Friday, October 22, 2004
Positive Girl Power!
Piratica by Tanith Lee is a swashbuckling tale of piracy. Artemesia is, at 16, a student at a hoity-toity girl's school when a bump on the head brings her back memories of life aboard a pirate ship. Artemesia's mother was a pirate queen known as Piratica and Arty sailed with her and her band of pirates getting gold and treasure. Piratica is famous not only for her great treasure but for her morality; she wins through trickery and will not kill or sink ships. Arty escapes from school, seeks out the pirate crew (now advertising coffee), steals a ship, and sets out on her piratical career.
The journey is buffeted by different plot winds: there seems to be a traitor on board, Piratica was not the pirate Arty thought she was, there is a rival girl pirate who does not live by Piratica's genteel rules chasing after the ship for her own reasons, and the British Navy is on a mission to bring the new Piratica to justice.
This is a quick moving, engaging story which called up lots of energy from me for the characters and plot. I was pulled directly into the story and swung this way and that as her life changed and she worked her way to a clear view of who she was. While there are idiotic adults, they are not the norm (sort of like real life) and while Artemesia's father is a sexist idiot over concerned with what other people think and how much he can control people associated with him there are concerned and justice minded adults who look at the individual rather than at the generalization.
At the end, one character gets away with evil because she acts simpering and girly and appeals to the gender limitations of the social era. This is not fair but it does sometimes happen in real life. Appealing to those mores/limitations does not make her a happier person, though it saves her life, and it doesn't change who she was as a pirate. She has ruled through fear and abuse of power and has no friends or allies among the other pirates.
I would love to see a sequel!
The journey is buffeted by different plot winds: there seems to be a traitor on board, Piratica was not the pirate Arty thought she was, there is a rival girl pirate who does not live by Piratica's genteel rules chasing after the ship for her own reasons, and the British Navy is on a mission to bring the new Piratica to justice.
This is a quick moving, engaging story which called up lots of energy from me for the characters and plot. I was pulled directly into the story and swung this way and that as her life changed and she worked her way to a clear view of who she was. While there are idiotic adults, they are not the norm (sort of like real life) and while Artemesia's father is a sexist idiot over concerned with what other people think and how much he can control people associated with him there are concerned and justice minded adults who look at the individual rather than at the generalization.
At the end, one character gets away with evil because she acts simpering and girly and appeals to the gender limitations of the social era. This is not fair but it does sometimes happen in real life. Appealing to those mores/limitations does not make her a happier person, though it saves her life, and it doesn't change who she was as a pirate. She has ruled through fear and abuse of power and has no friends or allies among the other pirates.
I would love to see a sequel!
# posted by JJ @ 9:24 AM 
