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language: English
country: USA
year: 1976
form: novel
genre(s): science fiction
series: Dragonriders of Pern, #4
dates read: 14.6.18, 5.8.24-13.8.24
Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonsinger is an immediate sequel to Dragonsong — and I mean immediate, in that it picks up no more than perhaps half an hour after the end of Dragonsong, with Menolly arriving — in triumph and some trepidation — at the Harper Hall. the novel takes us through her first week at the Hall, day by day, as she makes friends, makes enemies, and tries to find her place in this community that she has so longed to be part of but never imagined she would actually reach.
it’s a bit more sedate than Dragonsong in some ways — never is Menolly in live-threatening danger, for example. like Dragonsong, it also integrates elements of the plot of Dragonquest but from another perspective; also like Dragonsong, it deals with some sexism, although here that sexism is concentrated mainly in the figure of Master Morshall, the music theory teacher, whose misogyny is turned into a joke (and who I think is vaguely implied to be gay, or at least that’s how some of the oblique comments read to me; just some classic McCaffrey homophobia).
mostly, though, this is a book about Menolly finding ways to overcome her trauma, to see beyond the limits that have been imposed on her and which she has internalized and to come to fully appreciate the extent and value of her gift for and love of music. this is an ongoing struggle, and even just a few pages before the end of the book as she has come to terms with the fact that other people value her music she still can only think of this as being a reflection of its utility, not its actual quality. listening to this with my partner there were regular exasperated “Menolly!”s from both of us.
also she does very much challenge someone to a duel! we love that for her.
Menolly continues to be unable to interpret social cues, something that’s even more foregrounded her because this is the first time she’s been in a social context where she was surrounded by strangers and where rank and social status are major factors in interpersonal interactions (in contrast to the easygoing social environment of the weyr). again, people make incorrect assumptions about her upon hearing “Menolly, daughter of Yanus Sea Holder”, and I think this explains some of her enemies’ antipathy (her enemies are a group of aristocratic girls who are paid students at the Hall) — they expect her to behave the way they would in her place, and so they interpret her failure to conform to their social expectations as willful rudeness. (this by no means excuses their behavior, but I think it partly explains the intensity of it.)
her difficulty with social cues is also driven home by the fact that on several occasions we can see her assessing her readings of social situations, remaining convinced that she is correct, but consciously choosing to prioritize someone else’s interpretation over her own, because she doesn’t trust her judgment and does trust theirs. the composition master, Domick, for example, is a cynical and sarcastic man who likes to tease, rather sharply; Menolly is convinced for the first several days that he dislikes her, but Sebell — her journeyman supervisor — assures her that Domick is like that with everyone, and as a result we can see, textually, Menolly consciously bracketing (or attempting to bracket, with some success) her anxiety and trust Sebell’s judgment over her own, even when her perspective makes it clear that she still thinks Domick hates her. it’s relatable!
the one real failing of this book is the representation of Camo, a “drudge” (i.e., lowest-class servant) at the Hall who clearly has some kind of intellectual / developmental disability. on the one hand, I think McCaffrey’s intentions here were good — we are clearly meant to like Camo, and to like people who are nice to Camo and dislike people who are mean to Camo. unfortunately, the way he’s portrayed is incredibly condescending and the language used to describe him is…wildly ableist, in a way that I suspect McCaffrey thought was just some in-world terminology but feels like it’s about two euphemistic steps away from the R-word. it’s not great!
that is a relatively small part of the book, and overall I still highly recommend it, but it does mar what is otherwise the most tightly-plotted and frankly well-characterized book in the entire series.
moods: adventurous, emotional, hopeful