meganbmoore | Lirael by Garth Nix (Reply)

Lirael is a young woman of the Clayr, a race of seers, who has not gained the Sight years after most Clayr do. At fourteen, she finally finds a rescue of sorts from her life as a semi-outcast when it’s arranged for her to works in the library of the Clayr. This is a library where you have to have keys to access dangerous parts, need to worry about random things grabbing you from the shadows, and part of the dress code is a knife and a whistle attached to your clothing where all you have to do to reach it is turn your head, because something in the library may have grabbed your hands. Naturally, I am in love with the library. There, she magicks her key to let her into forbidden areas and spends years exploring the library and learning old magics, including summoning a Free Magic construct named Disreputable Dog who becomes her friend and companion.*

Elsewhere in the kingdom, Sameth, the son of Sabriel and Touchstone, has the opposite problem: he’s expected to become Abhorsen after his mother. Lirael wants a purpose and role but doesn’t have one. Sameth knows his purpose and role, but doesn’t want it. Initially, I didn’t get why people had so many problems with him. He was less interesting than anyone else in either book and a bit whiny, but not bad. Then he started whining about being expected to be Abhorsen, and planning to reject it**, and my tolerance ended. Characters whose problem is that they have responsibilities and roles they have to live up to but try to get out of it are a pet peeve of mine, and not something I can sympathize with if peoples’ lives and livelihood depend on it, and they’ve known about it for years. A ten or twelve year old kid who suddenly finds out he or she has the weight of the world on their shoulders I can sympathize with. But I figure someone in their late teens-or older-should get over it and do what needs to be done. (This is why many angsty woobies are characters I think need to just shut up and deal.) Really, he has pretty cool parents (granted, his father started out rather bland, but not whiny or responsibility-phobic) and his sister seems to have turned out well, if a little overbearing, so I’m not quite sure what went wrong there. I’m much more interested in his sister, and in his friend, Nicholas, who crossed the wall and is getting into trouble due to a run-in with a necromancer.

I can see now why some people commented that Sabriel was mostly set-up for Lirael and Abhorsen. Sabriel was a good, straight-forward adventure, while Lirael is grander in scope, and more about personal journeys and growth. I like both, but am more partial to narratives along Lirael’s lines as they more open to exploration and growth, even if they are more likely to make characters irritating at times.

Spoilers:

Was anyone else a little weirded out in the scene where Sameth seemed to be about to hit on Lirael? Granted, it’s perfectly normal for a 17-year-old guy to do when he meets a pretty girl close to his age, but I had already figured out that she was Sabriel’s half-sister from her vision of the past, so even though they didn’t know and it hadn’t been confirmed yet, my radars were already screaming that it was a bad idea.

In a way, I’m a bit disappointed that previous Clayr had Seen Lirael and prepared a path for her, and that they and the twins gave her what she needed and sent her on her way. I wanted Lirael to figure out and start on her path on her own. Still, it works well.

I’ve also decided that Moggett and Disreputable Dog dated in a previous life.

*I actually wish there had been a penalty for Lirael exploring the forbidden areas and using magic she didn’t have permission to use, but I suppose there was no time for that.
**Yes, it was eventually revealed that it actually isn’t his purpose, but Lirael’s, but that doesn’t change the fact that he planned to reject the role, knowing that it was an essential one and he the only known option for filling it.

No spoilers for or hints about Abhorsen in comments.