Oh my word. Megan Whalen Turner rewards devoted fans of this series by presenting a third installment that is suspenseful, plot-twistingly smart, and surprisingly romantic.
When you read or reread MWTs books, you never do so with the intention that youll completely understand how these characters minds work. Thats what I admire so much about this serieseven if, at times, I do not completely like the books. Do you know the difference? Eugenides and Attolia are not entirely likable: theyre each way too clever, powerful, manipulative, and ruthless for me to actually want to be friends with them. I related most to something that Costis friend Aristogiton said regarding loving the queen: he would follow her to the ends of the earth and give up his life for her, but he would never for anything be her lover or partner. Eugenides and Attolia clearly work together, yet we readers, just like pretty much all Eddisians and Attolians, cannot precisely describe how.
In a ways, Megan Whalen Turners unique narrative style allows this distant admiration of the two main characters. Instead of giving us the point of view of the narratorand furthermore, in MWTs case, the narrator(s) and main characters arent necessarily one and the same!MWT often gives no characters point of view: the narrator, the flimsy definition of which is just the character whose reactions might have been mentioned first in each scene, is simply an outside observer like us readers. The result is that THE KING OF ATTOLIA read like a true novelization of a movie or TV showbecause, just like when you watch movies or TV, you see the actions and characters reactions, but never entirely get their thoughts on matters, so you have kind of the same thing going on in KING. Its a rare occurrence in literature, and does nothing to help you better comprehend Eugenides, Attolia, and others, but its precisely how MWT manages to keep readers on their figurative toes throughout the entire book, even if all the little action going on is confined within palace walls.
The series stumbled for me a bit with The Queen of Attolia, because I thought that MWTs unique narrative style didnt work quite as well when the plot revolved around a multi-country war, but KING pulled me right back in by focusing more on characters and their relationships with one another. Like I mentioned earlier, KING rewards devoted fans of the series by the very fact that it keeps us out of the minds of the beloved main characters, making it so that the allure of the enigmatic continues to surround them even as we read more about them. I thought I had figured Eugenides out after accompanying him through two books, but that was not the case, and it delighted me all the more that I was never able to pin what I know down enough to successfully make any predictions about plot or character at all.
THE KING OF ATTOLIA is a literary feast for the intelligent, for sure. Megan Whalen Turner keeps you on your toes right from the start, and continues to do so all the way to the end, where she still succeeds in shocking you. What a book. What an accomplishment.
When you read or reread MWTs books, you never do so with the intention that youll completely understand how these characters minds work. Thats what I admire so much about this serieseven if, at times, I do not completely like the books. Do you know the difference? Eugenides and Attolia are not entirely likable: theyre each way too clever, powerful, manipulative, and ruthless for me to actually want to be friends with them. I related most to something that Costis friend Aristogiton said regarding loving the queen: he would follow her to the ends of the earth and give up his life for her, but he would never for anything be her lover or partner. Eugenides and Attolia clearly work together, yet we readers, just like pretty much all Eddisians and Attolians, cannot precisely describe how.
In a ways, Megan Whalen Turners unique narrative style allows this distant admiration of the two main characters. Instead of giving us the point of view of the narratorand furthermore, in MWTs case, the narrator(s) and main characters arent necessarily one and the same!MWT often gives no characters point of view: the narrator, the flimsy definition of which is just the character whose reactions might have been mentioned first in each scene, is simply an outside observer like us readers. The result is that THE KING OF ATTOLIA read like a true novelization of a movie or TV showbecause, just like when you watch movies or TV, you see the actions and characters reactions, but never entirely get their thoughts on matters, so you have kind of the same thing going on in KING. Its a rare occurrence in literature, and does nothing to help you better comprehend Eugenides, Attolia, and others, but its precisely how MWT manages to keep readers on their figurative toes throughout the entire book, even if all the little action going on is confined within palace walls.
The series stumbled for me a bit with The Queen of Attolia, because I thought that MWTs unique narrative style didnt work quite as well when the plot revolved around a multi-country war, but KING pulled me right back in by focusing more on characters and their relationships with one another. Like I mentioned earlier, KING rewards devoted fans of the series by the very fact that it keeps us out of the minds of the beloved main characters, making it so that the allure of the enigmatic continues to surround them even as we read more about them. I thought I had figured Eugenides out after accompanying him through two books, but that was not the case, and it delighted me all the more that I was never able to pin what I know down enough to successfully make any predictions about plot or character at all.
THE KING OF ATTOLIA is a literary feast for the intelligent, for sure. Megan Whalen Turner keeps you on your toes right from the start, and continues to do so all the way to the end, where she still succeeds in shocking you. What a book. What an accomplishment.
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