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attackfish) wrote2014-06-01 07:00 am
attackfish) wrote2014-06-01 07:00 am
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Soman Chainani's The School for Good and Evil: F is for Fabulous
I am going to be a teacher. I am studying to teach small children. I have a perfectly good excuse for wanting to read children’s books now, thank you very much, as I will be introducing them to my students. Or you know, it’s because I secretly haven’t left childhood behind myself and have no intention of doing so. No, couldn’t be it. Must be the teaching thing.
Anyway, since I have a better excuse to be reading Middle Grade literature than Young Adult, I’m reviewing a Middle Grade novel for a change.
Sophie's greatest dream for as long as she can remember has been to leave her little village, to be spirited away by the mysterious Schoolmaster who takes one very very good and pretty child, and one very very naughty child to The School for Good and Evil to train them to become fairy tale heroes and villains. She is sure that she would make the perfect fairy tale princess, and if she could make one wish, it would be to take her best friend, the weird and sullen Agatha to be her evil counterpart. But when the day finally comes, and Sophie and Agatha are kidnapped by the Schoolmaster's minions, it’s Agatha chosen to join the School for Good, and Sophie who is relegated to the School for Evil. Can Sophie and Agatha, who just wants to go home, band together to get to where they really belong, or are they stuck where they are and where everyone keeps telling them they are meant to be?
There are some books where I say to myself, Fish, you’ve been in fandom too long. You’re seeing romance where there is deep friendship, get a grip. Then there are books where I want to give the author a long look, pat them on the shoulder, and say if you want to write schoolgirl lesbians, you should just bite the bullet and do it. The subtext in this book is so heavy that calling it subtext is stretching the definition. The subtext in this book swans around wearing low cut, short skirted little black dresses with sequins that spell out “F is for Fabulous”. No seriously. Sophie makes herself this very dress. There is also an instance or two of the word “queer” used in its original meaning with regards to Agatha, despite the fact that I haven’t seen it used outside of books written before I was born to describe anything other than the queer community. The above is of course circumstantial, and worth a giggle, but then Sophie starts having obsessive dreams about Agatha, whom she calls her nemesis, bringing a certain Hark a Vagrant strip very much to mind, the other students taunt them by calling them girlfriends, and then Sophie saves Agatha’s life as she wouldn’t do for the handsome prince, plus refuses all the power her little villainous heart desires, to be with Agatha, and Sophie and Agatha end the novel dancing in each other’s arms.
Of course, if they had just decided to stop making everybody around them miserable and just kiss already, the book would have been about a quarter as long.
So it’s clear which part of the novel took the lion’s share of my attention (protip, if a prepubescent Middle Grade level reader could probably pick up on the subtext, it’s time to either cut it out or make it text) but what about what the book purports to be about, good, evil, and the difference between? Um, well, this is not the novel’s strong suit.
Chainani does have some interesting things to say about gender in fairy tales, or at least gender in the sanitized Western fairy tales of the Disney era with which most middle grade aged American Children would have experience. The classes at the school for Evil are not divided by gender. Everyone takes the same classes, and male and female students are all expected to be evil in the same way. Students at the school for Good, on the other hand, are segregated by gender, and boys learn to fight, while girls learn to smile kindly and talk to animals. Tragically, other than Agatha’s annoyance with the system, there is no indication that this limiting of roles is actually a bad thing, but I figure your average middle grade reader can figure that out for themselves.
Agatha also serves to comment on gender and how stereotypically feminine emotional traits can themselves be sources of strength as long as they aren’t coupled with submission and passivity. Agatha is strongly compassionate, and this compassion is what propels her to attempt to change a school she realizes is hurting its students. Perhaps even more importantly, her compassion serves as a rebuke to her fellow Evers, and prompts them to unite behind her in her efforts. More superficially, Sophie likewise tries to teach her fellow Nevers that despite our often toxic beauty culture, makeup and fashion can also be an element of self-care, helping boost self esteem, and that fashion and makeup mean controlling one’s own presentation.
