Customer Reviews

The Chosen (Book One of The Stone Dance Of The Chameleon Trilogy)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

it is soo dense, so "artificially" difficult to get into, that I cannot give it more than an honnest 3 star review.( The prose is way more, unnecessarily, dense than Bakker's work in my opinion )

Don't get me wrong. This is a serious book, and it opens very interesting ( and as of now unexplored ) concepts. The world it wants to portray is surely a very interesting world ( from the glimpses one gets of it in this 700 pages 1st volume ) but not nearly enough for the promise one senses at the books beginning ( I hope the other volumes in the series shed some more light on Ricardo Pinto's world ).

My guess is that Ricardo Pinto has tried to put it all in this, his, dream, be it in complexity, in artistry, but also in his domain of the english language ( which, by the way, is impeccable ).

He surely has a lot to give ( and I will read the other books in the series ), but experience will surely hone his style, streamline his storytelling.

An author to follow, in any case, without a doubt.

According to the biography at his website, Ricardo Pinto designed and programmed computer games before writing his novels; and it is not difficult to recognize the influence of ludic design on his literary work. In games, each element of the represented world possesses equal definition--rather like the background of a Pre-Raphaelite painting--and one finds a similar effect in the descriptive passages in The Chosen. It can be powerful, but one's brain misses the fuzzy vagueness of peripheral vision that we use to confirm our spatial relationship to the information we are receiving. And, just as when in some Pre-Raphaelite paintings, intense realism takes on the quality of a dream, reading Pinto, we are faced with a reality too intense to seem real. As a result, his prose leaves us dizzy, confused, and a bit overwhelmed. In an odd way, his settings resemble the masks worn by the elite of the novel (the class known as "the Chosen") that enable them to confront ordinary mortals with a face too beautiful to be human, too perfect to be anything but otherworldly.

Neatly, Pinto opens the novel with his protagonist being torn from the comfort of a warm story by the intrusion of an order of being that he--and the reader--must struggle to understand even as it bombards both of us with shattering, unexpected violence. We identify with Carnelian not merely because he is a nice young man--which he undoubtedly and at times excessively is--but because, like us, he is deeply confused about what is happening to him. By this logic, the traditional narratives of childhood provide a measure against which adult society is judged--and found wanting. In a world made up of lies, old stories contain the only certain truth.

Moreover, in a society where surfaces are all important, no complex human relationships are possible. Among the Chosen, the only available emotions are lust and anger. And, lust, even when overtly sexual, is an expression of power and little else. Carnelian's genuine love for his family, including those who are slaves, makes him an outsider from the start and therefore a dangerous young man. For, like a good fairy-tale hero, he has the knack for opening doors that were supposed to have remained shut and recognizing the nakedness that lies beneath the most impressive costume.

In socio-economic terms, Carnelian's story entails his personal confrontation with a society in which a vast proletariat exists to gratify the whims of a tiny ruling class, whose status has put them out of touch not just with their fellow human beings but also with their own nature. For to wear a mask convincingly, you must convince yourself that the mask is your primary identity; and to be a beautiful surface, you must give up your claim to a third dimension. If the penalty for seeing your face is death--as Carnelian quickly learns--it is difficult to escape the possibility that you are not, in essence, human. Yet, outlandish as they are, the Chosen are not all that different from the ruling circles of Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, the aristocracy of Louis XVI's France or the Imperial Court of China's Forbidden City, where the elaboration of manners and dress transforms ostentation into imprisonment. Power not only corrupts; it also destroys the souls of those who wield it.

Once Carnelian has been ripped from his island home, we watch over his shoulder as he tries to penetrate the mystery of this new, bizarre world in which he and his father have become persons of extraordinary--and perilous--importance. Symbolically, he explores the underbelly of Osrakum, the earthly paradise where the Chosen live in morbid splendor, searching in the labyrinthine darkness for something that will reveal its deepest secrets. And it is here, to his own and our surprise, that he finds passionate love.

Carnelian's discovery of Osidian and their journey to the gardens of Yden is a flood of light and fresh air into a claustrophobic prison. The episode has a high Wow! factor, and, like a number of other scenes in The Chosen, is hauntingly memorable. Like Proust, who explores a similar ruling class in nineteenth-century Paris, Pinto has the ability to create memories that the reader is unlikely to forget. And, despite a certain repetitive, overwritten quality to its prose, his novel draws us inexorably into the tale it narrates. Once I started, I found it difficult to stop reading, and I suspect other readers will have a similar experience.

Still, the effect is more like observing an incredibly rich tapestry than a living human body. Unlike Proust, Pinto offers no clues to the twists and turns of human psychology, for, as I have suggested, the Chosen have forfeited personal psychology. Despite holding life-and-death power, beneath their masks they are about as interesting as billiard balls. Insofar as he feels and resists the attraction of their lifestyle, Carnelian alone presents us with a version of human complexity. (Although, Osidian might be another exception, if we saw more of him--but this will not happen until the next volume in the trilogy.)

Of course fantasies are not supposed to present complicated characters. It is action that is all-important, and there is certainly plenty of action here, along with a cliffhanger conclusion that guarantees that anyone with an imagination who reads The Chosen to its final pages will rush to buy, borrow, or steal its sequel.

The Chosen has received much praise for its originality. And this is certainly well deserved. The world is very detailed and rich in depth. Perhaps, I might add, the world is too detailed, for sometimes the author seems to devote too much attention to the paradise gardens and majestic architecture, and perhaps not enough attention to the characters that populate it. In addition, I found the world oftentimes became overly confusing (far too many names and terminology to keep track of) and there were times when I felt somewhat confused by it all.

Plot-wise, there's a sense of wanting to know what's going to happen next, although really, nothing much ever does. Sadly, many of the characters didn't have the effect I felt they were meant to have. And the overall writing felt awkward and clumsy.

All in all, there's a lot to complain about. Slow plot, though it was interesting reading about the world. The overall hierarchy of society was confusing and at times, the book became overly political for my tastes. The writing in general felt clunky, and the development of plot and characters felt like they both took a backseat to worldbuilding and elaborate descriptions of environments which I found impossible to visualize.

Yet, something about the customs and traditions of the Masters left me quite fascinated by the world Pinto has created. Carnelion was a main character that I enjoyed reading about, and made an interesting contrast to the cold and uncaring Masters. There's a brutality to the story and the Masters' overall attitude towards their "lessers" which was so extremely immoral that I was extremely intrigued.

And though the story was slow, I never felt that it dragged. There was always something to discover, though I did often find myself a bit confused as to just what exactly was meant to be going on. I sorta found myself going with the flow, enjoying the view but not quite ever sure why anything was happening.

The last 50 pages were particularly engrossing, and though I expected to take my time to finish up the last three or four chapters, I ended up reading straight through to the very end. The plot does pick up quite a bit then, and ends on a cliffhanger.

I certainly doubt that this book will suit every reader. Those preferring fast action and a blunter, more "to-the-point" sort of writing style will probably be dissapointed. Those that want something a bit different will most likely be pleasantly surprised.

In addition, on a negative point with regards to book two----book two isn't nearly as enjoyable as the first, and I disliked it so much so in fact, that I have lost all desire to finish reading this series.