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A review by aisforawkward
Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen by Lois McMaster Bujold
5.0
So this was a re-read for me, a year after my first read. This gave me enough distance from not just this book, but the series as a whole and the characters, to read this a bit more objectively and see more of the flaws. I still loved it, and I am going to let my 5 star rating stand, but it would probably be more of a 3.5 star now, so I am going to ramble just about the problems I noticed this read that I didn't the first time through.
This book was possibly the most divisive of the entire series and with good reason, especially for those who read the series as a whole. I originally read bits of it scattered over the years until last year when I worked my way through the entire series (all 15 previous books) up to this one. Unlike all the other books this one was a simple, straightforward "life" book, with a touch of romance and a lot of nostalgia which is probably a put off for many. But for me the biggest problems are with the way the author dealt with the romance in history, and the children in future, and Cordelia as a bit of a Mary Sue and how that impacted the other two problems.
If you read the two previous Cordelia books, at the start of the series, you know she is practical to a fault, and very Betan in her outlook on relationships (aka very open minded) at times, but generally a flawed nuanced mostly believable character (I thought so at least). Throughout the rest of the books, which are mostly Miles and co, she comes across as a secondary character who steps in to fix things when they go wrong. Which since she is Miles' Mother works fine for the most part (even though it smacks of the Mary Sue), because of those first two books as backdrop and because she is such a minor character in the rest. The problem is that to some degree the way she was always right seems to persist into this book when she finally takes a more prominent role again, and it undermined some important aspects of the overall plot in ways I hadn't really noticed the first time around.
Cordelia was always a ruthlessly practical individual, but she also tended to feel strongly about how to care for children to make sure they were well balanced individuals. This doesn't quite fit with the way she was portrayed as planning to raise 6 daughters potentially alone in isolation, away from all extended family. I am not saying anything against her raising six daughters as single parent per-se, but that she did so in isolation, without any seeming concern for the huge problems inherent in doing so a long travel away from any family support. She discusses having multiple options in the case of her death to care for them, but she never once discusses the problems inherent with when she is still alive, and the help she would invariably need. There was a bit of a brush off where the fact she was largely raised by her own Mother supposedly shaped her view of single parenting.. But having raised children already, being practical to a fault, and knowing better than to equate raising one child to raising six this entire lack of planning or consideration while simultaneously portraying her as always being right just didn't fit. Given everything else I would at least have expected some discussion of a plan for support, friends, family visits, etc. But there wasn't really anything. This didn't detrimentally undermine the plot, but definitely bothered me on this re-read.
The next bit is a probably massive spoiler if you haven't read the first 15~ pages of this book but have read the first two Cordelia books. I am not sure how to talk about any of it easily or without lots of spoilers so I am just going to jump in and ramble about it.
When it comes to the romance (the most contentious part of the plot) the biggest problem stems from a lack of serious discussion about the implications of the start of the original relationship between Cordelia's husband Aral and his military subordinate Oliver Jole 23 years earlier and how it fits with a rather important interaction from the book Barrayar :
"He's bisexual, you know." He took a delicate sip of his wine.
"Was bisexual," she corrected absently, looking fondly across the room. "Now he's monogamous".
While this line in and of itself was a great comeback in a fraught scene (and I loved it) it also struck me as problematic even at the time. But in retrospect it becomes much more complicated to discover that 10 years into their marriage Aral falls in love with Oliver and starts an affair with him without once discussing it with Cordelia first, and seemingly without pause. Throughout all the Miles books when Cordelia and Aral are mostly minor offscreen secondary characters right up until Aral's death, Aral had two long term relationships. The public one with Cordelia, and the private one with Oliver.. And the rare times when all three of them got together. Obviously this was a polyamorous relationship, and obviously in context I am supposed to just accept it worked. But it also massively undermines character development as is, without some further exploration than was given here. Aral was deeply invested in personal honour, and this was a central point of Shards of Honor as he dealt with the way his loss of honour broke him personally. The idea of Cordelia who idly proclaims him monogamous at the start of the marriage, and Aral who is so bound up in personal honour, having no repercussions at all from his falling into this extramarital relationship.. Was problematic. It doesn't sit well at all with me, that there was NO discussion of it even in flashbacks. It was just a given that Aral did happily jump into this relationship without talking to his wife first, and that she happily accepted it. Her easy acceptance of this worked well for me.. But not the fact she had to find out second hand. Even someone as open as she was, I would have expected some kind of fallout. I would have expected Aral to be deeply conflicted, and for there to have been a serious discussion in their marriage as a result.
Perhaps Bujold could solve this with a novella set in the past where Cordelia gives Aral tacit permission to explore sexual partners while is out on long duties, and a discussion after he starts his romance with Oliver. But without that sort of interaction I find the entire premise to be somewhat flimsy, and since this book was so much about nostalgia and discussion of past events, the lack of mentioning that kind of important interaction undermined things for me.
I do also think there wasn't enough explanation of the emotional distance between Cordelia and Oliver, given the 20 years of shared marriage, but given other details given this is a mostly minor quibble. Given the way they fell apart after Aral's death and didn't really interact personally for the 3 years (as Oliver said, grief does strange things to people sometimes) before this book it mostly worked for me, but I still wish there had a been a bit more here.
Overall I think the problems with this book are disappointing in this re-read because they didn't completely undermine the plot for me, and they honestly shouldn't have been problems at all. A little more time spent on flashbacks to a few minor but key scenes, a little discussion about how she planned to raise children as a single parent in the future, and a little more time spent on showing Cordelia as fallible, and it wouldn't have substantially changed the book at all.
