Mike Ford-level fiendishly sneaky, but there are enough places through the existing text that Harry gets slapped upside the head with a revelation that has been clued in quite solidly from early on (modulo the serious jump in tightness of writing from book 3 on) in ways he has completely overlooked that there's rather a lot ongoing that I suspect may yet turn out to fall under the same category. I can, with a bit of squinting, read them as a pretty heavy critique of the problems inherent in identifying oneself with a noir detective model of how to be a force for good, both in the consequences that accrue to Harry from such things as his persistent focus on the immediate problem to the exclusion of longer-term larger-scale consequences (particularly his degree of responsibility for collateral damage), and the way in which the strength of some of the female characters comes across despite his infuriating sexism; I find it hard to believe those can be things Butcher is entirely unaware of, and it seems reasonable to give him the benefit of the doubt on doing them deliberately. Given what you've read and the potential that you might read more, I am finding it hard to come up with a really convincing example of this that would not strike me as excessively spoilery; there's a minor example in Dead Beat in Harry finally getting over himself enough to notice that Morgan's reactions to him are not all about being a big meanie, which has been tolerably obvious (to me at least) from well earlier in the series. Harry's blithe unawareness of, and rejection of any proffered clues to, the notion that his actions have larger supernatural-world political significance whether he wants them to or not, is a thing that takes a while to get seriously dented.

I can read books for a number of things. Interesting characters are definitely a component, but an awful lot of people seem to need more sympathetic in their interesting than I do; use of language is at least as important, world-building is important, and I have sufficient OCDish tendencies that a well-oiled plot (which Butcher is definitely good at) can go a long way for books that do not have so much to recommend them from other directions.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Have you read any of Mike Carey's Felix Castor books ?

I am fond of them to a degree that makes it hard for me to be confident in my own objectivity; I think you would like them, but you might well want a second opinion from rushthatspeaks here.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

I parse it as a problematic character trait arising to some extent from the particular traumas of Harry's upbringing (which take a while to come into focus) and that, as is not unrealistic with reactions coming from traumas, it takes a hell of a long time to get through his thick skull as problematic.

I also parse the talking about pretty much every post-pubescent female character mentioned in terms of conventional attractiveness first as a conscious stylistic trope, in the direction of Archie Goodwin.

It's possible that I am overthinking this, but if so I like the books I end up with better than the ones that Butcher intended.

[sovay]

Okay, then I'll ask for less nausea, too! How about none?

We could deal with that!

I'm so sad over this. /Harry discourse/threadjack

Unless she's done something spectacularly stupid I haven't read yet, I don't think your Harry is a dumbunny.

("The Route Has Just Come for the Blues" has just come on the radio, so the universe agrees with me.)

Clearly they need to invent something akin to a pocket neurologist for times like this.

"Is that a doctor in your pocket or are you just happy to see the painkillers"?

Oh, and do I need to see Arsenic and Old Lace?

Yes. It really was one of my formative movies. I am reluctant to describe the plot, except that it looks as though it's going to belong to a certain genre of romantic comedy and then it screwballs off into something astonishingly twisted, which it mostly keeps you from noticing because it's directed by Frank Capra. There are a few lines that were famously bowdlerized for the Hays Code, but seriously, there's a hell of weird in there. It almost certainly imprinted me on Peter Lorre for life.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Dresden porcelain as a thing worked by potters struck me as an intentional allusion, fwiw. (Some day I shall write the story about a little boy called Harry Wizard who is spirited away to a secret school for potters. The only real problem with this story is that it really wants jonsinger to be the headmaster of said school, and nobody would find jonsinger credible in fiction.)

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

polka-drumming a zombie Tyrannosaur through the blacked-out streets of Chicago

That's it, I'm all in. Time to go home! Someone else has done it all!

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

What radio station has "The Route Has Just Come for the Blues"? WPWR, for all the smooth sounds of the Peninsular Campaign you remember, now with limited commercial interruption from the Excelsior Saddle Carbine Corp?

[straussmonster.livejournal.com]

I like those, but I don't quite love them. I hear that we're supposed to get Some Answers about the cosmology next book, which is good because it strikes me as awfully unbalanced, in many ways. (If there are demons, where are the angels? And these demons are how old? And...) They're much better at being dark mysteries, and not as good at being freewheeling action-adventures with intricate puzzles for the continuity-aware reader.

