[starry-eyed]

I notice a lot of the discussion has centered around Beth. She was definitely one of the most dynamic characters in the book. Raule's character is much less mysterious- her motives and goals far more accessible to the reader. I think that might be why she appealed to me so much as I read the novel.

Raule initially joins a revolutionout of idealistic notions of what could come of it. As the war is lost and the reality of the situation leaves her disillusioned, she tries to hold on to some principles. Yet circumstances and her own survival again force her to compromise them throughout the book. I felt her treatment of Elm was her final sacrifice of conscience that allowed her to escape and eventually regain her conscience.

[Kirsten Bishop]

Starry-Eyed - I always felt that Raule was the character I understood best, even though I almost lost contact with her when the scene changed to the city, and found I couldn't write about her as much as the balance of the story really asked for. To me, she was the most normal person in the novel, I guess, in both her good and bad points.

I've realised that we are nearly at the end of the month, and I never explained anything about why art should be like magic. I did intend to say something briefly, so here we go:
Way back when, there was probably no such thing as art purely for art's sake. Based on studies of those ancient cultures that have survived comparatively unchanged, anthropologists believe that art originally served a ritual purpose, and that there was less distinction made between real things and the images of things than most of us make today. The image of a thing held, in some way, the essence of that thing; or the image communicated in some way with the original; therefore the image had magical power. So, if you wanted to catch a buffalo, you might draw a picture of a buffalo, or of a hunting scene.
One can also consider the nature of ownership. If I see, say, a beautiful vase that I can't afford to buy, I nevertheless remember the vase, and own my own image of it. If I took a photograph, that would be another way of owning it. So, by making or describing images of things, we become owners of the ideas of those things. We can have imaginary lovers, give form to enemies and vanquish them, experience lives that are not our own. And all of this can become more vivid than our own life. This is a sort of magic; we can shapeshift, become the characters we see in pictures, and that we read and write about; even if our bodies don't change, our minds do. And in the world of The Etched City, physical reality is more malleable than it would appear to be in our own world; so these creations, destructions and changes can be physical as well as mental in nature. (Well, that's my interpretation of it, anyway... :D )

[Prunesquallor]

Thanks for participating in the discussion. I think it is allowed to extend beyond the end of the month though....

I realized in the past day or so that one of the things I liked about the book was that it wasn't about some heroes charged with preventing a great calamity. A peek into the lives of some interesting characters in interesting situations instead. I liked that.

[Rob B]

We don't close down the topics at the end of the month, quite often they do live on beyond the initial month. I know I've contributed to a discussion or two after the month passed when I finally got around to it and/or realized the book was discussed.

[Kirsten Bishop]

Prunesquallor - thanks! I'm glad you liked that aspect of it. I guess I've always thought on a small, human scale. For me, every human being is a world (in which unavoidable calamities happen), and that is what I like to focus on; the larger world is relegated to the status of a stage set. 'Let Rome in Tiber melt...'
Not, of course, that a writer can't go deep into the minds of a group of heroes. But I suppose my own fantasies, my daydreams, out of which this book came, just don't run along heroic lines.

[Eventine]

One can also consider the nature of ownership. If I see, say, a beautiful vase that I can't afford to buy, I nevertheless remember the vase, and own my own image of it. If I took a photograph, that would be another way of owning it. So, by making or describing images of things, we become owners of the ideas of those things. We can have imaginary lovers, give form to enemies and vanquish them, experience lives that are not our own. And all of this can become more vivid than our own life. This is a sort of magic; we can shapeshift, become the characters we see in pictures, and that we read and write about; even if our bodies don't change, our minds do. And in the world of The Etched City, physical reality is more malleable than it would appear to be in our own world; so these creations, destructions and changes can be physical as well as mental in nature. (Well, that's my interpretation of it, anyway... :D )

Wow - that's really made me re-think the nature of Beth's art containing Gwynn.

[Ave]

Hello,

I am becoming the "owner" of the Etched city at the moment, in exactly the way Korsten described. Well, maybe a little more so. I have just started on the translation for my Dutch publishers, you see, and in the course of the work every translation becomes "mine".
(When I see my work in bookshops I must furtively stroke their backs and wish them well. I hurt when I see them in a 2nd hand store in the cheap pile.)

