Miévillians discussion
Perdido Str Station Discussion
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SECTION 13: Chapters 31 -32 (Nov. 16-17))
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Then, methought, the air grew denser, Perfumed by an unseen Fencer,
Swinging seraphim, her foot-falls
Twinkled on the dusted floor.
I had never seen such beauty
Yet by this angel God had sent me
Respite – respite and nepenthe,
From my memories of before;
Let me quaff this kind nepenthe
So that you I may adore!"
Quoth the Fencer "Evermore."
Quite a Poe day we're having!That was quite a Romantic retort to the Tragedy, Mr Pharaoh with an 'h'.
People can forget how much Isaac loved Lin.
I sense the novel gets a bit dark for your tastes further on? It does seem to switch over to a different gear, doesn't it. Darker, sadder, crueller, and also more action.
Perhaps, we shouldn't discuss that now, but I don't feel as negative about that aspect as a lot of other people.BTW, I see the action as a tribute to pulp fiction and B-movies.
I would very much like to place a bookmark here. I don't like spoilers; And I'm endeavoring not to reveal any.But here after the book was very different for me.
I hope people will want to discuss/agree/disagree when more of us are finished.
Can I just add that in "The Da Vinci Code", there was a point when all of the philosophy and religious stuff (the interesting bits for me) ended and it became an action novel, and from that point onwards it was a total bore for me.It was like somebody trying to write a fictionalisation of a movie after the event.
There was no heart.
As it turned out, all of the bits that I liked were ripped off anyway.
The plot is getting very tangled here; different people know different things (not all of them true), and yet it's not confusing (unless I'm too confused to notice). Clever.Less clever was the overt exposition by Vermishank, explaining about the slake-moths, but it was so wonderfully and worryingly explained, that I don't mind too much.
Traveller wrote (comment 5): "I sense the novel gets a bit dark for your tastes further on? It does seem to switch over to a different gear, doesn't it. Darker, sadder, crueller, and also more action."
It may well get even darker and sadder later on, but I haven't felt a distinctive watershed yet.
Cecily wrote: "It may well get even darker and sadder later on, but I haven't felt a distinctive watershed yet. .."
Well, what happened to Ben and Lin and Lublamai is already bad enough for me, but yeah, let's leave it at that for now. :P
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
`'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door -
Only this, and nothing more.
And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me - filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
`'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door -
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
`Surely,' said I, `surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore -
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; -
'Tis the wind and nothing more!'
Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a frightful moth...
..and sucked poor Dr Barbile dry.
Chapter 32: Lin was alone. [...]
The sculpture loomed darkly at the far end of the room. After she had looked around, idiotically, as if Motley could be hiding unseen in the bare space, she had walked over to examine the piece.
She had supposed, a little uneasily, that Motley would join her soon.
She had stroked the khepri-spit figure. It was half finished.
Motley’s various legs had been rendered in curling shapes and hyperreal colours. It terminated about three feet from the floor in drooping, liquid undulations. It looked as if a life-size candle in
Motley’s shape had been half burned.
Motley enters.
“Ms. Lin. Thank you for coming,” said Motley from a tumor-ous cluster of mouths.
She waited.
“Ms. Lin,” he continued. “I had the most interesting conversation with one Lucky
Gazid the day before yesterday. [...]
D’you know what he shouted as
he gnawed himself? Fascinating. It was something along the lines of ‘I should never
have given that ‘shit to Isaac!’” [...]
“Now, Ms. Lin. Some very valuable items have been stolen from me. A clutch of little factories, if you like. Hence the lack of dreamshit. And d’you know? I have to admit I’ve been stymied as to who might have done it. Really. I’ve had nothing to go on.” He paused and a tide of icy smiles crossed his multiple features. “Until I heard Gazid. Then it all... made ... sense.” He spat each word.
The results are not positive for Lin.
“Your bugfucking lover has tried to screw me, hasn’t he, Ms. Lin? Buying up great swathes of my dreamshit, keeping his own moths, so Gazid tells me, and then stealing mine!" He roared the last words, trembling.
Vermishank is shadowed. Isaac and Vermishank have a conversation. Ben's eyeless mutilated body is found and reported on, to Derkhan's anguish.
Upon threat of torture, Vermishank informs us that the Slakemoth's probably originated from The Fractured Land.
Fractured Land theory - hmm, sounds interesting,- i wonder if that would be something like our own Hollow Earth? ;)
They eat dreams. Starts to sound a bit like Gaiman's Sandman, doesn't it?
..and they're going to be rather hard to get rid of:
As an abstract proposition of course they can die. And
therefore, theoretically, they can be killed. But you will not be able to kill them.
They live in several planes, as I’ve said, and bullets, fire, and so forth injure only in one. You would have to hit them in many dimensions at once, or do the most extraordinary amount of damage in this one, and they will not give you the chance... ”
Vermishank tries to escape, but is killed, and...the militia are coming!
So, dear readers, any comments on the Slake-moths? Interesting creatures, aren't they?