Across the Great Barrier by Patricia C. Wrede

Across the Great Barrier

by Patricia C. Wrede

Scholastic, 2011

352 pages

I have to report that I did re-read Thirteenth Child in preparation for this one. I don't think I would have had to; there was recap enough to make it fine to read Across the Great Barrier without reading Thirteenth Child first, but it was a pleasant way to spend a couple of days. And I think Across the Great Barrier is a much better book for having known Eff, Lan, Wash, and some of the other characters ahead of time. I'm not sure that Across the Great Barrier is as good as Thirteenth Child, either, although I am wondering why I think that. I think it does feel slightly less focused in its plot, though that's not necessarily a terrible thing, just different. It may also be that Thirteenth introduces such a novel new world, a world I was so enchanted with and excited to discover, that it has a slight shine over its sequel. The absolute strength of these two books is the world, particularly both the systems of magic and the natural history.

In this installment of Eff's story, she is trying very hard to find her place in the world. She knows what she doesn't want to do: go out East for more schooling, like her brother Lan. But she doesn't quite know what to do with herself beyond that. Frankly, I think most people who have been 18 and faced with Big Life Choices (that one feels, at the time, are going to either make or break the rest of one's life) can understand Eff's frustration and discontent -- there are options, she just doesn't want any of them, but she recognizes she has to make a choice at some point and soon. However -- an option does present itself that gets her excited, and that is to assist the new natural sciences professor at the college with a survey of the plants and animals in the dangerous lands west of the Great Barrier. While on the survey, Eff, Wash and Professor Torgeson (another excellent, strong, interesting female character from Wrede) discover many things, some unique, some tied in to the grubs that created the crisis in Thirteenth Child, and some more sinister that point to trouble ahead in what I hope will be a third book in this series.

Eff remains an excellent character, an honest mix of competence and anxiety, still working through some of the pain and nervousness associated with being a thirteenth child while recognizing logically that it doesn't matter. She still has a deep and important relationship with her twin Lan, and a warm and loving relationship, though complex, with the rest of her family too. We see much less of their friend William in this book, which I understand but feel is a lack -- he was one of my favourite characters from the last book, and I think there are some avenues to be investigated there, including his very rocky relationship with his father.

That said, I've never expected deep, serious, cathartic investigation of Emotional Issues from Wrede; not that she glosses over things, but they're not the focus of her tales, so much as the world and the plot. She writes a good character, but they're not terribly introspective. I think Eff might actually be the most introspective Wrede character I've ever encountered.

A worthy followup to Thirteenth Child, with more fantastic world-building and characters I enjoy spending time with. I would recommend reading the other first, as I think this book builds on that one. This series is fun and interesting, and though I did buy an electronic copy I'll be buying the paperback when it comes out -- just for a little more permanence.

Addendum to Thirteenth Child by Patricia C. Wrede

Nymeth made a comment that got me going and thinking seriously and now that I'm done with it, I'm not sure I want all that work to stay hidden in the comments. So here we go:

Nymeth's comment:

On the one hand, this book really appeals to me. On the other hand, I'm a bit put off by a heated debate that followed its publication. I'm not sure if you heard of it, but many readers were upset that Wrede completely suppressed Native Americans from the world she created, especially as this decision was apparently accompanied by some comments about how she wanted to create an alternative American where magical beasts lived alongside with people, but other than adding the magic, she didn't want to make any changes that would have much of a cultural impact. People were of course very upset with the implication that the non-existence of Native Americans would be just a small detail without much of an impact at all. As you're someone whose opinion on these things I really value, I thought I'd ask you how you felt about this aspect of the story.

My response:

I didn't know about the controversy (I missed it completely, and am somewhat chagrined that I did) but I'm not in the least surprised that there was one, because I did notice the lack of Native Americans and I did wonder what happened to them and why they weren't involved, even mentioned. I thought it strange. I thought about writing about it in the review, but then I couldn't think of exactly what to say. So now that you've prodded me into it (and thank you for that), here are my thoughts for now:

Let me say first that I'm pretty sure it would be irresponsible of me to speculate on Wrede's motives, not having read any of the printed material surrounding this, nor heard Wrede herself say anything. But aside from my own personal suspicions about what she was thinking, something does occur to me: I can see, without too much difficulty, that adding that dimension to the story would have complicated it into something much bigger and different from the tale Wrede obviously wished to tell. Any inclusion of anything regarding Native Americans would have made a point in one way or another. It would have added an extra layer of complexity and this was already a story more complex than any other Wrede I've read.

I don't know much about the frontier at all, but my understanding is that the Natives didn't populate North America nearly as densely as we do now. There would have been large swathes of unpopulated land. I suspect, though I am not certain, that it would have been possible for people to live their entire lives as settlers in a large, well-established frontier town without ever encountering a Native, or even really thinking about them. If Wrede decided not to add that aspect to her story, I don't think that's so far-fetched. And her alleged comment could be interpreted in that light, too.

