[Kirsten Bishop]

Hello all, and thank you for your comments. As I said to Rob, it's an honour to be the specimen on the slab.

Prunesquallor - where were you when I was proofreading? :) This book has been checked over a lot of times, and that thing with the eyes shut still slipped past! I've added it to the list of little fixes for the mass market edition. Thank you!
I like your interpretation of Beth's later etchings; your idea is different from what I had in mind, but it works.

Ficus Fan - As I saw it, Beth's art was a kind of magic. (That's why, in the end, the nameplate on her door changes from 'Engraver' to 'Thaumaturge'). There's always been a ritualistic, shamanic aspect to art. Through making representations of strange imaginary things, she's trying to effect a change in her world - or, perhaps, just a change in herself, which in this book means a change in her world too.
I might have to argue about the messianic cliche. The Rev wanted to save Gwynn's soul; he ended up saving his life, which wasn't really the point... well, that's how I saw it, anyway :)

Erfael - yeah, absolutely, all the characters are missing something / looking for something. One of the things I wanted to do in the book was explore the idea of exile - physical, social, spiritual. I think they're all experiencing a sense of exile in various ways.
I think there's definitely a case for Gwynn having a nice-guy vibe. To me, in a way Gwynn was an exaggerated version of the ordinary person who, say, works for a company that employs sweatshop labour, or who drives a gas-guzzling car, or does any of the ordinary things we do that ultimately have negative consequences. Gwynn just happens to commit his wrongful acts in a direct, conscious way - without having hangups about it, as Ficus Fan says. From another direction, Gwynn is also the archetypal Byronic man-in-black; I wanted to take that character and imagine what he might be like in his off hours. I'm sure I was inspired by Vince and Jules in Pulp Fiction - pleasant, interesting guys except for when they're 'in character'.

In general, about Gwynn and Beth - how much they love each other is, I think, wide open to interpretation. As I see it, Gwynn is, to Beth, a sort of demon lover, a male muse. Demon lovers can be inspiring, but they can also be deadening, if you get obsessed with them. It all started for me with the 19th century Symbolists and Decadents, among whom there were male writers and painters who had strange, neurotic ideas about women; woman was the muse, but also the femme fatale, the ever-mysterious and dangerous sphinx, and ultimately she had to be killed, turned into an 'exquisite corpse', or she would, you know, devour the poor male. So I wanted to make the sphinx herself into an artist, and turn the tables to some degree, to show a two-sided relationship.

There's really no one way to read the book, either. There isn't really any 'what it all means', any more than there is in life. The best I can say is that the story means different things from the perspectives of the different characters. I hope I don't sound like a pompous fraud....

[Eventine]

Thanks for visiting Kirsten.
I meant to reread this book before commenting in the book club ( I read it about halfway through last year), but now that we're being visited by the author I thought I'd make a few brief comments.

At the time of reading the book I posted this:
The blurb pigeon holes it in the "New Weird" and I wouldn't argue. It's very reminiscent of Mieville at times in that we're not handed a pre formatted fantasy plot where we know pretty much how it'll end after the first 50 pages (good guy defeats bad guy and wins girl). Instead, it's a character piece that leaves you wondering not only what's going to happen but what the book is actually about. One of the more interesting reads of the year so far.


I couldn't work out while reading the book if the symbolism was mostly over my head, or if I wasn't supposed to be "getting" anything. From what you've said Kirsten, it seems that seeing as I enjoyed it there's no issue.

One thing I really remember was reading the last page and being struck at how strange (and I mean that in a good way) the ending was. It left me scratching my head and wondering. The coincidence involved struck me as meaningful but I just couldn't put my finger on why.

I'll comment some more once I've knocked over Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell - I recall seeing some comments by Kirsten in an interview (or maybe at the Nightshade boards?) about alchemical references and symbology which wasn't something I'd picked up on my first reading but would like to discuss further.

(BTW I like the Vince and Jules example)

[Rob B]

First off, thanks for stopping by Kirsten! Hello all, and thank you for your comments. As I said to Rob, it's an honour to be the specimen on the slab.

Ficus Fan - As I saw it, Beth's art was a kind of magic. (That's why, in the end, the nameplate on her door changes from 'Engraver' to 'Thaumaturge'). There's always been a ritualistic, shamanic aspect to art. Through making representations of strange imaginary things, she's trying to effect a change in her world - or, perhaps, just a change in herself, which in this book means a change in her world too.
I might have to argue about the messianic cliche. The Rev wanted to save Gwynn's soul; he ended up saving his life, which wasn't really the point... well, that's how I saw it, anyway :) Something I indicated in my review about Beth, that really stuck out to me, is her name. Beth is a name we can come across fairly regularly, but all the other characters have more odd/weird names. I don't know that any of us have come across a Gwynn or Raule. Le Guin is a writer who always invested a lot of power in names and here, Beth with the most "mundane" name has control over such an abstract thing as art and magic.

