Locked Rooms

[prof_pangaea]

I finally got Locked Rooms from the library yesterday (there were many middle-aged women in line for the book before me, it seems), and finished it today. My (very brief) thoughts below, as I have to get ready for class. There will be more, OH SO MUCH MORE, when I have the time.



Mary: *is an idiot*
Holmes: *is omniscient*
Narrative Device: *is clunky and distracting*
Dashiell Hammet: *is random and senseless historical cameo character*
Me: WTF??
Dialogue Between Holmes and Hammet: *is bad. Very bad*
Every Other Cameo Character: *is wise and understanding*
Laurie R. King: *makes terrible, TERRIBLE reference to The Maltese Falcon*
Me: *is horrified, calls cesario out of insanity*
Cesario: *laughs maniacally*
Plot: *is pointless*
Me: GAH



I need to go finish reading the decision in Marbury v. Madison now.

Comments

[kels.livejournal.com]

I didn't think it was all *that* bad. I mean, I'll agree that it is the worst of the series, but I wasn't horrified by it. It was... OK. Disappointing. I kind of liked the part told from Holmes' point of view.

[prof-pangaea.livejournal.com]

It's not as boring as The Moor, but it was WAY worse in that it was a total disservice to the characters involved.

The stuff told from Holmes' point of view was really interesting intellectually, just to see how his mind is working at any particular time, but the writing during those sections is so uninspiring. And whenever Hammet shows up she vascillates between styles and POV like WOAH, and she doesn't even seem to notice that she's doing it. *sadness*

[kels.livejournal.com]

You thought The Moor was boring? It's one of my favorite books in the series.

Eh, we'll just have to hope that the next one is better. *crosses fingers*

[watergal.livejournal.com]

Sorry, sweetie. I guess you will have to write your own. *grin*

[prof-pangaea.livejournal.com]

I am completely uninspired by this book -- there is nothing in it that makes me want to write fic at all. It is sad.

Wait -- Mycroft had a heart attack. So there's that. But it technically happened before the story began, and is only mentioned in the book.

Also, I always very much enjoy the locked doors icon, mostly because Holmes looks so awesome in that picture.

GIComment

[watergal.livejournal.com]

Because I couldn't decide which icon to use for the last post. *bigger grin*

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

*snort*

I wouldn't have said it was that bad, but then, a year of reading the most horrendous Sue novels in history may have damaged my critical faculties. And plucking small jewels out for fic purposes may have blinded me to the bigger picture.

*ponders*

...nope. Still like it. Except for the Maltese Falcon reference, which I maintain was cheap, tacky and an entirely unfair end to the dead character in question.

[prof-pangaea.livejournal.com]

It's not that the plot is bad, per se... the mystery isn't that bad, by itself -- but I felt like it was unnecessary. What is the POINT of doing all this with Mary's past?

I don't know exactly how to articulate my feelings, so please bear with me. But the whole work seemed incredibly sloppy, from the writing, the dialogue, the weird narrative device, the lame cameo characters, to the plot itself. It was like she didn't care to actually TRY something new or interesting to get to character development, so she just manufactured this lame situation to "show" us more about Mary's past. It was too much hard work to actually get Mary to behave in a believable way AND to keep the book long enough, so she just made Mary act ridiculous and wrote it off as nerves and "subconcious desires" so that events could be delayed. She wanted to show what Holems was doing, but instead of working within the confines of her chosen POV, or even of coming up with a really interesting way to show us these details some other way, she comes up with some half-baked explanation that Russell had "crudely" written those sections herself, and then put the different parts together (this is particular I thought was worthy of being a wonky Author's Note on fanfiction.net). Instead of going through the trouble of making up her own private detective character, and thus introducing a degree of unpredictability into the story (is he on Holmes' side? Is he trustworthy, etc) she just grabs an historical personage that she has a literary crush on and sadly abuses him by sticking him in this sorry situation. And the ultra-lame pseudo-philosophical "thoughts" about the nature of fate when Dr. Ming shows up just at the right time. Yee-ikes.

And yet all of that would have been acceptable if the STORY had been worth it, but I simply cannot see why showing us, Hey, Mary didn't actually cause the accident! And her parents really WERE perfect! is a good enough excuse.

I feel like the entire exercise was cheap and tacky and unfair to the characters involved. As well as the readers.