[britmandelo.livejournal.com]

I genuinely think it's supposed to be a problematic character trait, considering how often and how spectacularly it gets Harry in trouble, and how much the women in the books comment on it.

Also, there are some really awesome women in the series. Molly & Murphy are winners. (I would add that a lot of the men are actually described in terms of their attractiveness, also, which doesn't pop up much in books authored by men.)

[sovay]

What radio station has "The Route Has Just Come for the Blues"?

Er . . . whatever the local Boston folk is?

I blame you.

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

I will ask the Great Disc Jockey in the Sky to drop a few migraine-quelling chart-toppers, then...?

(Seriously, how cool. I INTERNET PUFFYHEART the version of the song you sent me. And then later on, the route gets to come for the blues; the Sherbourne Novella is apparently a ships' graveyard for folk song jokes.)

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

When you say "next book", how far into the series are you ? Some of your questions would strike me as at least implicitly answered in book 4, and the series is up to 5 with a promise of really big revelations in 6.

Not particularly freewheeling, I suppose, and certainly not so actiony as the Dresden books, which is a plus from my perspective because I usually find action scenes dull. I would posit that they do indeed do intricate puzzles, though, but in an Asimovian sort of mode where gathering data to figure out how the hell the world works is the biggest part. And urban fantasy recast as Asimovian scientific-mystery for supernatural values of science just totally hits my buttons.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

(I approve of LARPing Rozencrantz and Guildenstern.)

But how would anyone be able to tell that one was LARPing ?

[straussmonster.livejournal.com]

I've read everything out so far, and I'm still not very content with the cosmological state of things, but that's one of the major things that I read fantasy for in general.

Also, for some reason, the way he describes music--and he has to do it a lot, given Fix's talents--annoys the hell out of me. I'll put that down to professional fixations. (Tin whistles are nice, but monophony! Limited!)

[sovay]

Have you read any of Mike Carey's Felix Castor books ?

No; I've heard of them, but I don't tend to gravitate toward urban fantasy/supernatural noir.

[sovay]

Molly & Murphy are winners.

I haven't seen almost anything of Molly so far, but I quite like Murphy (as noted to straussmonster above). The fact that she isn't sleeping with Harry and doesn't look as though she ever will is an actual point in Butcher's favor with me.

(I would add that a lot of the men are actually described in terms of their attractiveness, also, which doesn't pop up much in books authored by men.)

Interesting; I'll remember to look at that. It is true that Thomas pulls out all the adjective stops.

[sovay]

And then later on, the route gets to come for the blues; the Sherbourne Novella is apparently a ships' graveyard for folk song jokes.

Watch me complain!

[britmandelo.livejournal.com]

Molly in the newest book was so fabulous and tough and to-the-rescue. Their relationship is weird and fraught, too.

Thomas, especially, and sometimes Marcone gets handsome!adjectives, too.

[helivoy.livejournal.com]

There is, of course, a strongly dissenting view: Jim Butcher: chauvinist AND talentless–stunning combo! And, frankly, the lengthy quote from Storm Front within that opinion disposes me to agree with the verdict.

[britmandelo.livejournal.com]

I don't think any of us disagree that Storm Front is pretty appalling - he's very obviously nodding in all the wrong ways to Raymond Chandler. The later books, and the changes in those books as well as the way the narratives start working to point out Harry's blatant flaws, are what changed my mind. Mileage may vary, of course.

[britmandelo.livejournal.com]

Yes, that is how I tend to feel about them.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Honestly, you could probably pick up Dead Beat and be fine.

Thanks for the advice. I might do that, depending what my local library has.

Pity about the terrible German--that's always hard to take. I lost huge amounts of respect for Julian May after a scene in one of hers where a character meant to be Irish was ranting in a mixture of English and Scots Gaelic, and I don't mean the odd SG word as I'd use sometimes myself, like anybody with Northern inclinations, but full sentences in SG orthography.

but when you refer to someone trying to kill you in cruor gelidus, that just hurts.

I needed a lexicon to work that one out, but it is painful. Reminds me of late Law French, the "ject un Brickbat a le dit Justice que narrowly mist" sort of thing.