February Book Study - The Onion Girl

Fenika · Jan 31, 2009

Hello, and welcome to the F/SF Book Study.

This thread is for discussion of The Onion Girl by Charles deLint.

***Spoilers*** will be streaking through this thread unpredictably. You have been warned.

If anyone wants to compare to previous book studies:
Ender's Game (August)
Lies of Locke Lamora (September)
A Deepness in the Sky (October)
A Fire in the Deep (November)
Storm Front (December)
I Am Legend (January)

Thank you to Broken Fingers for starting the book study!

Cheers,
Christina

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Here is the list, compiled by Fingers, of possible discussion topics. Feel free to tackle something off the list or come up with your own points.

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First of all: Did you enjoy the book? Why or why not?
What was your impression of it?

And I’ll list some of the possible things we can discuss:

The Beginning:
- How effective was the opening hook?
- How effective was the first sentence? The first paragraph? The first page? The first chapter?
- When were you pulled into the author’s world? By the end of the first chapter?
- If not, when?
- How do you think this was accomplished? Or why do you think it wasn’t accomplished?
- What would you have done to change it/make it better?
- If you were an editor, what would your reaction be to the first chapter?
- Why do you think the average reader liked it so much?
And more…

The Protagonist:
- What did you like/dislike about the protagonist?
- How did the author introduce the protagonist?
- How did the author get you to become invested in the protagonist?
- What was different about the protagonist as opposed to other protagonists? What was the same? Did the author make the protag distinguishable? If so, how?
- What techniques did the author use to show the protagonist throughout the story?
- What were some of the characteristics the author gave the character and how did they work/not work?

The Characters:
- Did the author make the characters come alive for you?
- How did he/she do this?
- How were they described?
- How were they distinctive?
And more…

The Setting:
- Was the author’s world convincing?
- Did he/she make you feel you were there? How?
- What about the setting did you like? Not like?
- What would you have done differently?
And more….

The Plot/Story:
- Did you enjoy it? Why or why not?
- Was it different or similar to other plotlines in the genre? How?
- Was it believable? Predictable?
- Were there any twists, turns or surprises?
- Would you have thought of it? How does it compare to your own plotline of your WIP?
- Did it pull you through or did you have to wade through it?
- How was this done or how do you think it should’ve been done?
- If you were buying stories for a publisher, and this manuscript hit your desk (not knowing what you do now about its sales) would you have bought it or expected it to be successful?
- Why do you think the buying public enjoyed it so much?
- What variations, if any, would you have added to the storyline/plot?
And more…

The Style:
- What did you think of the author’s style of writing? Like it? Hate it?
- How much do you think this had to do with the success of the book, if any?
- What type of POV was used? How effective was it? Would the book have turned out different if the POV were done differently?
- How removed was the author from the story or how intrusive?
And more…

The Structure:
- How did the author unfold the story?
- Were the beginning, middle and end equally strong?
- How effective was the way the author gave you all the information?
Was it straightforward? Suspenseful? Predictable? Surprising?
- Could it have been done another way?
- Was it a linear structure or did the scenes jump around? How did this add/detract from the story or your enjoyment of it?
And more…..

The Theme:
- Was there any? What was it?
- Did you think it had an impact on your enjoyment of the story?
- Was it blatant or subtle?
- Do you think the average reader registered this?
- Do you think it may have affected him/her or contributed in any way to the success of the book?
And more…

Conflict:
- What was the main conflict?
- How was it handled?
- Was it a large part of the story or did the author keep it lying under the surface?
- What other conflicts did the author use in the story and when? (Internal and external.)
- What purpose did they serve?
- Would the story have been as enjoyable with less conflict? More?
- What types of conflict could’ve added to the story? Which conflicts subtracted from the story?
And more…

Dialogue:
- Was it realistic?
- Was it readable?
- How did the author handle ‘tags’?
- Was there a lot of dialogue or a little?
- Were there dialects? Slang? Profanity? Vulgarity?
And more…

The Ending:
- Was it satisfying? Why or why not?
- Did it come as a surprise or did you see it coming from page two?
- Would you have ended it the same?
- Was everything resolved?
- Would you be able to write a sequel?
- Would you buy another book from this author?
And more….

