Book Review: The Demon's Lexicon
Aug. 2nd, 2009 03:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blamebrampton[I've been meaning to write this up for weeks, but alas, the last month has been a case of overworked, sick, overworked, underslept. However, better late than never!]
This is the version of The Demon's Lexicon that Australian importers saw fit to release first:
The last time I was this wrong-footed by a cover, it was Quentin Blake's cheery illustrations for a Joan Aiken book, which turned out to be a darkly twisty tale that saw a 1970s version of me (about the same height, skinnier, more pinafores) sitting wide-eyed through half the night waiting for something awful to happen. I was few chapters into TDL before I realised it had happened again. There I was half-expecting a normal-ish Young Adult fantasy in which a romance would percolate below the surface and we would be encouraged to personally identify with at least one of the characters, and instead I was in the middle of another darkly twisty tale that was in fact quite deliciously Aiken-y.
The Demon's Lexicon, by Sarah Rees Brennan, is told from the perspective of Nick, a handsome, if somewhat inarticulate, young man, who, within the first four pages, is revealed as being handy with a wrench and sword. He lives with his older brother Alan, a bookish type possessed of one gammy leg and a good eye with a gun and knife, and their mother, Olivia. The family is pursued by magicians: demon-using murderers who are allegedly chasing Olivia for the return of a charm she stole from them when she left their circle. Along the way they take up with Jamie, another innocent victim of the magicians, and his sister, Mae.
Very few of the statements in the preceding paragraph turn out to be wholly true. This is why I think that the UK (and soon to be released Australian paperback) cover is far superior. It shows a dark cityscape, with a grim-faced boy and a conspiracy of ravens gathering. This cover says that this is a book in which things are not as they seem and in which the reader should keep a close eye out at all times. I was misled by the shiny cover, and indeed completely missed the first three clues that told me what this book is really about the first time I read it.
What it is, is a mystery. A good old, classic, it's all there if you know where to look, Agatha-Christie style mystery, while still operating within the parameters of a YA fantasy novel. Brennan's characters exist in a world where few things are wholly clear to any of them. The largest revelation, that magic lies behind the everyday, is a fact of life to Nick and Alan. Their father died rescuing them from a magician's trap, and their mad mother is a constant reminder of the price magic can exact.
To Jamie, who was marked in his 'sleep' by a demon (a fit, fanciable and available demon, delivered straight to your bedroom window, great offer! if you don't ask the price …) and his anxious sister Mae, Nick and Alan's world is not one they want to enter. Alas, the mark leaves them no choice. With it, Jamie is doomed. And so they join forces with the brothers in a bid to defeat their magical enemies, including Black Arthur, the most feared magician of them all.
They expect there will be a cost, and they expect to be confronted by it, but they are utterly unprepared to find themselves in a magical Goblin Market dancing for demons, in a flight for their lives, and willing to kill …
Brennan has made a great gamble in telling her story through the eyes of Nick. Taciturn and violent, he's not a hero that one can feel close to. While Jamie and Mae share their fear and wonder at the world they uncover with the reader, Nick keeps them at arm's length. Alan is the only person Nick can be persuaded to care for, and to trust. And, as the reader quickly realises, gentle, learned, charismatic Alan may love his brother very much, but he certainly isn't telling him the whole truth.
While I was surprised to find a contemporary hero so resolutely unsympathetic, after the first shock it was an enjoyable change of pace. Freed from the need to identify with Nick, the reader can pay attention to him, and what is being said around him.
And very quickly it becomes clear that the novel is weaving a trap as clever as the one played out within the plot. I know that a good percentage of readers have, as I did, twigged to what some have described as the 'trick' of the book early. This is purely because it is the most logical conclusion to draw. But, knowing that trick did not in any way lessen the enjoyment of watching the plot progress to what was a genuine shock at the climax. Most impressively, the key twist is not one that relies on magical gimmickry for its effect, but one that is created out of well drawn and well realised character, leaving the reader holding their breath and hoping.
There are flaws. Witty ripostes seem to be the stock in trade for the four main characters, so that their voices are not as individualised as they could be. Even Nick, who finds words difficult and slippery, finds slick one liners relatively easy. And the mechanics of the magical world are sketched rather than fully inked; an artefact of the book size more than anything else, I would hazard a guess, and an issue that may be rectfied in the sequel.
What is beautifully realised is the physicality of the world: the tedium of living in fear, the strange exhilaration of violence, the breathless throb of a dance or a stolen kiss. Brennan's facility with language shows in her descriptions of movement, and in the voices of the least-seen characters: Merris Cromwell from the Goblin Market, the broken Olivia, the powerful Black Arthur, and Gerald, a young wizard who is very very good at pretending to be less than he is.
Above all, the fine knife-edge of knowing and not knowing is sustained until the last pages, where even the expected turns twist another way.
Whichever cover you find yourself with, I recommend picking up a copy. And if it turns out you're holding an image of a lipglossed boy with crepey neck, remove the slipcover for a classic sword image instead. I enjoyed reading it twice. The first time I was impressed and intrigued; the second I was able to appreciate just how clever and tightly constructed The Demon's Lexicon is. And, knowing his secrets, I even found myself liking Nick.
