REVIEW: "the Book of Life" by Deborah Harkness

"Wild Card," you say, "Why didn't you post at all last week? Why have we been waiting for content since your last book review?"
THIS BOOK IS WHY. Like the last two books in the trilogy, I've been surreptitiously (and not) been reading this book since I did my last review. The only things that have kept me from this book are work, church, and sleep (and the last one may have been compromised by it). Though it doesn't go quite as quickly as the other two in the trilogy, I was still reading 125 pages a day at least (that's a record for me.)

So, real thoughts on The Book of Life?
First, SPOILER WARNING. (this is the third book in a trilogy. If you want to read it unspoiled, proceed with caution and maybe don't proceed at all).

Plot summary: Basically, this is the part where the pieces of Ashmole 782 finally get put back together and the Congregation and the Covenant are faced.
There are questions posed for Act 3: Are any of Matthew's children a threat? (Yes. Matthew's vampire-son, Benjamin, is, lightly speaking, a psychotic asshole of the rape-and-murder variety.) What will the Congregation do about Diana and Matthew's relationship? Are Peter Knox and Gerbert the Vampire going to continue being assholes until the end? (Yes, but someone has to).
There are prior questions answered as well: what is blood rage? What determines which vampire manifests the traits and which vampire is a carrier? How are weavers made, and why is Diana a weaver and not a normal witch? (an interesting answer awaits these two). What does the Book of Life actually say?

There are a lot of answers to a lot of questions. The Book of Life is a fast-paced conclusion to the series, and I loved almost every page, especially because Diana does a lot of saving people by the end of it.

I say "almost" because there are a few issues. SPOILER WARNING REMINDER.



Firstly, Gallowglass. I love this vampire to death, and I wish his plot arc could have ended better. It appears that he fell in love with Diana in 1590, but it wasn't clear whether he was in love or he had actually hoped to mate with her later on. Part of me was wondering whether this would be a situation similar to Twilight, where an ancillary love interest (Jacob) spends a lot of time with the heroine while she's pregnant; it turns out that the heroine's daughter is Jacob's One True Life Partner. Though the process of vampires choosing thier One True Life Partner is not fully explored in the All Souls Trilogy (when the main couple are fully consenting adults, mating only needs to be explained as Somewhat More Than Marriage), I'm a little bit curious as to why Gallowglass's feelings are brought up at all. Is it possible for a vampire to mate when the other being is still a zygote? If so, has Gallowglass actually developed feelings for one of Diana and Matthew's twin children when they're still fetuses? Are his feelings just a reason for Gallowglass to agree to be Diana's bodyguard when Matthew is out?
Given that Gallowglass does have feelings for Diana, it makes sense that he isn't present in the epilogue. I do wish that he could have been there, though.

Secondly, the climax. I can handle a moderate amount of bodily harm in fiction, but there were moments when I felt gross. That, like nothing else, showed how much of a psychotic asshole Benjamin could be. The climax was good for a few reasons: two of Diana's struggles were overcome (lack of magic and hesitating before killing), the fact that she saves Matthew and not the other way around, that Benjamin got a truly fitting death, and that Diana was able to face and run the Congregation.

Thirdly, the ending. Some of it seemed too perfectly wrapped-together. The revocation of the Covenant, which really needed to be revoked, was very good and fitting, but there didn't seem to be enough of a price. Yes, Diana was exhausted and absorbed the Book of Life and all that, but what are the ill effects of that? All it really seems is that now Matthew can truly say to their children, "Pay attention to your mother, because she really does know everything." Though the scientific exploration of creatures is interesting, it just feels too well-wrapped.


The duration of the story into the third act, though, is great. The biggest drawback I can think of is that these books are really heavy and I can't always take them everywhere.
Definitely check them out if you have the chance.

SUPER LATE IN THE WEEK POST

My apologies for not posting at all this week. I've just been lazy. Also, finals are this week, so this is the time when I say WHAT I LEARNED THIS TERM.

ACADEMIC
1. Show up to class on time.
2. Second-person pronouns are fascinating. Especially in Middle English.
3. The debate about stuff that is condonable by Christianity has been going on forever. In Old English, the debate was whether it was religiously acceptable to translate the Bible into English from Latin. On the plus side, you could reach a lot more people with scripture. On the down side, THE LATIN TEXT IS SACRED, DAMMIT. (Ignoring, of course, that the text under debate was originally in Hebrew and Greek, not Latin).
4. The environment is messed up.
5. Humans most likely caused the environment to be messed up.
6. There's a thing called the Precautionary Principle. It basically states that the lack of scientific certainty that something is messed up should not be an excuse to do absolutely nothing about a possible issue. Alternatively, this means that if there is a possible issue about conservation, opt on the side of caution and do the conserving. It can't really hurt you.
7. People in government should probably take the precautionary principle when thinking about environmental policy.
8. We're all going to die.
9. Linguistics is cool.

End of Finals

hello!

My apologies for not posting in... three weeks?  I should get on that.

My excuse is that in the last week, I've spent more time in the local coffee shop in a caffeine-induced stupor, trying to remember how to decline Classical Greek nouns and writing an essay about the Anasazi artifacts and Puebloan mythology in Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. (that was the biggest stressor, because, despite my being an English major and everything... writing 10-15 pages on comparisons is difficult. Even though the topic was really cool).  Anyway, that's what I've been doing.  My last exam was this morning, so I'm packing to go home to real sleep, and hoping that I can get a lot of writing and knitting done over break.

I'm excited.

On the train home (or maybe even tonight, I don't know), I'll do a Semester Recap post.