I think there's definitely a case for Gwynn having a nice-guy vibe. To me, in a way Gwynn was an exaggerated version of the ordinary person who, say, works for a company that employs sweatshop labour, or who drives a gas-guzzling car, or does any of the ordinary things we do that ultimately have negative consequences. Gwynn just happens to commit his wrongful acts in a direct, conscious way - without having hangups about it, as Ficus Fan says. From another direction, Gwynn is also the archetypal Byronic man-in-black; I wanted to take that character and imagine what he might be like in his off hours. I'm sure I was inspired by Vince and Jules in Pulp Fiction - pleasant, interesting guys except for when they're 'in character'.
Now that you mention Pulp Fiction I can see a similarity. After all death dealers of all sorts need to eat and discuss their Hamburgers or Royals with cheese don't they? As in Pulp Fiction I kind have the same vibe in that some things are out of the realm of the ordinary, even for characters who deal in unordinary things.

In general, about Gwynn and Beth - how much they love each other is, I think, wide open to interpretation. As I see it, Gwynn is, to Beth, a sort of demon lover, a male muse. Demon lovers can be inspiring, but they can also be deadening, if you get obsessed with them. It all started for me with the 19th century Symbolists and Decadents, among whom there were male writers and painters who had strange, neurotic ideas about women; woman was the muse, but also the femme fatale, the ever-mysterious and dangerous sphinx, and ultimately she had to be killed, turned into an 'exquisite corpse', or she would, you know, devour the poor male. So I wanted to make the sphinx herself into an artist, and turn the tables to some degree, to show a two-sided relationship.Are you saying Beth is like a succubus?;) I think they used each other to an extent and their "love" as it were had a more business-like and callous feel to it.

I hope I don't sound like a pompous fraud....Not at all!
-Fitz/Rob

[FicusFan]

First off, thanks for stopping by Kirsten! Something I indicated in my review about Beth, that really stuck out to me, is her name. Beth is a name we can come across fairly regularly, but all the other characters have more odd/weird names. I don't know that any of us have come across a Gwynn or Raule. Le Guin is a writer who always invested a lot of power in names and here, Beth with the most "mundane" name has control over such an abstract thing as art and magic.


Now that you mention Pulp Fiction I can see a similarity. After all death dealers of all sorts need to eat and discuss their Hamburgers or Royals with cheese don't they? As in Pulp Fiction I kind have the same vibe in that some things are out of the realm of the ordinary, even for characters who deal in unordinary things.

Are you saying Beth is like a succubus?;) I think they used each other to an extent and their "love" as it were had a more business-like and callous feel to it.

Not at all!
-Fitz/Rob

Well I have to disagree with you about a couple of things Fitz:

I would argue that Beth, while a name we are likely to find in everyday use, is not mundane. It fools you into thinking it is ordinary, but then it leaves you with a sense of a deep calm pool in the forest with lots of magic and mystery hidden in it. At least that is the after-image I have always had of 'Beth'. I went to grade school with a cool Beth :D. I looked on the Web and Beth (besides being a diminutive of Elizabeth in English) means House of God, and Life in other languages. I seem to remember Peace from somewhere but can't find it now. I also think I was solicited to join a cult on one of the sites. :eek:

I also don't think that anything in the novel had a 'callous' feel to it. In fact the whole thing was very vibrant and you could almost feel the characters and the situations resonating within yourself. Nothing seemed to be covered over or hardened with calluses. Even the murders that were committed or ordered were very personal and full of feeling (shredding their hands and throwing living people weighted with cement into a deep swamp - its almost enough to make the killers run screaming in terror).

Now that I think about it -- there was a thing with hands. The people who Elm orderd killed always had their hands shredded or cut off. Was there a reason for that Kirsten ?

In terms of Beth and Art, no I completely missed that her nameplate changed. And I wouldn't have considered art to be magic - anymore than I would think a mirror or a camera could steal your soul :D, so I missed that entirely.

I never saw Pulp Fiction so I can't comment on the similarity.

[Erfael]

Now that I think about it -- there was a thing with hands. The people who Elm orderd killed always had their hands shredded or cut off. Was there a reason for that Kirsten ?

Actually, not all of them were hands. They were whatever body part did the offense. So for Hart, his wife lost her tongue because he talked. Marriott lost his hands because he touched, if I recall correctly.

[FicusFan]

Actually, not all of them were hands. They were whatever body part did the offense. So for Hart, his wife lost her tongue because he talked. Marriott lost his hands because he touched, if I recall correctly.

No the guys who got cement shoes and got dumped in the swamp. There were 2 sets of them, and they also had their hands shreded before being dumped I think. I just wonder what the deal with the hands was.