Chainani also hits on something that I have been giving quite a bit of thought to lately. I love witty, funny, camp villains (in some things, in others, I love tortured brooding villains, and in others, I love just pure evil villains, who suck all light and fun out of any room they walk into. I like variety). I love them to pieces. What I don’t love is when the entertaining, camp villain is used to let the author have it both ways. What I don’t love is the way an entertaining, over the top villain is used to allow an author to play with social nonconformity and the freedom therein, only to turn around and tie the harmless, neutral, and often immutable traits that were so much fun to play with to villainy, thereby condemning them. Chainani tackles this head on. Difference, and its association with evil in this novel is held up as a sign of a rotten, corrupted moral system. The oppressive conformity self righteousness demanded of the Evers is held up as evidence of a Schoolmaster unable to even comprehend true morality.
Chainani shows the way in fairy tales, wicked witches and evil queens are free to sass, and sparkle, gain power, and buck the gender roles the heroine, the fairy tale princess, must subscribe to, because they are the villains, and at the end of the story, they, and their implicit challenge to societal standards, are defeated. And of course, the co-ed classes at the school for Evil imply something else. Not only do villainesses have the freedom to be powerful and aggressive, but villains have the freedom to be effeminate if they desire. Thus, gender roles, the binary gender system, and heteronormativity are held up as heroic, and deviations from this are cast as evil.
Chainani is delightfully aware of his ability to interact with the above fairy tale conventions in a meta way, and he does it with a novel PACKED WITH LESBIAN SUBTEXT. (No seriously, I can’t get over the subtext). The problem is, even here, for all Chainani plays constantly with the outward shows of beauty and goodness verses evil and ugliness, it’s hard to really absorb the message that camp and the outward shows of evil are separate from true evil, since Sophie is so very over the top in the way villains tend to be herself and has some serious moral deficits, and because the Nevers don’t just have the outward cartoonish shows of evil, they have the ernest ambition to become cannibals, kidnappers, and murderers, for what amounts to kicks and glory. Another thing I noticed, which put a very bad taste in my mouth was that most of the Nevers mentioned abusive and unloving parents, all of whom were Nevers themselves. Because all abuse victims grow up to be evil, or alternately, if your parents are evil, you’ll be evil too. What a great message! There was also the outright stated idea that some places produce good people, and some places produce bad people, an idea that in the real world, aside from being demonstrably false, has been responsible for quite a large amount of bigotry and atrocity. Some of this, and the superficial nature of what was being taught to the Evers, was leading up to the reveal that the surviving head of the school was an evil Never, but this, while clever, was feels like too little, to late, and doesn’t explain a lot of my complaints with the nature of evil in this universe. Without this fairly obvious twist, good and evil would have held no meaning in this universe at all. With it, good and evil are still extremely poorly conceptualized, especially for a meta novel about good and evil in fairy tales.
Another element that really stuck put to me was Tedros and his Arthurian heritage. While the vast majority of Middle Grade readers wouldn’t necessarily know this, King Arthur’s story isn’t a fairy tail, it’s a Medieval tragic epic. So it’s got castles, knights, kings, and princesses, but it also has adultery, incest, and attempted infanticide on the part of the heroes. Tedros’s family history of tragedy and failed love, which is actually brought up in the novel does not fit in well at all with the rest of the (sanitized) fairy tale worldbuilding. Also, King Arthur has a son in Arthurian legend, and Mordred/Medraut as either a Never or an Ever would have been a fascinating character. Instead we get... Tedros.
There’s also the fact, and this, a novel written by a man of color, from a presumably non-European cultural background, is one more fantasy novel set in a faux Medieval Europe with all white characters. For all of his meta on other subjects, Chainani utterly ignores this.
Please don’t get me wrong, I did really enjoy The School for Good and Evil. It’s sparkly, fun, cute, clever, and a fast paced adventure. And the gobs of lesbian subtext didn’t hurt. I don’t feel it adequately addressed its premise, but it was loads of fun, and had some interesting things to say anyway, and it got me thinking. Most of all, I love the characters. Sophie and Agatha are wonderful, with a complex, troubled, and at times deeply touchingromance friendship. They are so very different, and so very interesting in their own way. Then there are the Nevers. In spite of their dreams to become cannibals and killers, they’re adorable and I found myself charmed. I am absolutely looking forward to the sequel.
