COMMENTARY: A Master of Djinn (2021)

The following are thoughts and reactions I had while reading A Master of Djinn (2021) by P. Djèlí Clark. They do not reflect my overall post-reading opinion of the work. For self-study purposes, there are also extensive summaries of the plot in these notes. In short…

⚠️ MAJOR SPOILER ALERTS AHEAD ⚠️

Further Thoughts

I can’t stop thinking about my reaction to this book. Or modern fantasy in general. Do I just not like them? I didn’t react well to Lies of Locke Lamora. I didn’t react well to This is How You Lose the Time War. I’m thinking about the TONE in all these novels. They’re all trying to put on this “cool factor” for the characters that comes off as graphic-novel-like. Which I mean, I read a ton of in the early 2000s and loved… but for some reason it’s not working for me in fiction. Another comparison I can’t stop thinking about is BtVS. They’re all spouting off dialogue that ranges from cheesy/tacky to… attempting to replicate a Whedonesque-slang. I mean, at the end of the day, a lot of reviews are saying these novels are “fun”, that they enjoyed the characters, it was a “fun ride”. It was an adventure. And maybe that’s it. I don’t like fun adventures where the characters don’t talk like real people. At least not in my novels. I’m wondering if this tone is due to the last decade of HP, MCU, Star Wars, etc. etc. Just a blend of YA and not-super-deep dialogue or characters. Things I’m OK with on TV or in graphic novels… but for some reason, not in novels. I want to express this is a me problem.

I dunno. Something else that I noticed, after my conversation with Olivia on the last episode of Garage Fiction is that there might be another “me problem” here, which is… I’m realizing I need more emotional interior and muted conflicts in my fiction. I absolutely loved my re-read of Never Let Me Go, and I’m enjoying every single moment in Atonement(2001) right now. There doesn’t appear to be much internal struggle for the characters in modern fantasy. My favorite moment in LLL is when he reflects on Camorra in a boat, thinks about his past, and an insight on the socio-economics. I got to see inside Locke! Like actual depth. I’m not getting any of that with most of the other characters. Maybe that’s a major reason why I can’t get into these novels when my belief is that the one USP of fiction is you can go inside people’s minds. It’s the one thing graphic novels and film/tv can’t replicate without it being cheesy (thought bubbles and/or voice overs).

Final thought. Ring Shout worked for me. Why? It’s not like the characters were super deep there either, but I loved it. And I’m wondering if it’s the compact nature of it. It’s a novella. And Clark jammed SO MANY interesting concepts/MECHS into there in one go. And they SUNG together. Everything wove together well and as a reader, I was so pleasantly distracted by all the fantastical MECHs and how they played with each other, that I didn’t mind a cardboard POV. I even said the POV was cardboard and boring in my original commentary. So maybe when you expand a story from 100-150 pages to a full 350-400… I need a lot more emotional interior and motivation exploration and internal struggle? Not so much naval gazing, as more situations and micro-tension conflict where the character has to confront the internal struggle more often?

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