Lived: Reactions & Thoughts

16th January, 2001

It's strange, thinking that a story two, nearly three years in progress has finaly come to an end. That which has been a real stalwart of hanfic, which so many have been measured against, will be filed away probably as one of the sweetest love affairs the hanfic community has known. It was not truly explosive, as was the case with say Devil Angel (in what seems like such a long but in fact was really quite a short time ago), quite the opposite, Lived slowly but surely seeped its way through the circles of hanfic to become one of its best known pieces. That aside, I still believe few people will argue when I say that I regard Lived as its author Llama's best work. Whilst it wasn't perhaps the most original work to date – several authors, including myself, have written dramatic stories involving death, employing the flashback technique – few have been able to capture truly the emotions and vulnerability that accompanies tragedy with such poignance. What attracted me first to Llama's fiction, and coaxed me to read on past the first few pages that can make or break a piece, was not plot or character, but the simple beauty and humanity of her prose. In every story of hers that I've read, her female leads are first and foremost, human, and they have their faults, just as we all do. I could go on singing Llama's praises for the delicate beauty that infuses her prose, but I won't, because even the best stories have their ups and downs.

I feel Llama's strongest point – not just in Lived, but in all her work I'm familiar with – is her style, that which can gloss over some of the more unlikely or slightly idealistic developments by making the audience want to believe they could happen, whether it be with a clever phrase or a simple, eloquent truth that sticks with one throughout the story (mine was "You always have to be on the outside to realise there's an inside", chapter four). The flashback technique is used well, being integrated within the structure of each chapter, whilst still keeping clear exactly what is the past and what is the present, and emphasising the former's impact – sometimes this is a little overstated, but mainly this is due to the object in focus itself being the catalyst for the memory. There is really no question that the past, the content of Lydia's memories, creates almost all the conflict and dynamics in the story. The present, except for Lydia's interaction with Taylor, is utilised mainly for introspection, hindsight and the building up of a situation to prompt another memory. A greater emphasis on the passing of time during the present, and perhaps a vague self-awareness in Lydia that this was happening, would have aided at least my reading. I remember coming to chapter nineteen and wondering how on earth five months could have passed, had I missed a chapter? Too little seemed to have happened to account for the passing of five months.

I've heard complaints from people that in her letters, Lydia's introspecting has a tendency to drag. I didn't find this at all, but I must admit character introspection has always intrigued me. Through twenty-one letters the reader is presented with a running commentary on Lydia's state of mind – first person narrative is always best for diving into an individual character's psyche. Perhaps charges of dragging have their basis here, that as the story drew closer to its end, I began to feel that Lydia's character was stagnating. Rather than presenting Lydia's development as she worked through her grief and gradually came to accept that perhaps it would be best if she got on with her life, I found I was hearing basically the same things reiterated, until almost out of the blue in chapter twenty-one she announces she's decided to return to living. This of course could be the psychological equivalent of a wake-up call, remembering the river and Zac's words, and suddenly comprehending all she's missed and what she's been doing. Yet there seems to be no indication of this; little real emphasis is placed on Zac's words, nor is the picnic developed fully. The last chapter left me rather disappointed actually. It was the 'behind the story' explanation that really concluded the story, and whilst I can readily accept that as a reader (I had tears in my eyes), from an objective, literary perspective (as much as I hate it) the conclusion of a story should end the story, not require a discourse to explain it and all the loose ends left untied (namely the manner of Zac's death and why it was left unexplained).

Towards the end of the story, I was left with an increasing sense of disjointedness, perhaps that Llama was floundering a little with how to continue, maybe because she'd effectively written out her main character, and I do not refer to Lydia. From the time the reader has ingested the first few chapters, it is clear that Zac, and not Lydia, is the main character of this story. It is primarily Zac's story that Lydia is telling, and one gets the impression of her to be almost at times as much an observer as the reader. I freely admit my major gripe with many of Llama's female leads is that whilst they are all given very human aspects, more focus is placed on their weaknesses, and thus they become weak characters (as opposed to weak characterisation) and are easily dominated by their brighter, stronger male leads. This is especially the case with Zac, who is so full of life that the reader's interests are captured by him almost instantly. He is just too strong a character for Lydia to compete with.

