{"id":350,"date":"2007-04-17T06:38:48","date_gmt":"2007-04-17T06:38:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/?p=350"},"modified":"2012-02-27T14:23:14","modified_gmt":"2012-02-27T14:23:14","slug":"a-princess-of-roumania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/?p=350","title":{"rendered":"A Princess of Roumania"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Princess of Roumania<\/em> by Paul Park<\/h3>\n

11 people attended the discussion. Everybody had started the book. Only 5 or so finished the book, but the rest were going to finish it. Only 2 people read Paul Park before. One of them had also read two sequels of A Princess of Roumania<\/em>, and his comments gave an impression that A Princess of Roumania<\/em> is a lot more enjoyable in retrospective, once you know what happened next, as the events in the sequels explain a lot of things in the first book. Eventually others had to restrain him from revealing plot snippets from the sequels, although he was doing it only to be helpful. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

The majority of the group liked this book. Some of the group members derive a lot of their enjoyment of a book from its literary and political references. One of those people found a treasure trove of such references in A Princess of Roumania<\/em>. He thought the magic (which was based, he said, on Gypsy tradition), was interesting, and the political situation in the alternative Europe, where Roumania is a major power, fascinating. He was also intrigued by the gnostic undercurrents in Paul Park’s writing and an unusual version of Christianity that exists in the parallel world of the novel — it’s not the Christianity we know.<\/p>\n

In contrast, another reader thought the alternative Roumania was not so fascinating as to intrigue somebody who knew very little about the actual Romania. “I don’t know much about Romania,” said a reader. “An alternate history of a country I don’t know much about doesn’t do much for me. [The author] didn’t pull it off for me. He didn’t make me interested in Romania”<\/p>\n

People gave Paul Park credit for attempting an ambitious story (“He’s trying to marry a children’s adventure story that kind of reminds me of Philip Pulman, with alternate history stuff, and I think it’s an interesting idea,” said a reader) and breaking fantasy stereotypes. “This is not Tolkien,” said another reader who praised A Princess of Roumania<\/em> as one of the best fantasy works he has ever read. “Tolkien created the stereotypes we follow, and I wish more people broke out of stereotypes like Paul Park has. The thing that fascinates me about this story is that it is talking about what happens to real life people when they do their best given the information they have. And the world is out there with a response that’s based on a different set of information.” Indeed, the plans of some of the main characters are continuously stymied, since they act on incomplete information.<\/p>\n

Everybody “liked” the Baroness. Not that they found her a likeable character in a conventional sense (she certainly is not), but most people found her interesting to read about. On one hand she is a sociopath who kills casually, almost spontaneously, when her plans are thwarted, and considers herself to be above the rest of the humanity; on the other hand, she is miserable and full of self-hatred. Readers thought her conflicted psyche made her human.<\/p>\n

There were some criticisms voiced by one or more members of the group:<\/p>\n