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RichardAbbott
About
- Username
- RichardAbbott
- Joined
- Visits
- 6,183
- Last Active
- Roles
- Member, Administrator, Moderator
- Games I like
- Sundry, mostly board
- Books I like
- Science fiction, fantasy, some historical fiction
Comments
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Of course implicit in your question is the fact that "Empire" can be understood in so many ways. Here we have actual conquest and take over, as has happened many times in Earth's history. But also there is another form of cultural assimila…
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You're right - there are at least two levels of memory going on. At an individual level we have Yskander's contributions (twice over, with different emphasis by the end of the book), together with Mahit and the varous individuals she encounters, mos…
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So far this is feeling a bit ordinary, and anticlimactic compared to the last one. I guess I feel that CP has used the "awkward person goes somewhere and finds someone eager to have sex" quite a lot of times already. No doubt this one - li…
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(Quote) I'd be up for that, time and all permitting
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I'm finished reading now this though am sure I'll reread it, and probably the sequel too (though for what it's worth reviewers are unsure that it matches up to the first).
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(And I still have not found the cairn...)
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First, what an excellent story (I thought) - for me, this was far and away the best so far at showing CP's writing skills. Poignant, certainly, but appropriately and effectively so. Like so many other of his stories that we have read together, witho…
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(Quote) My view (and I suspect yours) would be that an author always intends at least one and probably multiple levels of meaning in the text. The unconscious world of the author necessarily permeates her or his work and adds qualities that on a con…
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@WildCard thanks for this - I always find your explorations fascinating, partly because my own studies and interests lie in a slightly different area of literary thought, viz an author's use of rhetorical structures (large and small) to shape and en…
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I have to say I am thoroughly enjoying this. I don't yet have a sense of where the book is going, but I love the characterisation and the world-building. Thanks for selecting it :)
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I agree with keeping to the shortish sections you worked out @Apocryphal . They do make sense in the context of the longer stories... it's our problem as readers to remain aware of them and stop.
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(Quote) A good thought. I checked out when Dr Moreau was written - 1896 apparently. Freud and Jung were both alive at that stage, though most of Jung's work would happen later. However, their ideas were (obviously) built on earlier concepts, which t…
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(Quote) Thanks @clash_bowley
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@NeilNjae I think you have strayed beyond the week's read :) but I agree, it was difficult not to. I like the way CP is developing these two parallel narratives - it's not yet clear to me whether they are strictly parallel, or related by causality,…
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Commenting so I get to see any future additions
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I'd say loads and loads. I mentioned James Bond before. In (older) films you could look at FuManchu (who always had a cool base that had to be infiltrated and was abandoned with the promise of return. Lots of modern eco-thriller plots take for grant…
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I guess looking at contemporary ideas, we still have the same questions as to whether there are fundamental differences between humans and other creatures - maybe more people think of a continuum rather than a step function these days, but I don't t…
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A quick google search suggests that Wells often explored the contrast and conflict between abstinence and indulgence of alcohol. Maybe to get an answer to this we need to take a broader view of his writing?
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(Quote) I wonder (I shall have to think about it some more, as I'm nearly out of time tonight :) ) if there are links with Coleridge's Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner? The way you summarised the stages made the comparison stand out for me.
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Wells would have definitely wanted to avoid Allegory (as indeed most authors do these days) and one feature of that is an over-explicit use of names to convey character. I noted the names, but didn't pick up on any particular pattern in them. Langua…
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I didn't find it horror-with-a-capital-H (which typically I don't like) although there clearly were horrific features to it. But the horror was, perhaps, seated in the reader's growing understanding not only of the situation, but the apparent imposs…
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I found Prendick probably the hardest of the main characters to identify in contemporary society. That may mean that he represents something that has dropped out of UK society after all that happened in the 20th century, or it may mean that Wells de…
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In modern terms (which Wells may or may not have thought helpful) Montgomery's failure is surely a failure to individuate. He is forever doing what others want or expect of him - this naturally brings him into places of conflict when two different p…
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Re elevation and the like. CS Lewis argued somewhat similarly, though obviously rather later and from an explicitly Christian standpoint. His point, if I may ruthlessly summarise, is that just as close association with God can make people become bet…
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(Quote) Agreed about the link to Jurassic Park
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(Quote) wasn't that Worf?
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Re satire and humour - Jonathan Swift was forever writing satire, and although some parts are deliberately funny, large parts are not. Indeed A Modest Proposal is arguably his most bitingly satirical and his least funny. His style of satire - which …
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I think it;'s tricky trying to apply standard categories to a book which in many ways invented the categories in the first place! I kept thinking as I was reading just how many books and films owed a debt to HG Wells - pretty much the whole James Bo…
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(Quote) That's great thanks
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Hi all especially @Apocryphal , @Ray_Otus , @BarnerCobblewood and @WildCard . To take some of the load off @Apocryphal I'm very happy to coordinate the monthly reading choices at the moment. Our current forward list is: Book #102 - July 2021, wit…