Backward Book Reviews are where I write what I remember about a book I read in the past, and then read the book again. There will probably be spoilers.
I have an itch to read Dragonsinger again, for the umpteenth time. This book, along with Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Emily series, was probably one of the most influential books on my childhood self.
This is a short book, a coming-of-age misfit teenager book, a book about pulling a backwards culture into the light. About abolishing bad traditions and revelling in new ones. (Although I kind of always understood how those traditions had come to be, and, as a child of staunchly Protestant parents. how we could reform them.)
It’s also a book about mini-dragons (fire lizards) and music, about a highly creative person among normies, about a girl who goes to wizard school and becomes the best in her craft. Sorry, music school.
This book is basically the female equivalent to A Wizard of Earthsea, which is also one of my most treasured favorites.
Menolly is an underappreciated prodigy. She is the darling of the staff at school. She had a physical injury that she had to overcome. She is basically a fantasy version of me, a character that I both related to and wanted to be.
Although being the darling of teachers in the public school system is not the magic I was dreaming of. (HA!) I knew it then, as I know now, that I wanted more out of life than what gets doled out by our broken modern institutions.
I loved the sci-fi/medieval aesthetics of the whole Pern series–the dragonriders, the thread that would fall from the sky and eat up all organic matter, the castle-based political structure. It was all very much like something I would make up myself, very simplistic and satisfying–but as I look back, not very realistic.
Dragonsinger was not a book about realism, though. It was a book about inspiration, about the power of will, more like a metaphor or a song than an accurate depiction of a political system or thriving economy.
You know, it reminds me of how some people, usually Introverted Feeling types, view how the world works. Everything is great an thematic and the details just happen somehow. It works when you’re 12. I’ve grown up a lot since then, so we’ll see if it works again.
Regardless, I’m excited to read this book. I need something easy and inspiring to read, to help me shift back into an “anything is possible” mindset.
Although when I’m finished I suspect that I’ll want a firelizard as a pet again, to wrap its tail around my forearm and sing.
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