07 March 2007

it ain't no Harry Potter

So, I just finished reading Magic Street by Orson Scott Card. I've been wanting to read it for a while and it finally got old enough that the library had it on the shelf.

I enjoyed reading it. The plot was twisted enough, the main characters believable and decent, the fantasy of it interesting (although I've decided that describing appearances is not Cards' forte)

But... there was something fish-out-of-water-ish with it. Although I felt Card captured the emotions of people pretty well (as he usually does), I just cringed at his "African-American" dialogue. He made several in-story references about how the neighborhood kids learned their "ebonics" from the TV, kinda like he was explaining away the stiffness they spoke it with - like it was a foreign tongue.

I felt better reading the acknowledgments where he explained the genesis for this book because he knew it wasn't perfect. He tried his best.

But it was still written as an outsider. I didn't feel he caught the soul of the African-American community. Not that I would really have any experience with that, but I really felt that although mentioned, the passion or soul or fire that I feel from my African-American friends is lacking in some essential way.

Except, interestingly enough, in the preaching parts. There, I found the dialouge completely compatible with the setting. And I always love it when Card throws in some religious discussion without making it seem forced or trite - well, except in Children of the Mind. But that's a different story.

That said, I thought he did a good job of capturing the difficulties that African-American youth deal with when going to school - having to be labeled as a "tom" or an "oreo" or a "traitor" (which were all definitely used on the students in my classes at school) if you excelled.

All in all.... a good read. But not Card's best.

5 comments:

Th. said...

.

I haven't read it, but I really like Children of the Mind. I'm not clear if that's okay or not.

Sposita said...

That's a perfectly ok thing. I haven't read it in a long while - I just remember reams of paper being taken up in esoteric discussions of philotic twining and although it was a really interesting idea, it felt really unnecessary to go into such detail.

Recession Cone said...

I haven't read the book either. Is it about racism?

Th. said...

.

Eh. Sorta, I guess. I really liked it. Speaker is my favorite Ender book, for Children I like a great deal too.

Really I like them all. Xenocide and Shadow Puppets and Shadow of the Giant are a little weaker than the rest, but they are all great books.

Sposita said...

They're all great books, yes, but on a scale of greatness, I'm just saying it's lower than others of his that I really really enjoy.

Now I'll have to go re-read them all to make sure I'm right!

Darn!

=)