Getting back to some earlier postings I read - I nearly always fall in love with the book and the people in it, even if they be not so nice. I am already in love with Gwynne but I am feeling quite defensive about Raule. She is so very human, failings and all. I feel she is the weight that will keep Gwynne from flying off into space altogether.
I also feel it is chiefly her own interpretation of her so called guilt that she needs to free herself from.
All of you and the author may dusagree of course, but i find that the great thing about a good book, that you can see a great many contradictory things in it at the same time.

And thank heaven it is not one of these large, I'll-bludgeon-you-with-yet- another-chapter, books.
I wonder how I'll feel about it in a few months when I'll be finished.

Ave

[Kirsten Bishop]

Ave - what a lovely surprise! Thank you for dropping in. It's interesting what you say about loving the characters. When I'm writing, I have to feel that the characers are real, and that I am just following them. If a character doesn't feel real, and I'm just manipulating him or her like a puppet, it isn't as much fun for me, and I feel like I'm cheating. For me, the nice thing about loving characters is that you can love people who, if they were real people, you probably wouldn't love. If I am inside a character's head, I can forgive him or her for anything they do; it's like being God. In this book, Elm was the only significant character who was a puppet; I needed him for the story, but I never understood him.

[Nimea]

The month of the discussion is long over and I read the book sometime last year . . .

So, do I really have to say anything about it?

I liked the writing and the setting (which surprised me - positively, obviously) and was easily drawn into it. But my fascniation waned a bit while reading and I picked the books up more seldomly. And in the end I was kind of lost trying to answer the question: how much did I like it?

Overall, I think it is a good book. Yet I don't think it was great and it did not make me run around crying out what I think about it. But then again, and this is what often happens with 'important' books and me, I absolutely want to read more by K.J.Bishop and I am happy that all the reviews etc. made me read it. I kind of think it is an important book in a way - like many books that are either part of the New Weird or just are distinctly different from anything Tolkien-clone-like (that is btw. a term I really don't like). I don't know if it will stay an important book, but right now it is.

So, obviously I had some problems with the book? I love characters and characterization - and this is a book that is more a character piece than a story, which is part of why I find it fascinating. But I also am a hound with its nose down trying to sniff and follow the plot - which here is a bit difficult. ;) You can somehow interpret this as a good thing about the book since it made me deal with something different than my conservative reading habbits ... okay, I exaggerate a bit here. ;)

And would I recommend this book? Yes, but not to everyone. I would need to poke them with questions and then decide. I definitely would recommend it to people that will discuss it with me afterwards.

I read this whole discussion before writing this and will now try to comment about some things that were discussed or mentioned:

art and magic - now that is something I would not have been able to express myself, but reading it, a simple 'Yes!' slipped out of me. Thing is that art is something that deeply fascinates me - not really works of art and art history and everything, but whenever art is part of a novel, when it is described and has an impact on the plot/characters, it appeals to me greatly.

the little Pulp Fiction comparison is also rather fitting - one more thing to be thankful that Kirsten joined this discussion. :)

Raule - this is the character I 'bonded' with most; I found her fascinating because of her being a normal person that got lost and deals with exactly that loss (the loss of her conscience as she thinks herself) in an interesting way. This is what I wanted to read about. Someone who has morale or thinks she has and tries to act good, but fails and yet does not. Don't know if that is correct but that's what is always the first thing that comes to my mind when thinking about The Etched City.

Gwynn - he has charisma, but I never thought him to be a nice person. The more I read about him the more interesting he became ...

Okay, that's it. :o

Oh, Kirsten, one question (since Ave mentioned it): one your page it says there is a Serbian translation and Ave obviously works on a Dutch translation, so any other translations coming along?

[Kirsten Bishop]

Nimea -

Thanks for your comments. To answer your question first, other translations on the way are French, German, Czech, Spanish and Italian.

I don't like the term 'Tolkien-clone-like' either. I like a lot of things about Tolkien, and I don't think that a fantastical book gets to be important just because it isn't reminiscent of Tolkien. I would like books to be judged on their own merits - whatever the judgement may end up being!

Plotting is not one of my best points, I have to admit. I guess I'm not that interested in plot - although I am interested in narrative, which I see as being distinct from plot. Still, plotting is something that I hope to eventually get better at.