A sequel for The School for Good and Evil is out, titled A World Without Princes. Chainani says that Prince Tedros will have a larger role in the sequel. Whether this lessens the beautiful, beautiful lesbian subtext, or whether it gets more intense, given that title, I don’t know, but I know what I’ll be reading soon as the library gets it in.
Soman Chainani can be found at his website, somanchainani.net and more about the book The School for Good and Evil, and its sequel can be found at schoolforgoodandevil.com.
Anyway, since I have a better excuse to be reading Middle Grade literature than Young Adult, I’m reviewing a Middle Grade novel for a change.
Sophie's greatest dream for as long as she can remember has been to leave her little village, to be spirited away by the mysterious Schoolmaster who takes one very very good and pretty child, and one very very naughty child to The School for Good and Evil to train them to become fairy tale heroes and villains. She is sure that she would make the perfect fairy tale princess, and if she could make one wish, it would be to take her best friend, the weird and sullen Agatha to be her evil counterpart. But when the day finally comes, and Sophie and Agatha are kidnapped by the Schoolmaster's minions, it’s Agatha chosen to join the School for Good, and Sophie who is relegated to the School for Evil. Can Sophie and Agatha, who just wants to go home, band together to get to where they really belong, or are they stuck where they are and where everyone keeps telling them they are meant to be?
There are some books where I say to myself, Fish, you’ve been in fandom too long. You’re seeing romance where there is deep friendship, get a grip. Then there are books where I want to give the author a long look, pat them on the shoulder, and say if you want to write schoolgirl lesbians, you should just bite the bullet and do it. The subtext in this book is so heavy that calling it subtext is stretching the definition. The subtext in this book swans around wearing low cut, short skirted little black dresses with sequins that spell out “F is for Fabulous”. No seriously. Sophie makes herself this very dress. There is also an instance or two of the word “queer” used in its original meaning with regards to Agatha, despite the fact that I haven’t seen it used outside of books written before I was born to describe anything other than the queer community. The above is of course circumstantial, and worth a giggle, but then Sophie starts having obsessive dreams about Agatha, whom she calls her nemesis, bringing a certain Hark a Vagrant strip very much to mind, the other students taunt them by calling them girlfriends, and then Sophie saves Agatha’s life as she wouldn’t do for the handsome prince, plus refuses all the power her little villainous heart desires, to be with Agatha, and Sophie and Agatha end the novel dancing in each other’s arms.
Of course, if they had just decided to stop making everybody around them miserable and just kiss already, the book would have been about a quarter as long.
So it’s clear which part of the novel took the lion’s share of my attention (protip, if a prepubescent Middle Grade level reader could probably pick up on the subtext, it’s time to either cut it out or make it text) but what about what the book purports to be about, good, evil, and the difference between? Um, well, this is not the novel’s strong suit.
Chainani does have some interesting things to say about gender in fairy tales, or at least gender in the sanitized Western fairy tales of the Disney era with which most middle grade aged American Children would have experience. The classes at the school for Evil are not divided by gender. Everyone takes the same classes, and male and female students are all expected to be evil in the same way. Students at the school for Good, on the other hand, are segregated by gender, and boys learn to fight, while girls learn to smile kindly and talk to animals. Tragically, other than Agatha’s annoyance with the system, there is no indication that this limiting of roles is actually a bad thing, but I figure your average middle grade reader can figure that out for themselves.
Agatha also serves to comment on gender and how stereotypically feminine emotional traits can themselves be sources of strength as long as they aren’t coupled with submission and passivity. Agatha is strongly compassionate, and this compassion is what propels her to attempt to change a school she realizes is hurting its students. Perhaps even more importantly, her compassion serves as a rebuke to her fellow Evers, and prompts them to unite behind her in her efforts. More superficially, Sophie likewise tries to teach her fellow Nevers that despite our often toxic beauty culture, makeup and fashion can also be an element of self-care, helping boost self esteem, and that fashion and makeup mean controlling one’s own presentation.