Fenika · Feb 3, 2009

Alright, here we go:

First of all: Did you enjoy the book? Why or why not?
What was your impression of it?

I enjoyed it thoroughly. It was realllly long but held me the whole way through. Well, there was one point that the pacing started to die right before the climax, but Chuck got on with it and I was hooked all over again.

The Beginning:
- How effective was the opening hook?
- How effective was the first sentence? The first paragraph? The first page? The first chapter?
- When were you pulled into the author’s world?

The opening is so simple, yet so effective. The voice is there, the prose is nicely laid out. And then the scene break and we get this 'Once upon a time' bit that is so longing. I felt an immediate connection, even though I've never rubbed old lamps and searched for other worlds.

One problem I did have with the opening is I totally missed the Jilly/Raylene switches for awhile. At first I thought I'd been tricked, the two seemed to weave as one to me. The I realized I had just missed the signs. Even so, given the complexity of the story, a stronger clue early on would have spared me a few minutes of confusion and unraveling two separate openings.

But I'm aware of my shortcomings when it comes to picking up on things, so maybe this was just me?

The Protagonist:
- What did you like/dislike about the protagonist?

I consider both Jilly and Ray to be equal players here. Even though Jilly was meant to be the focus, Ray seemed to have much more 'airtime' dedicated to her. I liked that they were there to contrast each other, yet had similarities.
Jilly, the broken girl lost in the past. Soft in nature, with a huge number of friends who think highly of her. She's scarred by her past but surviving the best she can.
Ray, the hurt girl lashing out at the world. And yet she does find honest work. She has one friend but huge trust issues. Also scarred by the past and surviving.

I liked them both for their introspection. Ray more than Jilly had a type of honesty with herself that I enjoyed. They were interesting, well developed characters.

- What was different about the protagonist as opposed to other protagonists? What was the same? Did the author make the protag distinguishable? If so, how?

While the characters were distinct, I started to feel that too many of Jilly's friends had similar ways of looking at things. Similar dialogue, concerns, and thoughts. Nothing I can pinpoint, but the concerns especially started to wash together like playdough going brown. A case of over-emphasis dulling the story. Particularly since by the near-end we know Jilly's making progress. Yeah, it might not go well for her, but give it a rest please. And mind you, those were just little snippets here and there, so this isn't as big a gripe as it seems. Just something I noted.

The Characters:
- Did the author make the characters come alive for you?

Oh yeah. They were all very personal and deep. It seemed everyone had a story of some type. Sophie's subplot seemed particularly interesting- how she was keyed to denial about the spiritworld, and that Jilly shared that reluctance to speak of it strongly. It was another connection for them and well played.

The Setting:
- Was the author’s world convincing?
- Did he/she make you feel you were there? How?
- What about the setting did you like? Not like?

Yes and Yes. I was surprised by how rich and complex the spiritworld was. The real world on the other hand was quite real. Murder, rape, hit and runs, etc. Nothing soft and wishful there. And yet the spiritworld also had murder and injustice.

I think the spiritworld could have done without the quick-times or w/e they were called. It seemed a minor point that was overemphasized. And that just made a bit of a tangle for me in an already complex, rich book.

Also, I think Chuck did his worldbuilding extraordinarily well. Most of it tied directly to plot/conflict. Characters wanted to enter the spiritworld somehow. The way the murdered unicorns developed issues and brought up 'real' and spiritual conflicts. The introduction of a huge cast of characters. All of it added together so that it wasn't just scenery.

The Plot/Story:
- Was it believable? Predictable?
- Were there any twists, turns or surprises?

