On sequels: the sequel

I can tell you right now that this post will be less coherent than the last one on sequels. That's because I first envisioned this post a day or two ago, and since finishing my latest read (Monsters of Men, book 3 of "Chaos Walking"), I've adjusted my opinions somewhat, and yet I'm still attempting to write this.

Luckily, my dilemma illustrates the problem with sequels: the passage of time.

The conclusion I've come to upon finishing the second high-stakes suspense youth fiction trilogy I've read in recent memory (the first being The Aldous Lexicon, which began with A Crack in the Line) is that it's never a good idea to start out by promising more than one book. Why is this so?

Well, because no matter what you do, each book is its own distinct entity. Odds are that most writers will finish the first book, then spend ages editing the heck out of it, and finally begin work on the next one. On further drafts, though, the original intent of the book changes, a central theme comes forth which the writer may not have expected, and the thing ultimately becomes more and more cohesive.

And if, as a writer, you intend to continue the story past the point where you deliberately ended it at the end of one volume, that's not being fair to your creative sensibility. You're forcing yourself to work within boundaries, basically, and so your story will stagnate.

All this leads up to my review of Monsters of Men. The intention of this book is to wrap up all prevailing threads from previous installments. What will the protagonists do about the army banging down their front door? Do leaders of factions have any amount of good, or integrity, in them? Will Todd and Viola stay together, even after being split up yet again?

Bear with me on this theory, but a lot of these threads sound like the author pulling plot out of his ass. Example: there's a problem with metal bands affixed to women. There were no such problems implicated earlier in the series, and their solution comes quickly and arbitrarily near the end of the story.

There is exactly one bit of good done from this event, and it's this: further characterization of the Mayor. And he's only characterized more fully to get a better idea of the "Chaos Walking" theme (that is, the idea of men walking around with their thoughts open to the world). And this is the only point on which Monsters of Men really succeeds: by introducing creatures who have lived with this ability for generations, the reader is treated to the full implications of being able to read everyone else in a society. To which I say: well done, Patrick Ness (the author). As with The Underwood See, I feel like you've successfully wrapped the idea you first presented in The Knife of Never Letting Go.

But I wish you'd done that earlier, and mostly because of the writing style. Seeing, reading, and hearing about wars has made me feel many emotions, but rarely has it made me feel as irritated as in Monsters of Men. Ness has carried over the style of very brief chapters from The Ask and the Answer, this book's direct prequel. In The Ask and the Answer, this style made sense, because the book was about an eternal conflict and stalemate between two groups. But here, even though I see the conflict continues, it just gets annoying to read the same events from three different perspectives. Where The Knife of Never Letting Go had momentum, this book stalls and takes steps backwards.

Other annoying things: ending most paragraphs with a dash, to imply suspense when there isn't any; huge redundancies of prose, even though there should be some due to us hearing people's thoughts; ending each chapter on a cliffhanger. It's the kind of thing I'd expect from a Dan Brown novel, or from Peter and the Starcatchers. I was so bored I even did something I promised never to do again: I peeked at the ending to see if anything got more interesting.

Which leads me to my final point on sequels: if you write something as a direct sequel, while central themes may change, ideology will not. Monsters of Men ends on an ambiguous note; so did the first one, The Knife of Never Letting Go. The first Harry Potter book ends on a light and hopeful note, with the feeling of a return to normalcy. (SPOILERS.) So does the last Harry Potter. It boils down to this: given a similar situation, the author will end the story in a similar way. It's like fate.

So now that I've complained yet again, is there any hope for sequels? I believe so, because there are sequels that are good, or that establish themselves as separate entities from their predecessors (or both). The Lord of the Rings is the famous tale that "grew in the telling" as a direct sequel to Tolkien's The Hobbit. The second Star Wars movie (The Empire Strikes Back) succeeded largely because George Lucas stepped away from the director's position. The Narnia novels appear to be an exception to the rule of ineffective or inconsistent sequels, which may have been due to (A) Lewis's singular and strongly-held Christian ideology and/or (B) his insistence on treating each book as a separate entity. Note that Lewis never promised seven books, unlike J.K. Rowling's recent series, which (I felt) degenerated somewhat by the final book. Sequels hold promise for people who want more of the same, which will unfortunately not generate the same creative spark in the author that the original did. The best course of action, then, is to find a new book, and leave the author alone to his/her own devices, to come up with a new story.

Teenage Romance Wasteland

C.S. Lewis, in his Chronicles of Narnia, omits one important character from the finale. Susan Pevensie, the oldest female child from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, is not invited back to Narnia at the end. Why? Other characters give the reasons -- she's only interested in "lipstick and invitations" from boys. Furthermore, adds one, "Her whole idea is to race on to the silliest time of one's life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can." So we can expect that C.S. Lewis had a similar perspective on life: that for every age, there is a season -- childhood, independence, mating, parenthood, and old-age all have their benefits and problems, but they are all meant to come and go. Such is the nature of life.

It is significant that Susan Pevensie is the only character in the Chronicles to have anything to do with love, particularly at such a young age. There are no other amorous relationships in these books beyond marital ones between older people.

Yet it is also significant that the movie version of Prince Caspian introduces the title character as a light love interest to Susan. It shows where our culture is going -- placing an emphasis on true love, and trust, and romance, from the time that kids are able to see Disney films.

The Ask and the Answer, sequel to a book I reviewed earlier, The Knife of Never Letting Go, seeks to establish the idea of love as one that transcends the factions (controlling and self-interested) that dominate our world. Whereas its prequel was a book about running, The Ask and the Answer mainly concerns itself with peer pressure, and the terrific resolve our protagonists have in the face of it.

