I think it’s hard for modern readers to imagine the cultural landscape back before fantasy became commonplace and widely accepted. Back when McCaffrey wrote this, before Star Wars, there was very little presence of fantasy in pop culture. Sure, there was plenty of good fantasy to read if you knew where to look, but for most of the general populace, awareness of fantasy was limited to The Lord of the Rings, which had been published twenty years earlier. So when McCaffrey published her Pern novels, they took the world by storm. Each book lived on the bestseller lists; every home had a copy; the Pern novels were used to launch the kind of marketing juggernaut that’s expected today but which was astonishing at the time. Everywhere I went, growing up, Pern and Lord of the Rings merchandise abounded. Calendars, atlases, video games, lunch boxes, T-shirts, posters, costumes, toys, stuffed animals: there seemed no amount of the stuff that could satisfy the public appetite for Pern materials. I have to admit, I was turned off and intimidated by all the hype, and so it was this long before I got around to reading them.I’m glad I did, at last. It is a good read, even if the break between the first and second books seems arbitrary. I’ve said many times in the past that the best way to appreciate books in a series is to space them out with plenty of time between one book/episode/installment/issue and the next. Reading series installments back-to-back can often lead to dissatisfaction with voice, style, and even thematic changes, as the author has changed in the time it took between writing different volumes. That said, it’s always interesting to read a book that begins immediately where the last book left off, without any break at all. I’m left wondering whether the books were actually written as a single volume that was then split into parts by the publisher, as with Hyperion and The Lord of the Rings. So it is here: Dragonsinger picks up the narrative of Dragonsong without any pause more than a paragraph break. I actually found this a bit refreshing, as it also means that the book makes no attempt to present “our story so far:” if you haven’t read Dragonsong before this, you’re out of luck. There are no explanations of setting, background, personality or appearance of characters from the first book, or anything else. I loved that.The break between novels does make some sense, if you can accept the premise that a break was needed at all. Our heroine, Menolly, was isolated and on her own in the first book. It was almost a Robinson Crusoe story of survival against the elements, ending with her joyous acceptance back into society. This book is about school, and as such it somewhat feels like a precursor to Harry Potter and all its imitators, if they were set in a music college in a medieval setting...essentially a school for bards. While there is no prophecy presaging Menolly’s arrival (hallelujah!), she is possessed of preternatural gifts: both an amazing musician and a tamer of fire lizards. But this is not a story about magic: it’s a story about Menolly coming to accept her gifts despite the intense prejudice and criticism she has experienced for those gifts up until this point. She is exceptionally talented as a musician, lyricist, and composer, but it takes quite some time for her to first recognize that these things are important and praiseworthy. That’s really what the story arc in the book is: it’s very internal, and not a lot happens externally in the book, which takes place over the course of one week (though I did cheer when (view spoiler)[Menolly hauled off and clocked the Lord Holder’s son after everyone was a jerk to her (hide spoiler)]
This was better then Dragonsong like adding salt to bad soup makes it a bit more edible.I put it down that, like other works, you really need to read this stuff at the right age. Because reading this for the first time now, it's bad, it has terribly generic prose with the best I can say about it being it's fairly direct. There's nothing in the content to even draw the mind from the simplistic plot, spoiler, which pretty much looks like it did at the end as it did at the beginning.(view spoiler)[And Menolly's change from brow beaten Hold girl to Journeyman extraordinaire is believable in only the most abstract sense. She is kind of taught at the Hold for some time but, despite all the restrictions on her and her time - we're supposed to believe the Harper was able to train her to Journeyman level prior to the 1st book beginning? That she was taking care of the feeble and dying Harper, while doing her own duties, and could still become a professional musician? Then after he dies there is non-stop drama, she works, she walks, she eventually leaves the hold to live in a cave. That could improve her skill, but not the knowledge she seems to have for this second book. And in a weeks time she enters the Harpers Hall, is abused more, forms her chrysalis, and emerges as cool confident in charge Menolly of the end of the book into the third?No. No, McCaffrey railroads the story and the ending she wants without deploying the in-book logic or time required for it to happen. I read fantasy, I love it, I'm quite willing to suspend my disbelief as much as is required, but the Author's got to do some work. It's a teen, YA, drama that just happens to be in a fantasy setting with dragons. (which, side note, seem to be able to fly around just fine even after stuffing an impossible amount of food in their gullets.... ) (hide spoiler)]
What do You think about Dragonsinger (2003)?
Dragonsinger is very much one of those books that, while on the surface about music--Menolly, the protagonist, is a young musician who's just gotten the chance to train professionally, essentially, after earlier being told she had no right to play at all--is really about pursuing any art.Dragonsinger falls a bit more strongly toward believing that artists are somehow a little different than others, something I'm not convinced of. But mostly it gets things right, and there's one thing I noticed this time that I hadn't really before: Menolly is a bit self-depreciating about her music at first, because she's been told for so long it wasn't worth much. So when she also claims her music isn't very good, and keeps pointing to all the things she needs to learn--in earlier readings I thought it unwarranted modesty, a lack of acceptance of her own skill.But this reading, I think I get it more: Menolly isn't modest because she fails to accept her own skill. She's modest precisely because of that skill--she's so good, she can see all she has to learn, while a lesser musician, who couldn't see all Menolly can, would be more likely to accept his playing as pretty good. Menolly's modesty isn't a denial of her skill; it's a direct consequence of it.I find myself pondering now whether believing without reservation that you're good at a craft is beginner territory, and whether doubts--or at least a sense of still having a lot to learn--is a sign of having gained some amount of skill, rather than of lacking it.Dragonsinger is also very much about how even when you have things to learn, though, that doesn't mean your work lacks merit, or can't be enjoyed even in its imperfect state--or that those imperfections will always even get in the way of what the work is trying to do. Which is something Menolly does still have to learn: that her work may not be perfect, that she may have things to learn, but that doesn't mean her current creations are unworthy of being loved by others.
—Janni
Ahhh these books are so much fun! Menolly goes through quite a bit in this book and it only takes place over 7 days. Quite a busy girl! But you really have to love the characters and how Menolly's talent and modesty wins over most people at Harper Hall. So nice to read about characters who are amazing and are given acknowledgement for it, especially when they themselves do not fully realize their own amazing qualities. There are some terms and attitudes that would definitely be considered politically incorrect nowadays, but considering this was written in the seventies, a reader can't really hold it against McCaffrey. If you just take it all within context, it isn't really off putting and the novel is still a joy to read. I am definitely having fun and can't wait to read more of this world's story. I hope many of the other characters get their stories told as well. <3
—Eden
Gross. I would strongly discourage my daughters from reading this because it encourages a certain kind of female I can't stand: the girl who doesn't get along with other girls (to whom I always want to say "The other girls don't hate you because you're 'special', they hate you because you're insufferable.") The tolerable, even interesting Menolly from the first book (which I gave 4 stars, by the way) disappears into a freaking Mary-Sue, oh so talented, yet so modest, championed by the "good" guys but loathed by the "bad" guys. Blanket dismissals of the other girls abound, and the only ones she gets along with are the ones who are useful to her, either through being in charge of the "women's" work, or in helping her take down her female rivals. Not even these allies are spared: when she finally claims one of the girls her age as "one of her best friends", Menolly finds her tedious because she isn't as good a musician as Menolly. From being persecuted and determined in the first book, she just becomes spoiled and annoying in this one. Making journeyman as quickly as she does also defies belief, as does her multitude of skills mastered by the age of 15.
—Doreen