It's true that the exclusion was noticeable. Taken in another way, her comment could smack of entitlement: that whole "wild uninhabited west ripe for settlement" attitude when in fact the west was perfectly well inhabited and settled before Europeans got here, densely or not. When basing an alternate history so closely on ours, I do think it a strange choice to include notable historical (white, male) characters and yet also exclude an entire group of people. Particularly since the group excluded has a long history of discrimination against them -- it's hard not to view it as yet another discriminatory act, even if it is in a world that is recognizably not one we inhabit.

This is the first of a trilogy and it's possible that in Eff's travels she will encounter that alternate universe version of Natives. It's also possible she won't ever meet or hear of a Native American equivalent, that it won't ever be addressed. Wrede might decide that it's not part of what she's working with in her story. I think it is her authorial prerogative.

I loved the book, and I noticed the exclusion and yet decided to go with the story anyways and enjoy it. I don't regret that decision. I still love the book. I do hope that the exclusion and the comment wasn't out of either overt or subliminal racism, but more a conscious decision, based on reasonable information, not to complicate the story and turn it into something different from the story she wished to tell. But, either way, I think the fact that the exclusion was noticeable, and that there was pushback about it, is a good thing.

Thirteenth Child by Patricia C. Wrede

How does Patricia C. Wrede do it? After not reading anything by her for years, I've read two books by her (or one half-by her, I guess) recently and decided upon completion to immediately purchase them both. With this book the compulsion was even stronger than with Sorcery and Cecelia. This book is just brilliant. It is compulsively readable, understated, and deeply interesting. There is humour, there is pain; there is beauty, there is ugliness. Although I think, in keeping with how I feel it's understated, we are left to imagine the pain and the ugliness, and this is not by any means a dark book. I first learned of this book back in April 2009 from Abby (the) Librarian, who wasn't as effusive in her praise as I am about to be, but enjoyed it enough to pique my interest.

I often view Wrede as a light read, which is not entirely true. Yes, the Enchanted Forest Chronicles are pretty light, a whimsical and entertaining retelling and re-imagining of fairytale and fantasy conventions. Thirteenth Child, on the other hand, is an entertaining pioneer story, a western with a healthy dose of magic. The world that Wrede creates is fascinating, tied to our own by familiar names (only Pythagoras and Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were also extremely powerful magicians) and concepts -- the push of settlement to the west, the pushing back of the wild frontier. And though she doesn't delve deeply into issues like destruction of wildlife and habitats, and human hubris and blinkered thinking, it's touched upon, brushed upon in such a way that it's there to be thought about if the reader so chooses. She also deals outright with bullies and human potential, in a much more obvious but only rarely heavy-handed way.

Eff is a thirteenth child. In Avrupan culture, the culture in which she grows up, the thirteenth child is terribly unlucky at best and outright evil at worst; there are hints that these children would be killed at birth, at least in the past. Luckily for Eff, her parents will have no stock with that, nor will her twin brother Lan, a lucky and powerful seventh son of a seventh son. But Eff does have to deal with the taunts and worse of her extended family and the other children until her father accepts a position out west teaching magic at one of the new colleges, and the Rothmer family (those young enough to still be living at home) picks up and moves to Mill City. Here no one knows Eff is a thirteenth, although Eff herself can't forget it. The story chronicles Eff's life from the time she's old enough to remember anything at roughly three or four to eighteen as she starts to come in to her own. It's told in first person, in Eff's wonderfully distinctive, practical and variously wry or earnest voice. It's a marvelous tale and I love it.

We see through Eff's eyes, and she's a perceptive little thing. Through her we get a feel for many of the other characters around: her twin Lan, who she adores and who adores her, but neither are without their flaws; Papa and Mama, the centre of the enormous Rothmer family; Eff's siblings, some of whom we get to know better than others; Eff's aunts and uncles, the awful lot of them (though, again there are shades of awful and some are not as they seem at first); the professors at the college, Eff's teachers, and their fellow students. William, Lan and Eff's best friend, who grows and changes as Eff and Lan do, and is one of the better fleshed-out characters. It's a big cast, but the important players are real and wonderful. There are no straight-up villains, either, except for perhaps Eff's Uncle Earn, who plays a relatively small role except in Eff's head. The struggles come more from Eff's own complex about being thirteenth (brought on by Earn) and from nature.

Which gets me into an aspect of the book I really liked. I've always wished that someone could turn back time and tell the settlers that killing everything is perhaps not the most intelligent way to go about things; watching this story unfold was interesting, because those thoughts are addressed mostly obliquely, but I think they're there. Towards the end with the introduction of the naturalist and travelling magician Wash this issue gets a bit more attention. There's no denying that the frontier, the world outside the Great Barrier, is a very dangerous place; it makes me wince, in Wrede's history as in ours, that the solution to the problem is killing the creatures, eradicating them entirely so that they won't be a problem. The dangers are given mythic status by the settlers and those back home, largely due to ignorance. Even right on the frontier the wild animals, both magical and not, are feared absolutely and those who willingly go outside the Barrier are viewed with awe. The disaster at the climax of the story is environmental in nature, and was handled in a way that makes the reader think about who is to blame for it, and what lessons might be learned in this alternate history from it. It's never shoved down our throats, though.

And imagine my delight when I discovered that this is the first of a projected trilogy, all to be narrated by Eff. I'm really, really looking forward to the next one. Highly, highly recommended. I hope this series finds a wide audience.