Book Review: Stonecutter by Leander Watts
Oct. 9th, 2007 11:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
juushikaTitle: Stonecutter
Author: Leander Watts
Published: Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002
Page Count: 181
Total Page Count: 41,310
Text Number: 119
Read For: my own enjoyment, checked out from the library
Short review: In rural New York, 1835, Albion Straight is an apprentice stonecutter who shows great promise. He lives with his kind master's family, including his master's unnaturally perceptive young son, but when a strange men come to the small rural town, one of them hires Albion at exceptional rate to travel deep into the undeveloped wilds of New York and carve a statue for a rich, reclusive man. Upon reaching the unfinished sprawling mansion and witnessing the owner's unusual behavior, Albion begins to suspect that something strange and sinister surrounds the place. Told through Albion's journal entries, Stonecutter is a short and swift text. Albion's voice is somewhat distant, the setting is delicate and eerie, and the book is promising but ultimately unimpressive. Although the narrative is complete and there are a lot of potentially wonderful aspects, the final impact is as distant and as subtle as the narrative voice. I neither liked nor disliked this book; read it if you so desire, but I don't recommend it.
Having read Watt's Ten Thousand Charms, I was curious to see if he could combine his delicate and haunting writing style with a more coherent plot, and if the result would make for a more effective and impressive text. In Stonecutter, Watt's does indeed write in the same delicate style and the narrative is indeed more complete, but the final product still fails to be strong or meaningful. The story is told through Albion's journal, beginning with his safe and happy apprenticeship and continuing through his time at the mansion. The journal writing style could be personal and emotional, but Albion writes with a surprisingly detached voice, cleaning summing up most action after the fact. As such, while he is a realistically conceived character, Albion is not particularly vivid, and the reader is not emotionally drawn into his story, nor does it pass at a rapid or anxious pace. Instead, the writing is delicate, distant, and removed: the setting is haunting, and slowly grows more detailed and sinister as Albion learns more. Themes also build slowly, creating a careful and haunting atmosphere, but not one that is heavily-shadowed or immediate. This is a book written is shades of pale gray.
This book remains indistinct and delicate throughout, although the story grows into a clear narrative. Events occur, and the ending is quite full of action, but somehow the writing never becomes impassioned and the reader never becomes involved. So while the distant writing serves the setting well, it fails in building a compelling narrative. This is a swift read, and the reader is driven to find out how the story ends, but they are never swept up or transported, never made to feel the anxiety Albion feels, nor to share his fears. I think that Watts would have benefited by making the end of the book more haunting and insubstantial, or else making the whole of the book more vivid. The action at the ending feels out of place—it leaves the omens from the opening left hanging and undeveloped, ruining the haunting sense; because of Albion's cool removed narration, the action when it occurs is too distant to be compelling.
I admire what Watts attempted with this novel, and I would have liked to have read it were it more haunting or more vivid, but since it is neither, I was largely unimpressed by the book. The style and the narrative are both competent, but nothing more than that: not exceptional, not interesting, not memorable. I didn't dislike this book, but I was disappointed. If you're interested, then by all means read it—it is short enough, reads well enough, and you may enjoy it more than I did. But I don't recommend it, and don't plan to read it again. I also don't recommend it to a young adult audience, although the narrator is young and the book is in that genre. The fact that it is neither haunting nor exciting makes it too subtle and too lackluster to be a successful YA read. It's neither meaningful, nor engrossing.
Review posted here at Amazon.com.
Author: Leander Watts
Published: Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002
Page Count: 181
Total Page Count: 41,310
Text Number: 119
Read For: my own enjoyment, checked out from the library
Short review: In rural New York, 1835, Albion Straight is an apprentice stonecutter who shows great promise. He lives with his kind master's family, including his master's unnaturally perceptive young son, but when a strange men come to the small rural town, one of them hires Albion at exceptional rate to travel deep into the undeveloped wilds of New York and carve a statue for a rich, reclusive man. Upon reaching the unfinished sprawling mansion and witnessing the owner's unusual behavior, Albion begins to suspect that something strange and sinister surrounds the place. Told through Albion's journal entries, Stonecutter is a short and swift text. Albion's voice is somewhat distant, the setting is delicate and eerie, and the book is promising but ultimately unimpressive. Although the narrative is complete and there are a lot of potentially wonderful aspects, the final impact is as distant and as subtle as the narrative voice. I neither liked nor disliked this book; read it if you so desire, but I don't recommend it.
Having read Watt's Ten Thousand Charms, I was curious to see if he could combine his delicate and haunting writing style with a more coherent plot, and if the result would make for a more effective and impressive text. In Stonecutter, Watt's does indeed write in the same delicate style and the narrative is indeed more complete, but the final product still fails to be strong or meaningful. The story is told through Albion's journal, beginning with his safe and happy apprenticeship and continuing through his time at the mansion. The journal writing style could be personal and emotional, but Albion writes with a surprisingly detached voice, cleaning summing up most action after the fact. As such, while he is a realistically conceived character, Albion is not particularly vivid, and the reader is not emotionally drawn into his story, nor does it pass at a rapid or anxious pace. Instead, the writing is delicate, distant, and removed: the setting is haunting, and slowly grows more detailed and sinister as Albion learns more. Themes also build slowly, creating a careful and haunting atmosphere, but not one that is heavily-shadowed or immediate. This is a book written is shades of pale gray.
This book remains indistinct and delicate throughout, although the story grows into a clear narrative. Events occur, and the ending is quite full of action, but somehow the writing never becomes impassioned and the reader never becomes involved. So while the distant writing serves the setting well, it fails in building a compelling narrative. This is a swift read, and the reader is driven to find out how the story ends, but they are never swept up or transported, never made to feel the anxiety Albion feels, nor to share his fears. I think that Watts would have benefited by making the end of the book more haunting and insubstantial, or else making the whole of the book more vivid. The action at the ending feels out of place—it leaves the omens from the opening left hanging and undeveloped, ruining the haunting sense; because of Albion's cool removed narration, the action when it occurs is too distant to be compelling.
I admire what Watts attempted with this novel, and I would have liked to have read it were it more haunting or more vivid, but since it is neither, I was largely unimpressed by the book. The style and the narrative are both competent, but nothing more than that: not exceptional, not interesting, not memorable. I didn't dislike this book, but I was disappointed. If you're interested, then by all means read it—it is short enough, reads well enough, and you may enjoy it more than I did. But I don't recommend it, and don't plan to read it again. I also don't recommend it to a young adult audience, although the narrator is young and the book is in that genre. The fact that it is neither haunting nor exciting makes it too subtle and too lackluster to be a successful YA read. It's neither meaningful, nor engrossing.
Review posted here at Amazon.com.
