Last night before bed I finished Chalice by Robin McKinley. Having read every novel she’s written, it was an interesting contrast to her “canon,” if you will. Chalice was like no other book she’s written and yet it was also clearly Robin McKinley, having hints of everything she’s written woven throughout, jumping out at me at intervals to evoke images of The Blue Sword or Outlaws of Sherwood or Deerskin or even Sunshine.

I enjoyed it a lot, but it brought up a lot of issues with me (independent of the novel itself) that I found I was thinking about while reading this, especially because I read her blog and have a sense of who she is apart from her novels — and because I analyzed two of her books for my senior honors thesis and because of that I find I think of those books often.

Firstly, the book was not broken into chapters but sections and parts, similarly to Sunshine. The third person narration was smooth and zigzagged and jumped back and forth through the story’s timeline to flesh out the characters and narrative in a way that was distinctly McKinley and natural, but in a way I think may confuse young readers. (Even The Hero and the Crown‘s structure tripped me up as a precocious 14-year-old when I first read it.) Mirasol is really well-drawn and she was full of contradictions and she made mistakes and learned from them. I liked that bit a lot. (Of course I always like protagonists who are (1) clumsy, (2) mistake- or accident-prone, (3) full of faults or have one large fault, either recognized or not, etc.) The Master is also terrifically interesting, flawed, mysterious, and unusual. None of the other characters really stuck with me in anything more than in a “name-with-description” sort of way, though, and while I don’t mind in this case, I think I would have been bored with this story had it not pulled me along with a series of quick scenes, bursts of image and snippets of world-building detail, and a very tight attention to the storyline. The plot simply follows Mirasol’s perspective as she works to orient herself to her new position and then heal her land, second-guessing herself the whole way, which was interesting in that this book was really solely about Mirasol. I suppose I’ve read enough books lately with multiple plots or converging storylines that it took me a moment to settle into this narrative but in hindsight I really did appreciate and enjoy it.

The book was also short. I found I was mostly through it before I realized and I was pleasantly surprised about it. It felt right, too. I love it when a novel seems to stretch to perfectly fit inside the space in which it is written, rather than having a feeling of being condensed or too drawn out. It is lovely when a novel hints at a richness of world but only hints, rather than demanding to show you everything the author has come up with and figured out. I always prefer worlds where the author clearly knows ten times more about the world than any reader will ever actually know — or at least the author succeeds in giving the impression of such a rich world and tricks the reader into believing his/her mastery of it.

The language was consistent and distinctly British-y, with an old flavor to its diction, vocabulary and its prose in general that I both enjoyed but found I was hesitating over, wondering how young would be too young to encounter this book. Its story and themes lean toward the G-rated fairy tale at times but its language is much thicker and more difficult than a reader younger than middle school would be able to chew through easily, nor would it probably sustain the interest of a younger reader. Bryan is someone who was — and still is — frustrated by books where the language is more of a barrier to image than a vehicle for its further evocation, if that makes sense. I find myself often writing to a Bryan reader, or a younger version of myself, as my imagined reader (I always find I write with one in mind). This imagined reader is rarely the Chalice sort of reader.

In that regard I kept finding myself wondering about literacy issues and getting children and young adults into reading in this age of computers, video games, and instant-gratification entertainment. I’m fiercely interested in attracting readers who may normally not read a book and get them into my world, to pull them in deep enough that they might want to stay a while. This is not to say that a book like Chalice can’t do that but I think it’s a harder sell to a kid than say, Twilight, which is a terribly sad thing, considering how beautiful, warm, evocative, and wonderful Chalice was compared to… well. I won’t rehash it here.

I wondered, during and after reading Chalice, if Robin McKinley, with a book like Chalice, could be considered a writer’s writer. And if so, is that a good thing? I think it is. Heck, I want writers to read my work and say, “Her writing is something.” Don’t all of us want that kind of peer-level validity?

Look at where this “review” has gone. I’m so terrible at reviews, aren’t I? I riff, really, which is definitely why I do call them “reactions” — I think that’s a more accurate term.

Back to a “review”: I liked it. It’s my first hardcover purchase in who knows how long (I am cheap and proud to admit that I use libraries and second hand books and all of that to get my reader’s appetite fulfilled) and I’m glad I made it. I’ll read it again. It was multilayered. Its world was relatively simple and clean — no messy histories or backstories thrown in, but hinted at, slowly brought in as it pertains to the main plot. Which I loved. While there was a lot of telling — a lot of telling — the language was lovely and the scenes she threw in between the exposition to show earned those passages of expository telling. None of the passages seemed inserted or forced, which can really irratate me in a fantasy novel. Everything fit with the style of the narrative, as well. So yes, I recommend it.