I admire the book for taking on such a complicated (and yet simple) issue as the dichotomy of factions, particularly in a time when the US battles guerrilla warfare in the Middle East. With a leading figure named the President and torture devices such as waterboarding used, this books strikes very close to home as a relevant status of our national hypocrisy (as well as that of other countries). While two competing groups battle, everyone else is used as pawns, including civilians and the land's original inhabitants. Both, as we eventually discover, strike back with a vengeance.

I also have to admit that the relationship between Todd and Viola, which anchors our narrators' motivations, is movingly written. Their idea of complete trust and love is even more immortal here than those ideas of the factions. The betrayals, temptations, and double-crossing leaders that block their way make it all the more rewarding when they find each other again.

But I would further argue that such an idea, of love as a thing that transcends all boundaries, even those of the stage of life we live in, is unhealthy in the way it is presented in our current day media culture. The audience for this book (young adults) is being told that when the world collapses around you, there may be only one person you can trust. They're not only told in this book, either; it's a common trope. Consider how many pieces of young adult fiction begin with characters whose parents are missing or deceased. As in the Chaos Walking trilogy (composed of The Knife of Never Letting Go, The Ask and the Answer, and Monsters of Men), this is to cut all ties of trust barring that of one significant other.

Being a teenager, I don't know much about love myself. I believe in friendship, and bonds of love that can come between people who share an experience. I believe in familial ties, bonds which come partly from care given at a young age, and partly from knowing they are part of you. But as a teenager, I have no experience with the bonds that come from loving and trusting only one other person.

So however moving the scenes of The Ask and the Answer are, I reject their relationship as an improbable event. I reject it also as a near-impossible thing for young adults to fully understand without damage to their psyche, and unrealistic expectations raised for people they fall in love with. I find myself disagreeing with much of the current media storm's philosophies. Read this book and marvel at its twists, its unending stalemate, its monster of a villain, and its elegant construction of trust between characters (both between Todd and Viola, and between them and other people). But consider the problem of asking a youth to commit him/herself to one other person for the rest of his days, and what his answer would be if you questioned him about the nature of love.

Escapism

Every so often you hit a big work that you can't put down. For me, the books that have fallen under that category have included the Harry Potter series, The Golden Compass, Fahrenheit 451, and The Eyre Affair. Now I'm rediscovering why the Narnia novels have fallen so heavily under that category for half a century. Having put down The Last Battle, I find myself picking up the book and tearing through it to find my favorite moments and relive them. I muse on the perfect worlds beyond the Shadowlands, remember the friends like Mr. Tumnus and Reepicheep whom I've come to love dearly in the past weeks. And most of all, I mourn that there are no more tales of Aslan -- who, coincidentally, I play in my summer community theater.

Actually, it's not a coincidence. I fully intended, in this summer before college, to pick up The Lord of the Rings and attempt to read it again -- the last time, I got nearly all the way to Mount Doom before realizing I was bored silly, and stressed from trying to read too quickly. However, when I reached for The Fellowship of the Ring, I realized this: acting as a Narnian creature while reading about Middle-Earth would probably get confusing. So I stuck to the novels of Mr. C.S. Lewis instead.

Try to understand: The Chronicles of Narnia are a much more marketable franchise than The Lord of the Rings, at least for Hollywood. There is a significant difference between the two epic fantasies that mark the cornerstones of the genre. While The Lord of the Rings is a single book, presented in six parts, and often published in three volumes (thus necessitating a continuity of quality and tone through the three movies), The Chronicles of Narnia is made up of a book, its sequel, two more sequels, an interquel (coming between two books chronologically), a prequel, and a grand finale.

In other words: C.S. Lewis wrote more because the fans demanded he write more. Smart fans. C.S. Lewis wrote a lot, but these are his most-read books, and the most revealing ones. As a Christian, I found it deeply revealing and insightful to see my faith presented in a different light -- a light of alternate universes, talking animals, and battles for honor. The character of Aslan is great and terrible -- and in one word (LION), C.S. Lewis has hit upon the inherent contradiction that is God, and how lovely the contradiction is.

What this means is that each book stands on its own, as a story. If you ask me, I found that to be a good thing. It's why I liked The Hobbit better than The Lord of the Rings. (I mean, for crying out loud, one chapter in LOTR was literally called "The Old Forest". Pfah!) The reader might not like everything, but there's probably something s/he will like.

There are, of course, the accusations that Narnia is too literal, hitting you over the head with his Christian ideas. I suppose it's possible you'll enjoy these less if you're not Christian, or if you go into the novels without realizing this was the mindset of C.S. Lewis. However, I doubt it, because as whimsical, creative fantasy novels, these books work tremendously. Aslan is an astounding character whether or not you assimilate him to Jesus. The Last Battle is moving even without making the connection that it takes after the Book of Revelation.

There remains the question: in what order should you read the books? On my first outing (years and years ago), I read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe first and all the novels starring Pevensies thereafter. This time, I started with The Magician's Nephew, and I think I got more of a feeling for the character of Aslan and his evolution in Narnia. (Aslan is the only character who appears in all seven books, and he becomes more obscure as the books progress in time.) Then again, though, several elements introduced in The Horse and His Boy and The Magician's Nephew only reappear in The Last Battle, so potentially the books work if read out of chronological order.

In the end, C.S. Lewis himself says that it doesn't matter. That's because this is spectacular stuff. We all need a little magic in our lives, and seven books is about the right length to get a reader really deeply involved. The characters, especially those who lasted several books, captured my heart (this is why The Horse and His Boy is inferior to the rest -- Shasta and company never reappear). I was sorry to see it end, but I know it has to end, as did Lewis's first readers. Eventually we must return to this world (for however short a period of time). But while you're staying in Narnia, it's a pretty damn good time.