Anyway, I still loved this book despite these flaws, and will probably re-read it again someday.
This book was possibly the most divisive of the entire series and with good reason, especially for those who read the series as a whole. I originally read bits of it scattered over the years until last year when I worked my way through the entire series (all 15 previous books) up to this one. Unlike all the other books this one was a simple, straightforward "life" book, with a touch of romance and a lot of nostalgia which is probably a put off for many. But for me the biggest problems are with the way the author dealt with the romance in history, and the children in future, and Cordelia as a bit of a Mary Sue and how that impacted the other two problems.
If you read the two previous Cordelia books, at the start of the series, you know she is practical to a fault, and very Betan in her outlook on relationships (aka very open minded) at times, but generally a flawed nuanced mostly believable character (I thought so at least). Throughout the rest of the books, which are mostly Miles and co, she comes across as a secondary character who steps in to fix things when they go wrong. Which since she is Miles' Mother works fine for the most part (even though it smacks of the Mary Sue), because of those first two books as backdrop and because she is such a minor character in the rest. The problem is that to some degree the way she was always right seems to persist into this book when she finally takes a more prominent role again, and it undermined some important aspects of the overall plot in ways I hadn't really noticed the first time around.
Cordelia was always a ruthlessly practical individual, but she also tended to feel strongly about how to care for children to make sure they were well balanced individuals. This doesn't quite fit with the way she was portrayed as planning to raise 6 daughters potentially alone in isolation, away from all extended family. I am not saying anything against her raising six daughters as single parent per-se, but that she did so in isolation, without any seeming concern for the huge problems inherent in doing so a long travel away from any family support. She discusses having multiple options in the case of her death to care for them, but she never once discusses the problems inherent with when she is still alive, and the help she would invariably need. There was a bit of a brush off where the fact she was largely raised by her own Mother supposedly shaped her view of single parenting.. But having raised children already, being practical to a fault, and knowing better than to equate raising one child to raising six this entire lack of planning or consideration while simultaneously portraying her as always being right just didn't fit. Given everything else I would at least have expected some discussion of a plan for support, friends, family visits, etc. But there wasn't really anything. This didn't detrimentally undermine the plot, but definitely bothered me on this re-read.
The next bit is a probably massive spoiler if you haven't read the first 15~ pages of this book but have read the first two Cordelia books. I am not sure how to talk about any of it easily or without lots of spoilers so I am just going to jump in and ramble about it.
When it comes to the romance (the most contentious part of the plot) the biggest problem stems from a lack of serious discussion about the implications of the start of the original relationship between Cordelia's husband Aral and his military subordinate Oliver Jole 23 years earlier and how it fits with a rather important interaction from the book Barrayar :
"He's bisexual, you know." He took a delicate sip of his wine.
"Was bisexual," she corrected absently, looking fondly across the room. "Now he's monogamous".
While this line in and of itself was a great comeback in a fraught scene (and I loved it) it also struck me as problematic even at the time. But in retrospect it becomes much more complicated to discover that 10 years into their marriage Aral falls in love with Oliver and starts an affair with him without once discussing it with Cordelia first, and seemingly without pause. Throughout all the Miles books when Cordelia and Aral are mostly minor offscreen secondary characters right up until Aral's death, Aral had two long term relationships. The public one with Cordelia, and the private one with Oliver.. And the rare times when all three of them got together. Obviously this was a polyamorous relationship, and obviously in context I am supposed to just accept it worked. But it also massively undermines character development as is, without some further exploration than was given here. Aral was deeply invested in personal honour, and this was a central point of Shards of Honor as he dealt with the way his loss of honour broke him personally. The idea of Cordelia who idly proclaims him monogamous at the start of the marriage, and Aral who is so bound up in personal honour, having no repercussions at all from his falling into this extramarital relationship.. Was problematic. It doesn't sit well at all with me, that there was NO discussion of it even in flashbacks. It was just a given that Aral did happily jump into this relationship without talking to his wife first, and that she happily accepted it. Her easy acceptance of this worked well for me.. But not the fact she had to find out second hand. Even someone as open as she was, I would have expected some kind of fallout. I would have expected Aral to be deeply conflicted, and for there to have been a serious discussion in their marriage as a result.
Perhaps Bujold could solve this with a novella set in the past where Cordelia gives Aral tacit permission to explore sexual partners while is out on long duties, and a discussion after he starts his romance with Oliver. But without that sort of interaction I find the entire premise to be somewhat flimsy, and since this book was so much about nostalgia and discussion of past events, the lack of mentioning that kind of important interaction undermined things for me.
I do also think there wasn't enough explanation of the emotional distance between Cordelia and Oliver, given the 20 years of shared marriage, but given other details given this is a mostly minor quibble. Given the way they fell apart after Aral's death and didn't really interact personally for the 3 years (as Oliver said, grief does strange things to people sometimes) before this book it mostly worked for me, but I still wish there had a been a bit more here.
Overall I think the problems with this book are disappointing in this re-read because they didn't completely undermine the plot for me, and they honestly shouldn't have been problems at all. A little more time spent on flashbacks to a few minor but key scenes, a little discussion about how she planned to raise children as a single parent in the future, and a little more time spent on showing Cordelia as fallible, and it wouldn't have substantially changed the book at all.
Anyway, I still loved this book despite these flaws, and will probably re-read it again someday.