Tooth and Claw

Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In this inventive fantasy that re-imagines the Victorian era, members of a genteel family struggle to make their way in the world after the death of their father - and they happen to be dragons.

A short pitch for this book could be Jane Austen with dragons. If that isn't a great hook, I don't know what is! The cast of characters is a respectable dragon family whose patriarch has died, scattering his heirs into the uniquely dangerous world to make their fortunes. Each character seems to have an analog in the Austen universe: for example, the clergyman Blessed Frelt is both Mr. Collins and Mr. Elliot.

It's fascinating to see how Walton translates Victorian ideas about human nature into dragon society: female dragons are much smaller than males, and lack claws or fire (dragons vary wildly in size, ranging from servants who remain seven feet in adulthood to the giant nobles who achieve seventy feet or more). Females change color when they bond with a mate, and a female alone in the world is in real danger of being "pressed" (something much like rape) or simply killed and eaten. Yes, eaten. That brings us to a central point in this world: dragons eat their dead, for some very good reasons. It's an idea Walton uses to full potential, and as strange as it is to think of Dragon Mr. Darcy eating his dear dead dad, it works. Dragon society is genteel on the surface, but beneath every interaction lurks the reality that these are large carnivores, ready to fight tooth and claw to improve their social standing.

The characters are interesting, but some of the love stories between dragon couples lacked zest. I think it's because Walton doesn't have the knack for dialog that you see in the classic British authors - Dickens and Austen in particular. (It's unfair to make the comparison, but impossible not to.) Still, the concept and execution are so charming I'm happy to overlook this quibble. In fact, I want Jo Walton to write generations of dragon stories, progressing through every era of human civilization. Dragon Greatest Generation! Dragon hippies! Dragon yuppies! (A dragon Gordon Gecko would be fantastic: Greed...is good.) There are so many interesting directions this universe could take, and the way Walton uses her premise to reexamine human society is exactly what good fantasy should do.

The obvious ideal readers of this book are Jane Austen/fantasy lovers, so brush up on your Emma, Pride and Prejudice, and Sense and Sensibility before (or after) Tooth and Claw. I would also suggest another alternate-history fantasy series, one I love: His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik (the first in the Temeraire books). Think Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander - with dragons, naturally. I'm pretty sure everything's better with dragons.

Hard Times

Hard Times by Charles Dickens
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Louisa Gradgrind's hard-nosed education, driven by her factory owner father's ideals, fails her and those around her in one of Dicken's shortest works.

Louisa Gradgrind was brought up in the industrial grime of Coketown, trained in nothing but facts. To Mr. Gradgrind and his friends, "wonder" is a dirty word. Alienated from everyone around her, Louisa's education takes a spiritual toll, leaving her world-weary and nihilistic.

Louisa makes a terrible marriage to a man 30 years her senior; she then finds herself the intended prey of a bored aristocrat and the focus of a malicious widow's spying. Her worthless brother, Thomas "The Whelp" Gradgrind, sponges off of her, taking advantage of her love for him.

The innocent around the malformed Gradgrinds suffer, too - innocents like "Hard Times" himself Stephen Blackpool, an honest factory worker: "It is said that every life has its roses and thorns; there seemed, however, to have been a misadventure or mistake in Stephen's case, whereby somebody else had become possessed of his roses, and he had become possessed of the same somebody else's thorns in addition to his own."

It may be hard times all around, but Dickens' comic touches and tear-jerking moments make this a virtuoso performance by the master of character and observation. Good may not entirely win out, but bad certainly gets its comeuppance. It's especially gratifying to see the fruit reaped by Mrs. Sparsit's nosiness and Mr. Bounderby's constant boasting. The story isn't as rewarding or as exciting as Great Expectations or A Christmas Carol, but fans of Dickens should definitely read it. (I wouldn't recommend it as a starting point for his works, though.)

Most Dickens characters easily lend themselves to being nicknamed, they are so distinct and often outrageous, so here's my list:
Thomas "The Whelp" Gradgrind - "It was altogether unaccountable that a young gentleman whose imagination had been strangled in his cradle, should be still inconvenienced by its ghost in the form of grovelling sensualities; but such a monster, beyond all doubt, was Tom."
Josiah "Blowhard" Bounderby - A self-made man with "a moral infection of clap-trap in him": he's the original humblebragger as he boasts about his beginnings in a gutter
Mrs. Sparsit the Sneak - A dependent widow, the proud possessor of a Roman nose that she likes to stick in everyone else's business
Stephen "Hard Luck" Blackpool - Perpetually down on his luck, but honest and good-hearted
Sissy "Saintly" Jupe - A young woman the Gradgrinds take in after she is abandoned by her father, who is a circus performer
James "Superfluous Man" Harthouse - a Byron wannabe who tries to gain the married Louisa's affections

Dickens uses the lives of these characters to illustrate his own ideas about hot-button issues of his day: education, laissez-faire capitalism (there were almost no protections for workers, who were often children), divorce (so expensive it was only achievable for upper-classes, and almost impossible for women to gain), the rise of labor unions (considered criminal organizations until 1867), rapid industrialization, industrial pollution, and the cold-blooded political philosophy of Utilitarianism. Anyone who dismisses the Victorian era in Britain as uninteresting and prudish only has to read through that list to realize that their problems are our problems.

You can download a digital copy of Hard Times for free at Project Gutenberg, along with the rest of Dickens' works. A great next choice for those looking for another perspective on the mill towns of the north of England (with much more romance), try Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South (free here). For more background on the man and his writings, try Claire Tomalin's excellent biography, Charles Dickens: A Life.

Quotable:
“Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!” - 1

"He had not much hair. One might have fancied he had talked it off; and that what was left, all standing up in disorder, was in that condition from being constantly blown about by his windy boastfulness." - 56

The Love They Sought

Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky: A London Trilogy by Patrick Hamilton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

At the Midnight Bell, a quiet struggle embroils the hearts of three people: Ella the barmaid loves Bob the waiter, and Bob is hopelessly in love with Jenny--a prostitute with worries of her own.

This is a trilogy comprised of three novellas: The Midnight Bell (Bob's story), The Siege of Pleasure (Jenny's story), and The Plains of Cement (Ella's story) as these three unfortunates struggle against their fate in the backdrop of 1930s London. Hamilton has a gift for characterization, and each of the three vertices of the failed love triangle display his virtuosity at getting into the heart of each character.

Hamilton's side characters are something to behold: the denizens of the bar where Bob works, the two spinsters who employ Jenny, and Ella's pushy suitor feel like people Dickens might have written about, and the humor they bring relieves some of the bleakness of the main stories. His writing is gorgeous, witty, and sympathetic to these anguished souls.

Summaries: