Book {Enchantment}

I decided to re-read "Enchantment" by Orson Scott Card since it had been awhile.  I first read it the summer after my freshman year in college when I went to South (North?) Carolina with my friend, Candis, who let me borrow it.  She even let me take it back home with me so I could finish it.  At that point in my life, I think it was probably the best book I had ever read.  I was in love with it.  I recommended it to everyone I knew.  It was romantic but not sappy, it had magic but not cheesy magic, it was a fairy tale but not typical.  It blew my mind.

Before I started reading it this time, I checked it out on Goodreads, just curious about what other people thought of it and came across a reviewer that was so disappointed in Orson Scott Card for writing an "R-rated book".  (If you don't know, he is LDS and therefore his books are pretty clean and readable for the conservative set.)  I kind of laughed at that because I didn't remember it being graphic or violent.  It was just a sweet, retelling of the Sleeping Beauty story with an interesting twist.  Ok, so there was that one scene, but I guess at the time I thought it was pretty mild as far as ::those scenes:: go.

So I started the book curious about where the reviewer got that from and, what do you know, in the first two pages we're talking about circumcision and boy parts.  A few chapters later the witch, Baba Yaga, is prying an eyeball from a still alive prisoner and her husband, the Bear God, rips the prisoner's head off his shoulders.  And so forth and so on.  Orson Scott Card is not trying to be subtle in this book.  Baba Yaga is brutal and OSC writes very plainly about nudity and isn't too shy about sex, either.  I'm just warning you.  It is definitely NOT a youth fiction and I would even question it for young adult fiction.

Ivan is our hero in this book.  As an adolescent, he lives in the USSR utnil his parents decide to immigrate to the United States.  Before they leave, they spend some time at his Uncle Marek's house in the country while they wait for their travel documents to show up.  Ivan is a runner and one day he goes for a run in the forest and comes upon a clearing that is perfectly circular and covered by fallen leaves.  There is a mound in the middle and when a breeze picks up some of the leaves he sees the face of a beautiful woman.  He steps forward and something starts to churn the leaves up and move towards him, so he hightails it out of there.  His family makes it to the US and settles in NY.  He grows up there, but he can't stop thinking about the woman in the clearing.  The Berlin Wall falls when he is finishing up his graduate degree in ancient languages and folk tales, so he decides that he can go back to what is now the Ukraine and do his research there.  He goes to visit his Uncle Marek and ends up back at the clearing, which is still there, endures a battle with the Bear God who was put there by the evil witch Baba Yaga, kisses the sleeping woman, and promises to marry her to save them from the bear.  There are complications, of course, which you'll have to find out for yourself.

What I loved about this book is that it wasn't a drippy romance.  The princess, Katerina, is a tough cookie and doesn't immediately fall in love with her rescuer.  Her main goal is to save her kingdom from the evil Baba Yaga.  Ivan doesn't love her right away either, but they are both good people and do what they need to do.  I like how their relationship develops.  I also like the touch of sci-fi that happens in the book.  There's a bit of time-traveling that happens, which I think is kind of fun.

Most of the "r-rated" stuff happens when they go back to Katerina's time when people were a little more crass and have a ribald sense of humor.  And, like I said, Baba Yaga is brutal.  Also, there's an ongoing theme of religion/God vs. magic/witchcraft and it gets discussed a lot.

So, decide for yourselves (as always) if you want to read it.  I enjoyed it.

I don't know what to read next.  Not true.  I have a book/series in mind.  I just need to get to the bookstore.  I'm feeling like a fish out of water without something to read!  It's a little strange.