The Last Wish
There was a time in my life (before kids) when I actually did a decent job of keeping up with popular culture. I know, from looking at other adults around me, that this time will probably come again. But at the moment, I feel like I'm missing out on a lot because I can never seem to put together 45 minutes to watch a TV show (and forget about doing it 10 or 13 or 22 times to watch an entire season of something).
The good news is that I can always find time to read - during my commute, for 15 minutes before bed, those rare times when I manage to get all three kids to sleep at once. Reading is easier, because I can dip into books 5 minutes at a time and easily pause them when life intrudes again. But I miss feeling like a part of something when these popular TV shows arrive and it feels like everyone is watching them except me.
My brother got me The Last Wish for my birthday over the summer, because he was excited about the upcoming series on Netflix. I hadn't even heard of it, and I put the book on my shelf. I knew I'd get to it eventually, and I didn't prioritize it. Then the TV show came out and suddenly everyone was talking about it. More importantly - the TV show was confusing enough that everyone was going back to the source material to make sense of it. My Goodreads feed and the book blogs I read were suddenly full of this book and it's sequels. And I realized that I could actually cave to peer pressure this time and experience something (sort of) alongside everyone else in my little corner of the internet.
I ended up liking this book so much more than I expected to. It's a series of short stories, loosely connected by a framing short story. Geralt, the titular Witcher, is recovering from his more recent adventure (helpfully recounted in the first story) and reflecting on his life a bit. The series clearly serve as a prologue for the main thrust of the series, and it's a clever way to introduce the important side characters like Dandelion and Yennefer.
But what I really liked about the book, and the reason I'm chomping at the bit to get my hands on the rest of the series, is the way it plays with fairy tales. Everything here is familiar but subverted. The beast who lives all alone in his castle with his roses is actually perfectly content with his life, thank you very much. The princess who was exiled by her stepmother for political gain has turned into a cold-blooded assassin, seeking revenge on those who wronged her. It was so much fun to watch the story slowly come in to focus and wonder how it would change this time. The characters are also aware enough of genre-conventions to add an extra layer of delight.
I have enough unread books on my shelf that I'm trying not to buy any more, but I may have to make an exception.
The good news is that I can always find time to read - during my commute, for 15 minutes before bed, those rare times when I manage to get all three kids to sleep at once. Reading is easier, because I can dip into books 5 minutes at a time and easily pause them when life intrudes again. But I miss feeling like a part of something when these popular TV shows arrive and it feels like everyone is watching them except me.
My brother got me The Last Wish for my birthday over the summer, because he was excited about the upcoming series on Netflix. I hadn't even heard of it, and I put the book on my shelf. I knew I'd get to it eventually, and I didn't prioritize it. Then the TV show came out and suddenly everyone was talking about it. More importantly - the TV show was confusing enough that everyone was going back to the source material to make sense of it. My Goodreads feed and the book blogs I read were suddenly full of this book and it's sequels. And I realized that I could actually cave to peer pressure this time and experience something (sort of) alongside everyone else in my little corner of the internet.
I ended up liking this book so much more than I expected to. It's a series of short stories, loosely connected by a framing short story. Geralt, the titular Witcher, is recovering from his more recent adventure (helpfully recounted in the first story) and reflecting on his life a bit. The series clearly serve as a prologue for the main thrust of the series, and it's a clever way to introduce the important side characters like Dandelion and Yennefer.
But what I really liked about the book, and the reason I'm chomping at the bit to get my hands on the rest of the series, is the way it plays with fairy tales. Everything here is familiar but subverted. The beast who lives all alone in his castle with his roses is actually perfectly content with his life, thank you very much. The princess who was exiled by her stepmother for political gain has turned into a cold-blooded assassin, seeking revenge on those who wronged her. It was so much fun to watch the story slowly come in to focus and wonder how it would change this time. The characters are also aware enough of genre-conventions to add an extra layer of delight.
I have enough unread books on my shelf that I'm trying not to buy any more, but I may have to make an exception.
Comments
Post a Comment