The story hews closely to the time-honored traditions of the Victorian novel. The dragons are intensely conscious of their class and punctilious about social conventions. The daughters are expected to marry well; the sons, to either manage their father's estates or seek other gainful employment. (One of the sons, fittingly, is a parson.) There is even a lengthy and delightful scene in a court that can only be the dragon equivalent of Chancery.
Of course, if Tooth and Claw did nothing more than replace human characters with dragons, it would be just as boring as many other Victorian novels. What makes Tooth and Claw so interesting is that Walton has ingeniously translated the crucial elements of the Victorian novel into a strange new setting. The Victorian obsession with virginity is now the dragon obsession with uncolored maidens: you see, when a male dragon presses himself upon a female dragon, she ineradicably blushes pink. The Victorian obsession with land and inheritance--which is preserved among the dragons--gains an additional twist because dragons only grow larger by consuming the bodies of other dragons--and so the most valuable inheritance of a dying dragon is to bequeath his body to his children to eat. And so on.
What is even more remarkable is that all of these elements factor into an exquisitely plotted story with more twists, turns, and subplots than a book of this length should rightfully be able to fit. Add to the mix a collection of sharply drawn, lovingly described characters, and you have a small gem of a novel.
Is Tooth and Claw just fluff? Of course: it makes no pretense at having significance. But with what it sets out to do, it's perfect.
Copyright © 2005 Steven Wu 