I recently read what is now one of my favorite books of the semester, Graceling by Kristin Cashore. Katsa lives with her uncle Randa, the king of Middluns, one of the seven kingdoms governed by seven capricious and often warring kings. Randa usually remains neutral because he has a very dangerous tool which inspires fear in his own people as well as neighboring nations, a tool that can cause instant death and cannot be stopped. The tool is Katsa. Katsa is graced. Her one blue eye and one green eye reveal to the world that she has a special talent. Some gracelings excel in cooking or mindreading but Katsa's grace is different. Her grace is killing, as she discovers as a child when she accidentally kills a man. Her uncle exploits her grace, and rumors of her deeds, done at her uncle's bidding, assure that most people fear and avoid her. However, Katsa begins to realize that she can use her powers for her own motives, and that perhaps she need not be the king's dog. And so, Katsa creates the Council, a gathering of people who devote themselves to rescuing people from the destructive whims of the kings. When Katsa rescues the kidnapped grandfather of the prince of Lienid her life begins to change. She meets the prince himself, Po ,who's grace for fighting gives her the first competition she's known. The two quickly become friends as they work to uncover who's behind the kidnapping and why. But soon it becomes obvious that things are far worse than imagined and that even Katsa, the most powerful, may not be able to protect herself from the one behind it all.
I love fantasy. Love it and I am not ashamed to admit it. A lot of people hate the genre, take for example my roommate Micha who has been sitting next to me for the last five minutes bashing magic and dragons as she waits for Gossip Girl to come on. She claims that fantasy is not real, as if reality consists solely of what we experience ourselves. I happen to disagree. Fantasy is not about the unreal or the nonrelevant. It touches to the depths of human life and experience just as realism does, only in a way that stretches our imaginations. In a way, it requires no more imagination than reading any other novel requires. All novels require the reader to put him- or herself in the place of individuals from different cultures, different time periods, and different social/economic worlds. Fantasy does the same thing. Fantasy offers us different worlds from our own but the problems and struggles of the characters are similar. Katsa's world is one with many different cultures, each with its own customs and each ruled by a leaders who are often quarrelling. Katsa herself must deal with being different, and being ostracized for something that she never asked for and cannot change. More importantly, she must learn what power is and to whom it belongs. At the beginning of the novel, Katsa is controlled by her uncle, being sent to commit heinous deeds that she does not want to do. He owns her by bending her will to his. Gradually, she realizes that she cannot be owned by anyone but herself. It is an awakening of sorts, a realization as she begins to question just who she is and what her grace actually does. She finds her own power within, her ability to exercise it independently of another, and even in the face of betrayal can control her grace and make her own decisions. Her own grace is first feared but then embraced as she realizes that that which haunts her is the very thing that will lead her to finding herself, finding others, and ultimately living the life she desires, not one dictated to her. None of these themes are "fantasy," they are all reflected in real life, they are a fundamental part of human experience. By putting them in fantasy, however, our minds are opened beyond our own narrow assumptions and preconceptions of the real as we realize that reality has a flexible quality. It is far bigger than we ever imagined. Reality is not merely my world at SLU, its the collective experiences of the world, often revealed in literature, in all its multifaceted cultures and beliefs. So sometimes the lines between fantasy and reality are blurred, if you can just get over the apparent differences that people seem to focus so singlemindedly on and embrace the similarity.
Graceling is not the complex fantasy world of Lord of the Rings. Its actually quite normal except for graces and the fact that its set in a different world, an almost medieval world. So don't let the fact that it's fantasy turn you off immediately because its really an easy transition. And there is a companion book, not a sequel but set in the same world, Fire that I haven't read but intend to.
Here's her blog, if you are interested. http://kristincashore.blogspot.com/
I love fantasy. Love it and I am not ashamed to admit it. A lot of people hate the genre, take for example my roommate Micha who has been sitting next to me for the last five minutes bashing magic and dragons as she waits for Gossip Girl to come on. She claims that fantasy is not real, as if reality consists solely of what we experience ourselves. I happen to disagree. Fantasy is not about the unreal or the nonrelevant. It touches to the depths of human life and experience just as realism does, only in a way that stretches our imaginations. In a way, it requires no more imagination than reading any other novel requires. All novels require the reader to put him- or herself in the place of individuals from different cultures, different time periods, and different social/economic worlds. Fantasy does the same thing. Fantasy offers us different worlds from our own but the problems and struggles of the characters are similar. Katsa's world is one with many different cultures, each with its own customs and each ruled by a leaders who are often quarrelling. Katsa herself must deal with being different, and being ostracized for something that she never asked for and cannot change. More importantly, she must learn what power is and to whom it belongs. At the beginning of the novel, Katsa is controlled by her uncle, being sent to commit heinous deeds that she does not want to do. He owns her by bending her will to his. Gradually, she realizes that she cannot be owned by anyone but herself. It is an awakening of sorts, a realization as she begins to question just who she is and what her grace actually does. She finds her own power within, her ability to exercise it independently of another, and even in the face of betrayal can control her grace and make her own decisions. Her own grace is first feared but then embraced as she realizes that that which haunts her is the very thing that will lead her to finding herself, finding others, and ultimately living the life she desires, not one dictated to her. None of these themes are "fantasy," they are all reflected in real life, they are a fundamental part of human experience. By putting them in fantasy, however, our minds are opened beyond our own narrow assumptions and preconceptions of the real as we realize that reality has a flexible quality. It is far bigger than we ever imagined. Reality is not merely my world at SLU, its the collective experiences of the world, often revealed in literature, in all its multifaceted cultures and beliefs. So sometimes the lines between fantasy and reality are blurred, if you can just get over the apparent differences that people seem to focus so singlemindedly on and embrace the similarity.
Graceling is not the complex fantasy world of Lord of the Rings. Its actually quite normal except for graces and the fact that its set in a different world, an almost medieval world. So don't let the fact that it's fantasy turn you off immediately because its really an easy transition. And there is a companion book, not a sequel but set in the same world, Fire that I haven't read but intend to.
Here's her blog, if you are interested. http://kristincashore.blogspot.com/
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