En päässyt tähän fantasiakirjaan kunnolla sisälle missään vaiheessa, mutta pidin sen kerronnasta ja mielikuvituksesta. ( )

Another wonderfully haunting story, where the writing is a quiet as the secrets it unfolds. ( )

While almost any book will suffer to some extent in translation, there are problems with this book that are not translation-related. The first being the doltishness of the protagonist. To wit:

Scene: you live in a semi-authoritarian state and the police have just shown up to take some of your coworker-roommates away, including at least one child of 10 or 12. You could of course attempt to stop the police from doing this, but any idiot could see that that's going to accomplish nothing beyond getting you carted off as well. It's also not unlikely it would earn both you and the people or person you were trying to rescue worse treatment.

Later on you are hauled off by the police and encounter the child who was taken earlier. The child upbraids you for not saving her, and you, in defiance of all sense, accept full responsibility for the child's situation. Apparently you have such an overdeveloped sense of guilt and have bought so fully into the aphorism that misery loves company that you feel guilty when you can't provide said company. You shouldn't be in prison, but you should seek psychological help (and you should have explain what an asinine attitude the kid was copping, if you ask me).

There are other instances of mental thickness that seem mainly to exist to eliminate any possibility that you, the reader, might in any way be confused. This consists of the main character being lead by the nose (sometimes by herself, other times by others) in steps so minuscule, you find it difficult to imagine that the author isn't deliberately trying to insult your intelligence--memory too, as on at least one occasions the super-obvious event which the main character has to have dissected in front of her happened only a few pages ago and was in no way minor, rather it was quite pivotal.

So, while I liked the setting and the plot, the being led around by the nose and the main character's tedious, overdeveloped senses of guilt and responsibility grated on my nerves. ( )

Uh. Tästä ei ole paljon hyvää sanottavaa, mutta jotenkin selvisin loppuun asti. Osittain syynä voi olla äänikirjan lukija, joka äityi alleviivaamaan liikaa runollista kieltä. Toisaalta tätä runollista kuvailua oli kirjassa muutenkin aivan liikaa: välillä mietin onko tässä juonta ollenkaan (ja muita arvosteluja luettuani huomasin etten ollut ainoa). Lukija myös sai eläytymisellään henkilöhahmot vaikuttamaan lastenkirjan/ohjelman hahmoilta, toisin sanoen: ärsyttäviltä. Hahmojen väliset suhteetkin olivat kovin karikatyyrimaisia. Jopa päähenkilö oli ohut (kuten Itärannan muissakin teoksissa) ja uskomattoman naiivi. Tuntui ettei päähenkilö kyseenalaistanut mitään ja teos sortuikin kuvailemaan luomaansa maailmaa (usein ylen runollisesti, kuten mainitsin) kuin se olisi itsestäänselvä: kenenkään ei tarvinnut kyseenalaistaa sen lainalaisuuksia eikä toimia osana sitä tai sitä vastaan. Äh, en osaa selittää tätä... Jotenkin kuvailusta tuli kovin teatraalinen olo ja samalla tuntui että kuvailu tuli päähenkilön kautta ja päähenkilö ajatteli vain, että "kas, tällaista täällä onkin". Päähenkilö oli ärsyttävän toimintakyvytön ja aloitekyvytön, mikä osaltaan selittää laahavaa juonta. ( )

I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway, and the comparisons to Tepper made me eager to read it. However, looking at the current distribution of the star ratings makes me wonder how much of this story is lost in the translation (not just the literal translation but the cultural translation). I found the book slow to start, confusing and difficult to get through -- and ultimately not rewarding in the way that Tepper's novels usually end up being. ( )