Throwdown archive

Tessa: Binge reading series probably offers the closest experience to what the author intends. The beauty of reading series in a row is *getting* all the complex twists and turns. Can you imagine if the Lord of the Rings was released a year apart? (Not the movie version.) That’s a helluvah lot to keep in your head over 365 days of grocery shopping, flat tires, and—perhaps most importantly—other books. The whole point of a story is to suck you in, so it seems more real than reality. You have a full year of getting lost in other stories—stories with can often color your mood/perception of other things you see/read. It makes it especially easy to forget characters and subplots.

Cari: True. You can get complexities and connections more easily when the previous story is still fresh in your mind. But, what if you are reading a series of non-epic-length stories? Stories that aren’t as layered or ones that are more episodic like The Babysitters Club? With that series, you didn’t even need to read the books in order. Each included a backstory of how the Babysitters Club came to be and contained a single mystery to solve. I don’t remember any series level arcs. Nothing was lost by skipping stories with your least favorite sitter as the main character. In that case, I don’t think it mattered to me when I got the next book. I enjoyed the series and wanted to read more, but the timing didn’t affect how I read or understood the series.

Tessa: Oh I was much too high class to read The Babysitters Club or Sweet Valley. (*I* read Trixie Belden instead.) But that also begs the question—are serials and series the same thing, to be considered in the same way? Wouldn’t the type fundamentally change the experience?

For example with mysteries (or say, Terry Pratchett), you get a much more complete experience as a reader if you read the books in order (probably more so than the Babysitters Club), but each are episodic enough that continuity isn’t required. Sure, you might not get all the in-jokes and references, but you wouldn’t lose any real enjoyment.

Stories like those in Arabian Nights are wholly complete in themselves. They are loosely related but in no way need each other, and the only thing keeping you alive each night. (Babysitter’s Club probably falls here.)

Trilogies, or LOTR: one massive story split up into three sections so people wouldn’t have to carry around a hundred pound book. Reading it out of order would result in a lot of Buffy-esque “huh?” Each book wraps up enough so you’re not left in the middle of a sentence, and that’s about it. (Lirael and Abhorsen anyone?)

Cari: You’re right. Different types of books read differently. For me, if an epic  is really complex, I might just be focusing on basics of the plot the first time through rather than understanding the subtext and connections. I wouldn’t necessarily benefit from reading the book in the series immediately because I’ve missed hints the author left me.

Books resurface in my thoughts a few days after finishing them. I’ve had time to process the book and then I’ll wonder about subplots and my unconscious will have picked up on details that made the story so enjoyable in the reading. Reflection can allow me to appreciate the story more when I’ve overcome the enjoyment and satisfaction of the ending. Then I can anticipate the next book even more. But, if I started the next in the epic series too soon? I might be plodding through instead of enjoying it.

With regular series – series that aren’t episodic, but that won’t take me three months to get through? If I’ve enjoyed the first part, there is a piece of me that wants the next bit immediately and another part that doesn’t want the series to end. If it’s short and fluffy, I don’t mind reading straight through. But, if my mind was blown? I like to process. And I like to feel that much more satisfied when I’ve waited and anticipated the arrival of the next part of the series – even if I just had to wait for a library hold to come in.

Tessa: I almost always want the next segment right away. In a way, I want it to end—so I can stop obsessing and get on with my normal life. Plus, the reading experience is so much more enjoyable if I can finish a story *while* I’m obsessing. While my mind can’t stop turning over the characters and plot. Put too much time between one installment and the next, and I’ve moved on emotionally. I’m still invested, and wanting to see what happens, but it becomes more of a “oh, that’s a good book, I liked it” instead of “omg you have to read this, like, yesterday.”

Tessa: So, what about Jane?

Cari: I think she’s great. I don’t have any bad feelings about Jane, she’s had a hard life. She’s young. She’s also a little addicted to poor treatment, and that’s what she never grows out of. The only thing that’s apparently quote “wrong with her” is that she’s homely.

Tessa: She’s passionate, and there’s all this stuff under the surface. She’s really hard to get to know, but she’s also the kind of friend you want to have, because she will always stick with you.

Cari: To the point of being a doormat. Though she did have a good relationship with the girl that died—one could even say a healthy relationship.

Tessa: Jane’s strong, she advertised to get out of Lowood and she totally mouthed off to Mr. Brocklehurst.

Cari: She did. She was a feminist in her time.

Tessa: She stands up to Rochester, too. She doesn’t take his crap. Those whole conversations after dinner? She holds her own, one ups him most the time, and runs rings around him—which he totally knows. That’s why he likes her.

Cari: One of the scenes I flipped to was when they start talking with Ms. Fairfax, and Jane admits to being not well educated, not having a family, etc. To me, Rochester’s questions and reactions were for picking out a victim. She’s fallen into his lair, and has no resources to fall back on besides him, and no one to fall back on besides herself. So the run rings around him scenes, that just angers him and (later) makes him shake her.Then, when she’s left and he’s burned down his house and is blind and killed everyone, it’s a little convenient that his sight eventually comes back. He’s controlling her through her kindness. Oh look, I neeed you. Again, doormat.

Tessa: First he does not get his sight back, only in bits and pieces—Cari: Convenient.Tessa: —and he did not make her come back to him.

Cari: I thought you said she called out to him on the wind. Bella Bella!

Tessa: An emotional connection is not forcing her to come back to him! And he thought he was a total idiot when he was calling for her anyway.

Cari: If he did. Oh yeah honey, I was “calling” for you.

Tessa: Wait, I thought he brought it up first? Calling to her?

Cari: Damn. Ok, yes, basically he brought it up.

Tessa: So there! The magic of romance!

Cari: It’s not romance – it’s crazy.

Tessa: So crazy people can’t have love too?

Cari: They can until Rochester locks them in the attic.

Tessa: Yeah, but the attic treatment was probably a thousand times better than the institutions they had back then. And he provides for Adele. But on the romantic side, the love story is such a slow build. Every simple conversation, every exchanged glance, multiplies in passion and expression until while I don’t *want* Jane to marry an already married Rochester, I do think that if he’d succeeded—married Jane without her finding out—she’d have been happy. He’d have done everything in his power, moved heaven and earth, to make her happy. Beyond the sheer gothic-ness, it’s a story of the pull between passion and duty, love and standards of self. She can’t marry him if she knows, because she loses herself—and the price paid is misery. That’s why the ending is so romantic—to regain love and still keep one’s honor.

Cari: What I see is a girl who came from nowhere – a victim because she has no resources.The guy has so scared his employees that they don’t even try to protect this young girl, presumably for fear of repercussions from Rochester. Later, his stuff is destroyed and she’s gotten her fortune so finally “deserves” him, so she comes to take care of blind and burned Rochester. She could have anyone whenever she wanted – she has money now and even a proposal from St. John. But just because she turns him down doesn’t mean she can’t have anyone else. A la Bella, who could have any one of five guys but chooses the one who wants to kill her, Jane goes back to the guy who lied and manipulated and shook her. A vicitim and her manipulator. Just because Rochester experienced misery doesn’t mean the misery he’s caused is excused – or that it’s romance.

Look for the first post June 19th.