The plot was very real, and full of turns. Though it's clear that wolf-Ray is going to run into Jilly, there were many other times where I couldn't figure out how the plot would unravel. And once it did, it felt very natural overall. Meetings between Jilly and Ray had their ups and downs / highs and lows. And somehow it all started to smooth out bit by bit. Ray's honesty really helped here. She came to terms with putting the blame on her sister, and with her past. Her development far exceeded her sister's, which I suppose is a twist in itself. The Onion Girl would not have made it had her sister not met her beyond half way. Which if anything is a cheat I guess, since Jilly was supposed to heal herself alone...

But then again, she wasn't totally healed, was she? Her body mended slowly, a reflection of her mind. She hid from the spiritworld. And she had this strange doting boyfriend (Daniel the nurse) and rejected the other (Geordie) despite her longings (And she still had shield walls put up against him). Yet she made progress. Bit by bit she was working it out. The reader is left to believe she will continue to do so, but it may be a bumpy road.

That's all I have for now.

Cheers

eyeblink · Feb 3, 2009

I've usually liked de Lint's short fiction but The Onion Girl is the only novel of his I read. (He's a prominent MPB - or Member of the Order of Prolific Bastards.) I had a review copy but my review was never published - can't find it now or I'd post it here, so this is on memory from six (?) years ago.

This started very well but the novel was killed for me by overlength and in places blatant self-indulgence, so that it was a struggle to get to the end. It's 189,072 words long (as per Amazon.com's text stats) and it probably should have cut about a third of that. One example of self-indulgence is the scene where some of the characters go to see a band, a scene which is quite irrelevant to the plot and which takes up half a C-format page...and of course it's a real band that de Lint is mates with.

Definitely needed an editor for me. But I guess I'm in the minority here.

Fenika · Feb 4, 2009

Well first of all, either my edition is lacking a long band scene (I seem to recall something) or I was falling asleep in bed and didn't realize it at the time.

But, bar scene aside, I felt some of that self-indulgence and whatnots under the surface. I tried to touch on some of the things that bothered me in my first post, but didn't really get into it. Why? Because I was so engrossed in the story, I didn't care. For most of the book I was interested to find out what happened next, even if a scene did go on a bit long or the characters did repeat some info/views overmuch.

So yes, professionally speaking, I'd agree it needed an editor. It's a long long book that isn't always focused. Personally? I'm content with it.

eyeblink · Feb 7, 2009

I've just found my copy (the UK Gollancz trade paperback). The scene I refer to is on page 302, and the band is Fred Eaglesmith's - and he gets a mention in the acknowledgements and author's note.

Kathleen42 · Feb 7, 2009

*sigh* One of the few de Lint books I haven't read. No cookie for me.

ELMontague · Feb 10, 2009

I really liked the book, although I didn't realize it was that long. Only the fact that it took me more than a week to read it told me otherwise. I will post comments later in the week.

Kazel · Feb 12, 2009

I picked up this book entirely because it was the monthly book study book, and after 55 pages I am still not settling into the story. Part of this may simply be personal preferences. The first pages gave me pause, because it was never clear whether or not magic was real in the book, and that threw me. I don't like it when magic isn't present enough to have a clear set of rules. Part of that is because I like to know when use of magic is cheating, and you can't if you don't even know whether or not to take the prose literally or not. Second, I read books with complete suspension of disbelief in effect and having magic hinted at but not spelled out in a world similar to our own pulls me out of the story because it feels too much like a "magic exists in our own world" message. So immediately I was off kilter.
Next, Jilly seems completely disconnected from her situation and doesn't seem to care about anything, so I don't have anything to care about either. Her friends definitely care, but they are doing so much worrying over a character that I don't yet feel a connection to that I don't feel connected to them either.

Then, finally, on page 30ish we meet Raylene. She is very present in her situation, she cares about what happens to her and shes fighting. I like her, I connect with her, but I have no idea who she is. I could follow her story, because its the first time in the book I have actually felt like there was conflict. With Jilly there are simply things happening to her and she does nothing at all. Raylene is doing something. But we have switched back to Jilly, I have no idea who Raylene is and why we are talking to her, and I still have no idea what exactly the book is going to be about. I figure its probably going to be about Jilly's inner struggle, but nothing has happened yet to really make me care about that, and theres no real hook to pull me along.