I believe chapters fifteen and sixteen are pivotal in the story for a number of reasons, the most obvious being that here the reader sees Lydia and Zac acknowledge their feelings for one another, and also the first seeds are planted that will grow into the realtionship between Lydia and Taylor. But it is here that what really pulled Lived down a notch in my eyes occured, twice. A careful or second time reader of Lived will notice that seemingly important characters have a tendency to simply disappear. Isaac barely appears in this story to begin with (a rant all in itself, but at least Llama provides a legitimate and believeable reason), yet he is mentioned only intermittently after chapter four, where it is Taylor who holds centre stage, right through to chapter twenty-one, where almost as an afterthought he's mentioned as being at the river with the family – his pregnant wife is described in more detail. Zoë also seems in the beginning half of the book to be painstakingly built up as an anti-thesis to Taylor, the two family members who are closest to Zac thus being diametrically opposed in their personalities, yet she too is allowed to fade, lessening drastically the impact when Lydia spies the two of them playing the family piano in chapter twenty. Yet it is in chapters fifteen and sixteen that two important characters disappear. Angie seemed to me to be an important part of Lydia's life, yet after the funeral she is never seen again. This struck me even on the first read, that after the funeral, a time generally when friends are needed most, Angie seemingly abandons Lydia. Surely in five months a best friend would have called or popped around once. The notes at the end of the story provided some explanation for this, yet that Lydia doesn't comment on or mention her friend's appearances or even her absence to me is unbelieveable. The other character to disappear, or more in this case to fade away, is Zac himself. It is here that Zac makes his last solid appearance. After chapter sixteen he still appears, however the scenes are briefer and more chronologically scattered. Lydia does refer to him constantly, yet in all but one brief scene in chapter seventeen, the way he's presented is little more than a shadow of the former Zac, whose sunshine and energy drove two-thirds of the story perfectly. Upon the conclusion of chapter sixteen and the fading of Zac, the story I feel loses much of its impetus and impact. The change of focus from the relationship between Lydia and Zac to that of Lydia and Taylor carries the story a little further; the switch from past to present and having to deal with a relationship (in the broader sense of the word) that in her heart she really doesn't want to go so far could have been an excellent vehicle for Lydia's gradual acceptance and moving on, had it been explored and developed more. The ending comes as somewhat of a surprise and as aforesaid, a bit of a disappointment, considering the amount of potential that lies in the Lydia-Taylor relationship.

There are a few small points that bother my unfortunately detail-tuned imagination, the first being whether it is mentioned anywhere that Taylor gave up smoking, which is a defining point of his character when he first appears in the story. Lydia describes him tasting of "strawberry bubblegum", surely there would have been at least a faint hint of smoke? And under such emotional stress as Taylor is when he reads Lydia's letters, I'd think the first thing a habitual smoker would do is light a cigarette. Another thing that bothered me in relation to this scene, Lydia always seems to be crying at some stage whilst writing each letter, her tears blurring the ink. Combined with the naturally more erratic handwriting of someone under emotional stress, wouldn't that make it a bit difficult for Taylor to read the letters? The last blip I noticed was in chapter twenty-one, when Lydia implies that Isaac and Emily have been married for ten years. Even with my abyssmal mathematical skills, this one pulled me up. Ten years? Assuming Zac was 19 at the time the picnic at the river occurred, simple arithmetic tells us that Isaac is thus 24 years of age. Married ten years?! Maybe I missed something in the wording, maybe the implication was not that they'd been married for ten years but that Emily had simply lived in Tulsa for ten years. The two children, both old enough to be introduced to the water, and another nearly there seemed a bit of an anomaly to my mind as well, considering that in chapter four, at age 22 Isaac was "practically a daddy" not yet an actual one. Three children in two years, two being old enough to learn to doggy paddle? Did they adopt or what? I'm either out of my mind, or a few chronological wires have been crossed (and likely shorted with a real big bang).

That all said, I'm still of the opinion that Lived is one of the best works of fiction currently online, but one thing I would not call it is finished. There is so much potential still in the last third of the storyline, that need only be teased out and developed/explored/resolved. The ending could be built up gradually, rather than the sudden wild ball it seems to be now, and the state of Taylor and Lydia's relationship after chapter seventeen I feel could be developed a lot further. Overall, my main comment/reaction/thought is that two-thirds of Lived is exceptional, well-earning the accolades the story has received, however the remaining third still requires work to pull it up to the set standard.


RESPONSES

Llama did respond to this editorial (and positively I might add), but somewhere in the process, I lost the email. The main gist of it was 'i never expected someone to analyse my dirty laundry, but thank you for pointing out the hitches you noticed, i'll look at them in the rewriting process'.


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