[kels.livejournal.com]

Glad you were able to elaborate here. I can get a better idea from this why you feel the way you do about the book.

I also think it was, if not pointless, at least uneccesary to have the accident turn out to be murder (although I would hardly agree that "her parents really WERE perfect!" I mean, her father at least was guilty of some rather shady actions; covering up his friend's crime).

I was also disappointed by Mary's actions. I had come to rely on her as a strong, clear-headed character. She has major issues, yes, but her characterization in this book made her seem weak to me.

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can see your point here. Well, some of them.

I don't actually mind Russell's characterisation through most of it, because she was acting in a way consistent with her psychological state at the time -- and while she was annoying as hell, most people are when teetering on the edge of the more mundane kind of nervous breakdown.

As for the clumsy omnipotent voice, I could let that slide pretty easily -- I've read worse in 'respectable' novels, and I liked Hammett. (What I found weird was the way she was writing him like a surrogate son for Holmes -- I really want to say, "Laurie, if you want to write the Lovely Lost Son novel, no one's going to stop you, but for God's sake, stop skirting around the issue. And watch your pacing.")

My problem with the book is that there was no real danger to Russell, and therefore very little tension. Greenfield and his sister were basically cyphers, and worse, they were cyphers with the potential to be really interesting. Especially since Rosa was compared to Russell at several points, and her obsessive support for Greenfield could have made an interesting parallel/contrast to the Russell/Holmes marriage. We haven't had a really worthy female villain since Beekeeper's, and I wanted to know more about Rosa.

I also wanted a proper confrontation between Russell and Greenfield. What we got was just ... nothing. I mean, if he killed her family, and she's mistakenly carried that guilt for ten years, I kind of feel like there should have been an insane amount of tension and hatred. Laurie kind of groped towards it, but the whole conclusion was so rushed that Russell's feelings were just pushed aside. (Ironic, since they were so much indulged through the earlier sections.)

The weird thing was that I kept expecting a big ending -- I had a real sense that she was foreshadowing the destruction of the Russell house, and I was quite certain she'd get to the Lodge and find Greenfield and his sister either in residence or only recently gone. As it was, we just had these big narrative detours -- which I enjoyed reading in an undemanding way, but which only contributed a little to the plot.

Laurie doesn't seem to like inflicting too much pain on her characters. She likes them far too much to make them suffer like that, and I think that's the main reason the Russell series is in decline. She's rushing through endings and denying Russell and Holmes the opportunity to feel the consequences of each story. It's one of the recurring factors in nearly all her books, she just can't inflict that much upon her characters. So of course Russell didn't cause the accident, and may now be insulated from all further angst. Blah blah fishcakes.

...This is one of the reasons that I am actually so into the series in a fannish way. I know it's seriously flawed -- and these narrative flaws are more troublesome to me than the Sue factor -- but if it were good, I wouldn't be able to write fic for it. As it is, I derive considerable sadistic glee from inflicting pain on fictional characters. Especially Holmes and Russell, who can be bent quite far before they break. (Bless them.)

Whereas an author like Bujold, who starts each novel wondering, "What's the worst possible thing I can do to this character?" never need fear that I'll turn my ficcish attentions to her universes -- she's already going my work for me.

[theodicy.livejournal.com]

Ahem. We aren't acquainted, but I haven't even read the book yet (yes, it's still sitting on my nighttable - excuse of new infant, &c.) and your criticism seems to be apt, from what I know of excerpts.

I've been slightly disappointed in every book save for the first two, for the reasons you mention, and also because I see the Sherlock Holmes stories as quintessentially English and I want to see MORE of those stories, not Travel!Holmes and Linguist!Russell - those plots seem to me to make her even more Sueish than usual.

Look forward to your fics in which Everyone Is Punished Soundly. Heh.

[kels.livejournal.com]

Sorry for clogging up this post with comments!

But what is this Maltese Falcon reference that everyone keeps referring to?

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

Leah Ginzberg's Death By Bird Ornament is a nod to The Maltese Falcon. And a pretty blatant, tacky one, too, imho. (And that's coming from someone who really did like Locked Rooms, despite the ranting above.)

[kels.livejournal.com]

OK... I've never read the book or seen the movie (actually, I had to look it up on Wikipedia just to see if it was a movie or a book). But thank you. I'm slightly less in the dark now. :P