[Rob B]

Well I have to disagree with you about a couple of things Fitz:

I would argue that Beth, while a name we are likely to find in everyday use, is not mundane. It fools you into thinking it is ordinary, but then it leaves you with a sense of a deep calm pool in the forest with lots of magic and mystery hidden in it. At least that is the after-image I have always had of 'Beth'. I went to grade school with a cool Beth :D. I looked on the Web and Beth (besides being a diminutive of Elizabeth in English) means House of God, and Life in other languages. I seem to remember Peace from somewhere but can't find it now. I also think I was solicited to join a cult on one of the sites. :eek: I knew Beth/Elizabeth but didn't know the other meanings. Not so much that Beth's name was mundane, but a much more ordinary name than anyone else in the book and it was something that stood out like a red flag to me that there is something different about this character.

I also don't think that anything in the novel had a 'callous' feel to it. In fact the whole thing was very vibrant and you could almost feel the characters and the situations resonating within yourself. Nothing seemed to be covered over or hardened with calluses. Even the murders that were committed or ordered were very personal and full of feeling (shredding their hands and throwing living people weighted with cement into a deep swamp - its almost enough to make the killers run screaming in terror).Let me rephrase this and maybe write my thoughts a little better. I agree the story/world/novel was vibrant and brimming with a sense of vitality and magic, but to me, while passionate, the affair between Gwynn and Beth was peculiar in some ways, perhaps callous was an inappropriate term.

I got the sense they approached each other in an almost detached and cautious fashion (and that still isn't the right term, I can't seem to get it) manner, kind of asking themselves what they could get out of the affair rather than just being swept away by the feelings. They were going through the motions? No, that's not it either. It will come to me.

[FicusFan]

I didn't get a real feel for Beth and what she wanted or expected or what was going on with her -- but then we only saw her from the outside I think. And I totally missed the whole art is magic thing.

Gwynn seemed to me to be obsessed with Beth and first finding her, then figuring her out, and then finding her again. So perhaps his mind was too busy and engaged to allow his heart to come into play. She was like a riddle or a puzzle that he wanted/needed to solve -- as though she could point him to happiness or peace or love or whatever he was looking for.

Maybe Beth looked at him as the raw material for an artwork. Like paper and paint or clay, or whatever she uses for etching. Perhaps he was a work of art that she wanted to create for some reason - to help her transform or find the little child she was who escaped, so she could join her ?

Don't know exactly how to say it either.

I also forgot to mention the horse Gwynn was riding. At one point it started talking (right), that was cool. I would have liked the horse to be more of a character.

The axe that was the wife - that was strange. Even though she was dead you would think she would do more than avenge her death and get her husband killed and her child abandoned. Why didn't she try to do something that would lift up her husband and protect her child - then they could have avenged her. She seemed to allow Elm's violence towards her to infect her family. Her reincarnation as an axe and her actions afterwards helped destroy everything she loved and worked for better than Elm did.



My other thought, which I didn't post before is about the ending. I found it kind of a sad let down. Gwynn lived to be old and normal (in his world) and all after he came back from the dead. It seemed a waste of both the priests's death and the story because it was strange and magical before and then it became ordinary. Not sure what that means.

[Erfael]

A few things:

The horse was talking because he was high.


As far as the ordinariness of the end, that seemed right to me. They started off there, then went to what I see as their cocoon, the city, and then after the experiences there they both head back to the mundane desert, whether their transformations in the city were successful or not. There didn't really seem to be the same questions of perception and reality outside of the city as there were inside of it, which brings to my mind a connection between the city and that magic or change while there that isn't really present out in the Copper Country.


Ah, another thought: What did you think of the US cover, Kirsten? I understand that the original cover was one that you created yourself. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what the honeycomb and bees on the front of the US cover had to do with the book. Haven't come up with anything so far.

[FicusFan]

A few things:

The horse was talking because he was high.


As far as the ordinariness of the end, that seemed right to me. They started off there, then went to what I see as their cocoon, the city, and then after the experiences there they both head back to the mundane desert, whether their transformations in the city were successful or not. There didn't really seem to be the same questions of perception and reality outside of the city as there were inside of it, which brings to my mind a connection between the city and that magic or change while there that isn't really present out in the Copper Country.


Ah, another thought: What did you think of the US cover, Kirsten? I understand that the original cover was one that you created yourself. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what the honeycomb and bees on the front of the US cover had to do with the book. Haven't come up with anything so far.

Well you're no fun. I still think the horse talked, and I liked him as a character. :p

Which US cover are you talking about ? I have the book that was published in 2003, and is almost all yellow. I don't think there are any honeycombs or bees on it. Mine sort of looks like it was trying to be the first etching that Gwynn bought that made him want to find Beth. Though I don't think the winged thing with a human face is a basilisk - I always thought it looked like a sphinx. Mine too gives the Copyright of the cover to author. Never noticed that before - cool.