Chainani also hits on something that I have been giving quite a bit of thought to lately. I love witty, funny, camp villains (in some things, in others, I love tortured brooding villains, and in others, I love just pure evil villains, who suck all light and fun out of any room they walk into. I like variety). I love them to pieces. What I don’t love is when the entertaining, camp villain is used to let the author have it both ways. What I don’t love is the way an entertaining, over the top villain is used to allow an author to play with social nonconformity and the freedom therein, only to turn around and tie the harmless, neutral, and often immutable traits that were so much fun to play with to villainy, thereby condemning them. Chainani tackles this head on. Difference, and its association with evil in this novel is held up as a sign of a rotten, corrupted moral system. The oppressive conformity self righteousness demanded of the Evers is held up as evidence of a Schoolmaster unable to even comprehend true morality.
Chainani shows the way in fairy tales, wicked witches and evil queens are free to sass, and sparkle, gain power, and buck the gender roles the heroine, the fairy tale princess, must subscribe to, because they are the villains, and at the end of the story, they, and their implicit challenge to societal standards, are defeated. And of course, the co-ed classes at the school for Evil imply something else. Not only do villainesses have the freedom to be powerful and aggressive, but villains have the freedom to be effeminate if they desire. Thus, gender roles, the binary gender system, and heteronormativity are held up as heroic, and deviations from this are cast as evil.
Chainani is delightfully aware of his ability to interact with the above fairy tale conventions in a meta way, and he does it with a novel PACKED WITH LESBIAN SUBTEXT. (No seriously, I can’t get over the subtext). The problem is, even here, for all Chainani plays constantly with the outward shows of beauty and goodness verses evil and ugliness, it’s hard to really absorb the message that camp and the outward shows of evil are separate from true evil, since Sophie is so very over the top in the way villains tend to be herself and has some serious moral deficits, and because the Nevers don’t just have the outward cartoonish shows of evil, they have the ernest ambition to become cannibals, kidnappers, and murderers, for what amounts to kicks and glory. Another thing I noticed, which put a very bad taste in my mouth was that most of the Nevers mentioned abusive and unloving parents, all of whom were Nevers themselves. Because all abuse victims grow up to be evil, or alternately, if your parents are evil, you’ll be evil too. What a great message! There was also the outright stated idea that some places produce good people, and some places produce bad people, an idea that in the real world, aside from being demonstrably false, has been responsible for quite a large amount of bigotry and atrocity. Some of this, and the superficial nature of what was being taught to the Evers, was leading up to the reveal that the surviving head of the school was an evil Never, but this, while clever, was feels like too little, to late, and doesn’t explain a lot of my complaints with the nature of evil in this universe. Without this fairly obvious twist, good and evil would have held no meaning in this universe at all. With it, good and evil are still extremely poorly conceptualized, especially for a meta novel about good and evil in fairy tales.
Another element that really stuck put to me was Tedros and his Arthurian heritage. While the vast majority of Middle Grade readers wouldn’t necessarily know this, King Arthur’s story isn’t a fairy tail, it’s a Medieval tragic epic. So it’s got castles, knights, kings, and princesses, but it also has adultery, incest, and attempted infanticide on the part of the heroes. Tedros’s family history of tragedy and failed love, which is actually brought up in the novel does not fit in well at all with the rest of the (sanitized) fairy tale worldbuilding. Also, King Arthur has a son in Arthurian legend, and Mordred/Medraut as either a Never or an Ever would have been a fascinating character. Instead we get... Tedros.
There’s also the fact, and this, a novel written by a man of color, from a presumably non-European cultural background, is one more fantasy novel set in a faux Medieval Europe with all white characters. For all of his meta on other subjects, Chainani utterly ignores this.
Please don’t get me wrong, I did really enjoy The School for Good and Evil. It’s sparkly, fun, cute, clever, and a fast paced adventure. And the gobs of lesbian subtext didn’t hurt. I don’t feel it adequately addressed its premise, but it was loads of fun, and had some interesting things to say anyway, and it got me thinking. Most of all, I love the characters. Sophie and Agatha are wonderful, with a complex, troubled, and at times deeply touching
A sequel for The School for Good and Evil is out, titled A World Without Princes. Chainani says that Prince Tedros will have a larger role in the sequel. Whether this lessens the beautiful, beautiful lesbian subtext, or whether it gets more intense, given that title, I don’t know, but I know what I’ll be reading soon as the library gets it in.
Soman Chainani can be found at his website, somanchainani.net and more about the book The School for Good and Evil, and its sequel can be found at schoolforgoodandevil.com.