This is the version of The Demon's Lexicon that Australian importers saw fit to release first:
The last time I was this wrong-footed by a cover, it was Quentin Blake's cheery illustrations for a Joan Aiken book, which turned out to be a darkly twisty tale that saw a 1970s version of me (about the same height, skinnier, more pinafores) sitting wide-eyed through half the night waiting for something awful to happen. I was few chapters into TDL before I realised it had happened again. There I was half-expecting a normal-ish Young Adult fantasy in which a romance would percolate below the surface and we would be encouraged to personally identify with at least one of the characters, and instead I was in the middle of another darkly twisty tale that was in fact quite deliciously Aiken-y.
The Demon's Lexicon, by Sarah Rees Brennan, is told from the perspective of Nick, a handsome, if somewhat inarticulate, young man, who, within the first four pages, is revealed as being handy with a wrench and sword. He lives with his older brother Alan, a bookish type possessed of one gammy leg and a good eye with a gun and knife, and their mother, Olivia. The family is pursued by magicians: demon-using murderers who are allegedly chasing Olivia for the return of a charm she stole from them when she left their circle. Along the way they take up with Jamie, another innocent victim of the magicians, and his sister, Mae.
Very few of the statements in the preceding paragraph turn out to be wholly true. This is why I think that the UK (and soon to be released Australian paperback) cover is far superior. It shows a dark cityscape, with a grim-faced boy and a conspiracy of ravens gathering. This cover says that this is a book in which things are not as they seem and in which the reader should keep a close eye out at all times. I was misled by the shiny cover, and indeed completely missed the first three clues that told me what this book is really about the first time I read it.
What it is, is a mystery. A good old, classic, it's all there if you know where to look, Agatha-Christie style mystery, while still operating within the parameters of a YA fantasy novel. Brennan's characters exist in a world where few things are wholly clear to any of them. The largest revelation, that magic lies behind the everyday, is a fact of life to Nick and Alan. Their father died rescuing them from a magician's trap, and their mad mother is a constant reminder of the price magic can exact.
To Jamie, who was marked in his 'sleep' by a demon (a fit, fanciable and available demon, delivered straight to your bedroom window, great offer! if you don't ask the price …) and his anxious sister Mae, Nick and Alan's world is not one they want to enter. Alas, the mark leaves them no choice. With it, Jamie is doomed. And so they join forces with the brothers in a bid to defeat their magical enemies, including Black Arthur, the most feared magician of them all.
They expect there will be a cost, and they expect to be confronted by it, but they are utterly unprepared to find themselves in a magical Goblin Market dancing for demons, in a flight for their lives, and willing to kill …
Brennan has made a great gamble in telling her story through the eyes of Nick. Taciturn and violent, he's not a hero that one can feel close to. While Jamie and Mae share their fear and wonder at the world they uncover with the reader, Nick keeps them at arm's length. Alan is the only person Nick can be persuaded to care for, and to trust. And, as the reader quickly realises, gentle, learned, charismatic Alan may love his brother very much, but he certainly isn't telling him the whole truth.
While I was surprised to find a contemporary hero so resolutely unsympathetic, after the first shock it was an enjoyable change of pace. Freed from the need to identify with Nick, the reader can pay attention to him, and what is being said around him.
And very quickly it becomes clear that the novel is weaving a trap as clever as the one played out within the plot. I know that a good percentage of readers have, as I did, twigged to what some have described as the 'trick' of the book early. This is purely because it is the most logical conclusion to draw. But, knowing that trick did not in any way lessen the enjoyment of watching the plot progress to what was a genuine shock at the climax. Most impressively, the key twist is not one that relies on magical gimmickry for its effect, but one that is created out of well drawn and well realised character, leaving the reader holding their breath and hoping.
There are flaws. Witty ripostes seem to be the stock in trade for the four main characters, so that their voices are not as individualised as they could be. Even Nick, who finds words difficult and slippery, finds slick one liners relatively easy. And the mechanics of the magical world are sketched rather than fully inked; an artefact of the book size more than anything else, I would hazard a guess, and an issue that may be rectfied in the sequel.
What is beautifully realised is the physicality of the world: the tedium of living in fear, the strange exhilaration of violence, the breathless throb of a dance or a stolen kiss. Brennan's facility with language shows in her descriptions of movement, and in the voices of the least-seen characters: Merris Cromwell from the Goblin Market, the broken Olivia, the powerful Black Arthur, and Gerald, a young wizard who is very very good at pretending to be less than he is.
Above all, the fine knife-edge of knowing and not knowing is sustained until the last pages, where even the expected turns twist another way.
Whichever cover you find yourself with, I recommend picking up a copy. And if it turns out you're holding an image of a lipglossed boy with crepey neck, remove the slipcover for a classic sword image instead. I enjoyed reading it twice. The first time I was impressed and intrigued; the second I was able to appreciate just how clever and tightly constructed The Demon's Lexicon is. And, knowing his secrets, I even found myself liking Nick.