I will keep reading a bit more, oping it picks up, but so far I am not liking it.

Pthom · Feb 13, 2009

I was given this book some time ago. It came with a card that read: "This is the BEST author. You'll love this book. Let me know when you've finished and I'll get you the rest."

I managed to get 25% of the way into it and realized I didn't get what was going on. I'm not sure if it's because I don't get fantasy, or because I don't get this story. I liked Raylene, I liked the cool way of slipping from the real world into fantasy land, and the characters there seemed like they might become appealing.

But that whole bit about the paintings...dark and disturbing. So I put the book down because I had a big pile of space operas and such like to read. And I read Greg Bear's "Songs of Earth and Power" too, which I enjoyed very much indeed. So I figured it wasn't me and fantasy that didn't click--it was me and de Lint.

Then "The Onion Girl" comes up as an option here. So I pick it up, scan the portion I had read earlier and tried to get back into it.

I have to say, it isn't working. It isn't the writing--de Lint can write well. But I suspect his story telling isn't my cup of tea.

Like Kazel above, I'll give it more time, but it doesn't look good.

ELMontague · Feb 14, 2009

First of all: Did you enjoy the book? Why or why not?
What was your impression of it?

Actually, I liked it quite a lot. It was not at all what I expected, but a welcome surprise.

The Beginning:
- How effective was the opening hook?
- How effective was the first sentence? The first paragraph? The first page? The first chapter?
- When were you pulled into the author’s world? By the end of the first chapter?
- If not, when?
- How do you think this was accomplished? Or why do you think it wasn’t accomplished?
- What would you have done to change it/make it better?
- If you were an editor, what would your reaction be to the first chapter?
- Why do you think the average reader liked it so much?

To be truthful, I'm not sure I liked the opening, but I can't think of any better way he could have done it. And this is what I mean, I wouldn't have read the book past Raylene's first chapter if it weren't for the book study. It's just not the sort of thing I would normally pick up. That said, once I read for awhile and got drawn in, there was lots to like.

The Protagonist:
- What did you like/dislike about the protagonist?
- How did the author introduce the protagonist?
- How did the author get you to become invested in the protagonist?
- What was different about the protagonist as opposed to other protagonists? What was the same? Did the author make the protag distinguishable? If so, how?
- What techniques did the author use to show the protagonist throughout the story?
- What were some of the characteristics the author gave the character and how did they work/not work?

The whole Protagonist/Antagonist relationship was the whole point of the book. How could two people with essentially the exact same start grow to be such different people? I think that's a relevant question for all of us. Are we our choices, our circumstances, both?

The Setting:
- Was the author’s world convincing?
- Did he/she make you feel you were there? How?
- What about the setting did you like? Not like?
- What would you have done differently?
And more….

I think DeLint's take on the dream worlds is really what makes this book. The way the dreamworld is both like and dislike our own. How there are people's that exist only because the people in the "world as it is" tell stories about them and when their story fades so do they.

The Plot/Story:

Since I read a lot of plot driven stuff, I really expected more of an ultimate smack down sort of come uppance for Raylene. As it turned our DeLint's solution was better, I think.

The Theme:
- Was there any? What was it?
- Did you think it had an impact on your enjoyment of the story?
- Was it blatant or subtle?
- Do you think the average reader registered this?
- Do you think it may have affected him/her or contributed in any way to the success of the book?
And more…

I don't know that I would call the theme subtle, but I'd definitely say it was effective. At least it was for me. We are the result of our choices, helped along by the breaks we get.

Although, I certainly hope that more women than not make it to adulthood without some terrible mistreatment in their life. The abuse these women suffer is disturbing, but authentic. Surely not 3 in 4 women have been abused. I hope I'm right.

