Doorways in the Sand discussion
Doorways in the Sand
>
Chap 4 to 6: Saved by a wombat to the Rhennius machine
date
newest »
newest »
message 1:
by
carol.
(new)
Apr 04, 2016 05:04PM
Mod
reply
|
flag
If somebody would tell me about the events of these chapters BEFORE I read the book I would be sure he/she was pulling my leg. Zelazny made it work in the book.
Mod
That party is a BRILLIANT piece of writing. I love Fred's friend entering the room on a donkey followed by a dwarf playing cymbals...surreal and absurd (and yet, somehow haunting) imagery reminiscent of Terry Gilliam at his best. Of course, Zelazny wrote this book first, before Gilliam's films. I also had to keep reminding myself of that whenever the prose reminded me of Douglas Adams - Zelazny was first! This book is at its best, I think, when the Wonderland-fantasy imagery melds with the realism in such a way that it becomes difficult to distinguish one from the other. (I mean, was that dwarf really there? Could that have really happened?!?)
Mod
First time through, I didn't get why the wombat and kangaroo at all, and was kind of unamused (I was so serious then!). I think Zelazny is a visual writer as much as a plot writer--he's often working to create an image. If I take the time to join in, it's kind of fun. And it works with Fred's hallucinations, right?
Yes, Zelazny has a wonderful way to tell, letting that the reader imagine all his story.I have had some difficult reading, because of the way he start with a fact and come back to tell the story. This break the pace and confuse me. There are a lot of funny characters here, but often he stop the story to philosophizing about life, people and other things.
I'm sure there are many references to other authors and books here, but I found only Lewis Carroll.
Mod
"in the fall they started a Geology program. I mined that for a year and a half."
Got it!! I just had a total eureka moment. I was just reading the opening paragraph of chapter 9, about the wonders of the elective system in university education. Fred is usually so stoic, so emotionally inaccessible, so concerned with wit and style, and I was wondering why he was suddenly so earnest about the value of his education. For once, he's not being cynical or flippant - he really means it. He's sincere. He loves taking these classes. This is an intensely important character revelation, if it's true, because it changes our understanding of him completely. He is not staying in university because he's lazy, as we might have thought, but because he actually thirsts for knowledge. And if that's true about Fred, that is clearly not only Fred's point of view, but the novel's as well. Wait...wait...all the allusions, the constant homages to other, earlier works...I haven't got my mind around it all yet, but I think I've finally figured out what this book is about. I'll have to keep reading...keep you posted....
Mod
Oh wait--was it because he was reversed?
Or, am I seeing sincerity when, really, it is just more cynicism? Hmm...3 chapters left. Hopefully I'll know by then. :)
Three more chapters under my belt, and a few more thoughts.<> After wandering around in utter confusion for the first few chapters, I found the conversation with Hal exceedingly helpful in grounding myself. For all the hallucinatory imagery that abounds in this book, at its heart it seems (at least at this stage), a fairly straightforward 'Who's got the MacGuffin?"/Maltese Falcon plot.
<> This being written in the 70s, I find myself asking if drugs were involved. Probably not, but it still has this very dreamy affect, the jumping around in time, the aliens-who-are-dressed-as-animals, the random bacchanals...
<> Speaking of which, I enjoyed the Bacchanal entirely too much. Even if I mostly know of 'Evoe! Evoe!' from my illicit fondness for musical theater (apropos of which: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM-cw... ).
Mod
I feel fairly confident drugs were involved at some point.
I had to look up Evoe! And that was a very bizarre song.
I <3 Stephen Sondheim. Anyway, my read on it is that at a certain point Zelazny looked at his plot and decided that between the wombat-aliens, the random thugs, interplanetary kula chains, that *maybe* he ought to corral his readers before throwing in a bunch of new oddities. It's an infodump, but it's a very sparse and elegant one, and it feels quite natural in the text -- yes, the reader is confused, but so are Fred and Hal, and them talking things over is highly appropriate.
I will also note that it is rather satisfying to have protagonists who actually use their brains on occasion.
Mikhail wrote: " a fairly straightforward 'Who's got the MacGuffin?"/Maltese Falcon plot."Once you cross The Maltese Falcon with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
