Mo reads Enchantment by Orson Scott Card
Several years ago, I read Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card and really liked it. The book was given to me as a gift and came with the added bonus of being signed to me by Card himself.
I would have never picked it up on my own and I would have been poorer for it.
Like with Storm Front, I was nudged in the direction of OSC by helpful suggestions by dockmagik and PhotoNinja when I asked for book suggestions. I meant to re-read Ender’s Game, but I have yet to unpack the numerous boxes of books since I moved and I refuse to re-buy something when I already know I have it.
I hit up a used bookstore looking for other books in the Ender series but could only find Enchantment instead. Undaunted, I snatched it up without a glance at the back flap because I trusted my friends enough to steer me in the right direction with OSC. After reading it, I realize fully – they are so right about Card. So, so very right. The man may very well have himself a new fangirl.
To say I loved Enchantment sounds far too trite for how I feel about it. I am humbled and awed. The story is deep and rich, with multiple emotional layers that left me wanting to laugh and cry at the same time. Card a master of the third person narrative – able to give as much depth to his characters as if he had been writing in the first person. I learned so much about how to convey the differing moods and energies of different characters and locations from this book.
He’s also a master of surprise.
I can usually pick out exactly where the story is going in the first few pages of a book (or first few minutes of a movie or TV show, for that matter). The remainder of the book/show/movie is spent just looking for confirmation of what I suspected in the first place. Take CSI, for example. More often than not, I know exactly who the killer is, how the killer did it and how the CSI team will prove it before the first commercial break. Because of this, it takes a lot to actually surprise me and I love it every time it happens.
Enchantment was different in all the right ways. Every time I thought I knew where the story was going, it headed in a completely different direction. I couldn’t hurriedly skim pages of this book just because I already knew the basic idea of what was on them. Card’s foreshadowing was so delicately subtle that it let me know that there was something to look for without actually revealing what it was. I actually had to pay attention and dig deep within each word choice to keep up with the story, and even then, it wasn’t enough to get me ahead of it. Card expertly kept me on his pace and only let me in on the secret when he decided it was time.
I know, I know – I sound like I’m gushing. In some ways I am, but I can honestly say that any of the supposed “improvements” that I could maybe suggest are minor and nitpicketty… and in a way they would be inauthentic because there were so many elements in the story that were so perfect. Not only could I not think of a way to make them better, but in thinking of how I would have executed it myself, I know I could never have done it as masterfully.
Every single character was so rich and vivid. Even the lesser characters had intricate layers of personality – there are no cardboard cut out people in OSC’s world. This is actually an issue I have in my own writing. I can make a good main character and one or two decent supporting characters. However, the background characters? I hate to admit it, but I often use cardboard templates. In some cases, it’s to keep the page count down. In some cases it’s laziness. But in more cases than I care to admit, it’s simply because I don’t notice that I’ve just inserted a cardboard character.
Card is able to weave snippets of their histories, their personalities and their motivations into the basic tapestry of the narrative so well that it doesn’t feel like there is any pause in the pace of the story just to learn about a subplot character. Yes, we learn a lot about the characters, but everything we learn is given to us in a way that advances and enhances the main story. And it’s done so well that I really didn’t notice the added page count (it’s 415 pages of a very small, single spaced font size – not the longest book ever, but longer and more densely packed than average).
I have so much to learn. I also have to head the bookstore and pick up the other OSC books that Doc and PhotoNinja suggested.
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