Where's the Fantasy?

I'm reading two books now, which I really don't like to do, especially since I don't have as much time to read anymore. But now that my summer vacation's over and I'm back at work I need something to read on the train that I actually enjoy. I'd started reading a book called Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo and I'm finding it to be a real slog. So on the train I'm reading Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped, which is just a pleasure.

I guess I'm not the audience for Six of Crows, a 2015 fantasy novel aimed at teenagers, but normally I think I'm able to enjoy anything of any genre. There's an unintended silliness to Six of Crows. I think it's aimed at teenagers. The characters aren't allowed to swear which I didn't notice until a character said "crap" when they really obviously should've said "shit". Yet characters are also gangsters, assassins, and prostitutes who talk about killing and having sex for money. And they all use a kind of 1920s gangster lingo.

It's set in a fantasy version of Amsterdam called Ketterdam and follows a group of preternaturally talented gangsters led by a guy named Kaz and his number two, an assassin called Inej, who can silently scale a building barefoot and is able to "melt into the shadows" at will. But for some reason, all these characters are just seventeen years old. With all the gangster lingo, I'm constantly picturing Bugsy Malone as I read.

I thought, okay, maybe if they've been training since they were two years old, they could be this skilled and this well positioned in the underworld. But both Kaz and Inej reminisce about coming to the city just three or four years earlier as completely naive bumpkins. My problem with this really crystallised when I read this line from the young narrator of Kidnapped:

But I was young and spirited, and like most lads that have been country-bred, I had a great opinion of my shrewdness.

The protagonist really feels like a young man of seventeen or eighteen. I don't understand why Leigh Bardugo didn't simply write the characters older except there's this new idea that everyone needs to "see themselves" in fiction. I know I should read Six of Crows as intentionally dumb escapism. It's the kind of thing I might enjoy if I had a lot of alcohol. You know, if I dumb myself down to its level. It's not just the kids who don't act like kids, there're all kinds of logical errors in its heist plot. Like, they're supposed to be trying to break into some impregnable ice fortress and a new member of the crew tells them there's a big regular event where people from the town's entertainment district are granted access. We'd been told Kaz was basically the most feared gangster in his part of town and others so why didn't he already know about this apparently well known thing that directly involves his industry?

The book's filled with ill-considered stuff like that, not just in terms of plot but also character. It really feels like some role playing sessions I've had where, you know, everyone who's participating doesn't have the expertise or experience to play the characters they're playing, but you let it slide because none of this is going to be published and no-one's expected to enjoy any of it beyond the gratification of their own characters. But this book was published, for people to buy. And incidentally, I'm not sure the physical book is up to scratch. You see the tattered condition of the copy I have? This is not a used book, it's brand new. But I had it in my messenger bag when I went hiking a couple weeks ago and my sweat seems to have just dissolved the cover. In the space of just an hour or so. I've never seen anything like it.

This is really terrible. I wanted to read Six of Crows because I was trying to get in touch with the modern literary fantasy culture. It's the same reason I read Secret History. I'm zero for two, as far as being able to dig this stuff. Am I wet blanket? Maybe I need to open my heart. I don't know.