Skin Hunger, Kathleen Duey
Jan. 6th, 2010 12:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marinessUsually, when I finish a book, I know whether or not I liked it. I may not have made my final judgement on it – for some books that takes another couple of readings – but at least I know that much.
Not so with Skin Hunger, by Kathleen Duey.
Skin Hunger (2007) appears to be Duey's artistic response to the Harry Potter and assorted "wizard school/learning magic" novels, where the young wizards are trained in the wonders and dangers of magic. In those schools, magic has its dangers – think of Ged confronting his shadow and lying, broken, for days, or Harry et.al. finding a troll in a bathroom in their first year (not to mention later events) but also its wonders: the glowing illusions, the transformations, the occasional flying. And above all, the sense that the wizardly teachers are, for the most part, concerned for the welfare and success of their students – even those authority-flaunting ones like Harry.
In Skin Hunger, the young wizards in training are systematically tortured, starved, encouraged to betray each other, and subject to various psychological horrors – told, for instance, that their parents brought them to the school fully knowing that most would die, and that they would never see their children again. (This does not go over well.)
This part of the book is terribly, deadly convincing. (The other half of the book, about a young girl joining two wizards who are undergoing similar issues and obsessions, is less convincing for any number of reasons.) It makes a vicious sort of sense that magic should be painful and dangerous to learn; if power corrupts (a frequent theme in contemporary fantasy) it makes sense that these powerful, inherently corrupted wizards would, indeed, use pain and torture as part of the training process. And although I did find myself thinking that the young wizards might be learning faster if they were not so obviously suffering from severe calorie restriction and dehydration – Hogwarts' system of abundant food does have something to recommend it – these weakened students, focused on thoughts of food, are in no position to rebel against their well fed, fully alert teachers, or, for that matter, invade magical bureaucracies and wantonly destroy perfectly decent furniture, statues and fountains. Ahem. And I expect I'll be picking up the sequels, if only to see where Duey is going with all this.
But somehow, I still find myself wanting that wonder, that power, that – that magic – in my wizard stories. That, for the lack of a better word, joy. A story where magic has no wonder, no - magic - seems to me, in some ways, to be missing the entire point. Why escape – or create – a fantasy world that lacks that wonder?
Note: the presence of "wonder" does not necessarily exclude darkness and grimness – indeed, my favorite fantasy works tie and bind them together, though it's a very tricky thing to do.
Not so with Skin Hunger, by Kathleen Duey.
Skin Hunger (2007) appears to be Duey's artistic response to the Harry Potter and assorted "wizard school/learning magic" novels, where the young wizards are trained in the wonders and dangers of magic. In those schools, magic has its dangers – think of Ged confronting his shadow and lying, broken, for days, or Harry et.al. finding a troll in a bathroom in their first year (not to mention later events) but also its wonders: the glowing illusions, the transformations, the occasional flying. And above all, the sense that the wizardly teachers are, for the most part, concerned for the welfare and success of their students – even those authority-flaunting ones like Harry.
In Skin Hunger, the young wizards in training are systematically tortured, starved, encouraged to betray each other, and subject to various psychological horrors – told, for instance, that their parents brought them to the school fully knowing that most would die, and that they would never see their children again. (This does not go over well.)
This part of the book is terribly, deadly convincing. (The other half of the book, about a young girl joining two wizards who are undergoing similar issues and obsessions, is less convincing for any number of reasons.) It makes a vicious sort of sense that magic should be painful and dangerous to learn; if power corrupts (a frequent theme in contemporary fantasy) it makes sense that these powerful, inherently corrupted wizards would, indeed, use pain and torture as part of the training process. And although I did find myself thinking that the young wizards might be learning faster if they were not so obviously suffering from severe calorie restriction and dehydration – Hogwarts' system of abundant food does have something to recommend it – these weakened students, focused on thoughts of food, are in no position to rebel against their well fed, fully alert teachers, or, for that matter, invade magical bureaucracies and wantonly destroy perfectly decent furniture, statues and fountains. Ahem. And I expect I'll be picking up the sequels, if only to see where Duey is going with all this.
But somehow, I still find myself wanting that wonder, that power, that – that magic – in my wizard stories. That, for the lack of a better word, joy. A story where magic has no wonder, no - magic - seems to me, in some ways, to be missing the entire point. Why escape – or create – a fantasy world that lacks that wonder?
Note: the presence of "wonder" does not necessarily exclude darkness and grimness – indeed, my favorite fantasy works tie and bind them together, though it's a very tricky thing to do.