The Great Night - Part I Spoilers Allowed (Jan 2019)

[LindaJ^]

In Part I, we are introduced to the characters we will learn about and be with on the great night. But, for me, the core of Part I is the story of the Boy, his death, and its impact on the fairy world ruled by Titania and Oberon. I found this story, and it was first published as a story, mesmerizing for a couple of reason. First is the interaction of the fairies with the humans in a human world and a hospital at that. Second is the humanness of the story. Oberon and Titania are as devastated by the Boy's illness and death as any human parents and their grief is so poignantly examined. (In interviews of the author, he says the story is based on a young girl he treated as a pediatric oncology doctor. He asked the parent's for their permission before he allowed it to be published and they agreed.) The human characters - Molly, Will, Henry, and the homeless actors - seem almost an afterthought - the unfortunate few who were in the park when Puck was unbound and Oberon's "walls" came down.

A couple of questions to start us off - feel free to ignore and just tell us your response to part I.

For those who have read A Midsummer Night's Dream, is this opening consistent with the play?

How were you affected by the story of the Boy's illness and death? Did you think Oberon and Titania responded too much like humans rather than fairies?

[Peter]

The boy's death was very finely written, no question about that. But it didn't seem to me that the tone of it really matched that of the rest of the book. And the bit at the end -- that fairies are helpless to help those they love most -- seemed necessary to make it work, but not really consistent with the character and abilities of the fairies as shown otherwise in the book (and in A Midsummer's Night Dream).

The opening of the book does not match the opening of A Midsummer's Night Dream -- that play starts in Athens, in the Duke's court, and introduces a love triangle and a ducal decree that triggers the main characters heading off into the woods that night. The portion in the woods (equivalent to the park) doesn't start until Act II.

Did anyone else find the use of the homeless characters' entertaining madness as, I don't know, a bit exploitative? Mind you, that's right in line with Shakespeare's original humor that had a cruel edge, and was definitively making fun of the amateur player's in his play.

[LindaJ^]

Good points Peter. I'm going to open another thread for the rest of the book. I did a thread for Part I, rather separately from the whole book, because, like you, it was so different. Perhaps it was because the author wants us to have a different focus as we move to the stories of the humans stranded in this fairy land? He starts us with fairies in human world, dealing with a very human problem and being significantly affected by the human world.

[Mark]

I'm enjoying the novel.

I think the rejection of the play's framework felt like a positive for me. This is a DIFFERENT story that doesn't need to adhere to Shakespeare's plan. The freedom of the novel form allows Adrian to shift viewpoints at will; "To some of the faeries he looked like a naked boy with a luxurious Afro, and only the height of the boy or the width of the Afro changed from eye to eye. But some saw him as a sliver of flame, or a blackness heavier and darker than the black air, or a fluttering pair of dark wings, and some saw him as an image of their Queen only even more depressed, disheveled, and defeated-looking."

Adrian mixes the quotidian with the magical deftly: "...she, Queen of the Night and Empress of the Air and Suzeraine of the Autumn Moon and the bearer of a hundred thousand other lofty titles, some of which could only be expressed in hours of music, ran sweating and shaking from blue-socked babies in their strollers and baseball-capped toddlers and little hoodlums on skateboards, and cried for days under the hill after each time she ventured out." This quote also warns the reader of how the everyday baseball caps can reach straight through Titania's fairy power and into her heart, preparing the reader for the story of their impotence in the face of Boy's suffering and its impact on his parents.

Adrian writes perceptively about the world of the hospital. This was a surprise to me until I actually looked at the back cover and saw his earlier books. It should not be a surprise actually that an pediatric oncologist would know the world of suffering parents! The invisibility of the parents' magical world for the hospital staff reflects the real invisibility of the patient's world to real hospital staff - to the point where a mere glimpse of that internal world can reduce a nurse to quivering on the floor.

I'm looking forward to whatever comes next...

[Hugh]

I read the first part and part of the second last night. I agree that the hospital story is the most striking part, but I was some way into it before I had any real understanding of what Adrian was trying to do. It did not surprise me that it was partly based on personal experience...

[LindaJ^]

The hospital story is striking and may be one of the most perceptive pieces I've read about what it is like to be a parent sitting with a deathly ill child in the hospital and the impact of a child's illness on the family dynamic. I am still pondering what it tells us or what it foretells about the rest of the book.