The Mary Sue Books and More Club discussion

Comment away here on Chapters 6-8! No spoilers!

So we get to spend time with several new characters in this section: Vikram, the convert, NewQuarter01 (if only in chat), Sheikh Bilal, spend more time with Dina (yay!) and learn a lot more about Intisar's gift to Alif.
I love it when books have plots that center around other books (The Shadow of the Wind, anyone? Totally one of my favorites) and I love that the Alf Yeom has become to central to the plot, and that we get to read some of the stories from it in this section.
So far my favorite story out of it is the one about the king of the birds needing to send an urgent message to the prince of salamanders.

Anyone else feel like the convert is a bit of a Wilson self-insert? She gets mocked an awful lot (and not just by Vikram, who seems to have mocking as his default setting.) but

I agree, I always like stories within stories and I am enjoying the bits of the Alf Yeom we get.

I like how each character they meet "sees" Vikram differently.

I don't really like how they treat the convert. They basically use her and don't have any respect for her. Alif does feel a bit bad after sniping at her though and Vikram keeps saying things to appease her after being a jerk, but she doesn't even have a name!

Even before knowing anything about Wilson's background, I wondered the same thing about the convert. For me it was the moments when she mentioned the social justice reasons behind her conversion to Islam, and her small rant about the many words for 'outsider'. They both seemed like very genuine moments... and now that I've read a bit more about Wilson, I certainly would imagine that her experiences colour the convert's character.

It's true that the other characters mock her, and the story as a whole kind of mocks her too, with the way that she isn't able to see or comprehend magical/surrealist elements... it really emphasizes her outsider status.

I had a harder time getting into this section, but I'm honestly not sure whether that was the book's fault or how generally off my game I was last week, so I'm attributing it to the latter.

I agree with everyone that it seems like the convert is a self-insert or at least heavily informed by Wilson's own experiences, but since she keeps getting crap from the other characters and the world itself I don't really mind.

Otherwise, I liked that Vikram, for all his otherworldliness, is at least up to date enough on his pop culture to put the whammy on people with a Star Wars reference. The entire Immovable Alley sequence reminded me of Western fairy/goblin market scenes, and I wonder how much of that is cross-cultural similarity versus subconscious cultural influence of the writer.

Oh, and I liked the stories within the story too (or rather, the stories within the story within the story), especially since I hit up Wikipedia in a fit of curiosity and found out that at least the story about Vikram and the vetala has a real world equivalent.

I can't really think of anything else right now, but I'm still looking forward to finding out what happens next.

I'm loving Vikram, although I feel weird about the cat lady. Maybe it's just too reminiscent of American Gods for me, but I like to imagine that stray cats aren't necessarily demi-goddesses who like to hop into bed with random dudes.

The opening to the Immovable Alley reminded me so very much of both Labyrinth and Harry Potter's first trip to Diagon Alley. Ergo, I'm really enjoying it.

I think my favorite parts so far are the stories within the story, especially the "morals."

I really liked the excerpts of the 1001 days as well. I wish we would have had more of those.

I'm writing this before reading the comments:

I wish I had the capacity to understand the different layers of the 1001 Days stories.

I'm wondering if the unnamed convert is a self-insert on Wilson's part? The character's complains seem to be kinda meta, like an aside to the story.

I'm getting curious about Inistar and her motives.

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After reading the previous comments:

I see I'm not the only one who's thinking Wilson is inserting herself into the story. I'm digging the way she's handling the convert, treating her as an outsider to even the story. This is definitely an appropriate way to do a self-insert, maintaining a sense that the author cannot truly be a part of the story.

What are your thoughts on how the convert was complaining that she will always be a foreigner? To me it stank a bit of transculturalism, for lack of a better word. I'm seeing the convert's words as Wilson's words in this case, and she was born into some privilege. I don't think it would be appropriate to see Wilson's work as Eastern literature, because she has all the benefits of a Western writer. I appreciate what she's doing, especially with Ms Marvel, but it sounds similar to the argument of white people complaining that they can't use the N slur with black people.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

I can sympathize with the convert because I'm an American living in South Korea. I can understand the feeling of being an "other." No matter what I do, how long I've lived here, how much I learn the language, I'll never be seen as anything but an outsider because of my race/born nationality. I also completely agree that you'll get people who argue with you on your own culture because they heard differently on television or an article they read about Americans.

oh man they'll actually do that, Alisha? My point was just that a Korean who moves to North America will always been seen as an Other, so it seems natural that it would work the same in vice versa. Not to suggest that it's fair or appropriate treatment - your experience sounds really frustrating :(

You are probably right. I'm sure for some people transitions can be easier or harder depending on the place or people living there. I just meant I understood and sympathized with the convert.

I read that Wilson was trying to turn the trope of the "noble savage" on its head by making the savage a white person. She was bummed that a lot of people didn't seem to pick up on it, but at least part of the reason that she didn't name the convert was b/c she wanted it to be similar to old fantasy or adventure novels where they have "the Negro" or "the Indian" who helps the heroes travel through a place they couldn't otherwise go.

I definitely didn't pick up on that goal, but maybe it would've been more apparent to me if the convert had been a native to the setting. I realize that the noble savage can exist as an oddity when presented outside their own home, but I guess I'm more familiar with the noble savage concept when it's white people entering the land that belongs to the noble savage.

That's really interesting, and explains the decision not to name her, but I agree that it wasn't super apparent from my reading of the text. I really saw the convert's role as acknowledging Wilson's own voice as a Westerner; her presence allows for some critiques/poking fun at Western society and culture.

Also re: the complaints about being an outsider, I felt similarly about them being a bit transculturalist, even as I related to them (I have also lived somewhere where I was an outsider to the dominant culture, but was afforded privilege because of my place in a larger, global culture). I think it's worth noting that her complaints about being labelled outsider come earlier in the book, when her outsider status is much stronger, to try and put it in a spoiler-free way... I think she does learn and grow through her experiences in the story, and that further on in the book she might not make the same complaints.