The Ending:
- Was it satisfying? Why or why not?
- Did it come as a surprise or did you see it coming from page two?
- Would you have ended it the same?
- Was everything resolved?
- Would you be able to write a sequel?
- Would you buy another book from this author?
And more….

I was satisfied with the ending and I have recommended it to others. The ending was a surprise, I really didn't expect it to go there. Although, I think that he left it where Raylene could come to peace with the earth mother.

I might buy another DeLint. Of course there's lots to learn from lots of people.

Kathleen42 · Feb 14, 2009

ELMontague said:
I might buy another DeLint. Of course there's lots to learn from lots of people.

Being bad and crashing the discussion (yes, again). I would highly recommend Someplace to Be Flying. De Lint's books are a bit hit and miss fro me but I keep reading - largely because I so love Someplace to be Flying.

Also, from the other comments, I wonder if the book suffered because Jilly is such an established character in De Lint's stories and novels. Perhaps familiarity breeds shortcuts.

Fenika · Feb 17, 2009

eyeblink said:
I've just found my copy (the UK Gollancz trade paperback). The scene I refer to is on page 302, and the band is Fred Eaglesmith's - and he gets a mention in the acknowledgements and author's note.

Hm, on my page 302 there is an enormously long aside (2 quick paragraphs then one huge chunk of a paragraph) on Eaglesmith that totally broke the flow and the mood of the discovery of the pink car. Yeah, that was really weird.

So, too much indulgence by Chuck it seems. Some readers (me) could tolerate it and still enjoy the story. Overlook it even. Others can't get into the story at all, in part due to breaks such as those. (And characters and whatnots).

Interesting.

Kitty Pryde · Feb 17, 2009

I liked this one. I wouldn't have picked it up if we weren't doing the SFF Book Club. I love fantasy but CDL has never really appealed to me.

I think the best thing about the book was the adventures in the spirit world. I thought it was a great fusing of multiple native american beliefs as well as more modern mythology and fiction. It was a lot of fun to read, and if other books of his take place there, I would be all over them.

I really liked the ending. Because i was so so certain that Jilly was going to be healed by the end, but then...no! And it was written so well that I wasn't even upset. It was an uncontrived twist and it still managed to be satisfying.

The relationship between Jilly and Raylene, and between Jilly and her many friends felt very realistic and natural to me. I tried to study how CDL did his characterization because it rang so true.

Two things didn't work for me:

-The POV switching was totally out of control. For instance, within one chapter, two subchapters are Jilly's 1st person POV, then one subchapter in Jilly's 3rd person limited, and a subchapter in 3rd person limited for one of her friends. It was driving me crazy and causing confusion. I didn't think it was successful at all. To me it would have been much more natural to use 1st person for Jilly and Raylene, and 3rd limited for all the other characters.

-The theme was talked UNTO DEATH. 'Child abuse is bad because it messes little kids up for life' is a decent theme, but isn't exactly profound. (yes, there are other themes, but this one got 90% of the airtime.) If CDL just made his point about child abuse once or twice or ten times, he could have cut probably 50,000 words out of this big honkin doorstop fantasy.

On a personal, Kitty-Pryde-Is-A-Picky-Reader note, this book was too much about feelings! :tongue

I finished it last night and today I started reading 'Rabbit, Run' by John Updike. I set that book down and thought to myself, I have GOT to read something with spaceships in it next! So I can totally relate to Pthom putting 'The Onion Girl' down to read space opera

ELMontague · Feb 17, 2009

Funny you say you had to read about spaceships. I finished The Onion Girl, then read Starship Troopers followed by Ender's Game. I'm ready for something big fantasy.

February Book Study - The Onion Girl

Fenika

Fenika

eyeblink

Barbara says hi

Fenika

eyeblink

Barbara says hi

Kathleen42

crushing on fictional characters

ELMontague

Kazel

Pthom

Word butcher

ELMontague

Kathleen42

crushing on fictional characters

Fenika

Kitty Pryde

i luv you giant bear statue

ELMontague