Miévillians discussion
This topic is about
Kraken
KRAKEN
>
Kraken spoiler thread 4: Chapter Forty to Chapter 56 (Parts 3 and 4)
date
newest »
newest »
Oh, and knuckleheads! ROFL. CM is really having fun with this, isn't he? XDI just have to post this quote - it's so cute!
“The knuckleheads?” Dane started the car. There were screams behind them. “Takes a certain sort.” He was exhilarated. “There are advantages. You’ve got to like fighting. You should see them naked. Well, you shouldn’t.” “How do they see?” They sped into night. Dane glanced at Billy. Grinned and jiggled in his seat and shook his head. “God, Billy,” he said. “The way your mind works.”
What a fiddly tra la, yes! 243Wheres the goddery? 321
who's got the angels walking?
what presiding intelligence?
what intent. p322
these are the books prime questions articulated in this section
oh and female rabbis are a bit trendy already. i think its a delightful touch but yes a bit startling to have her crop up among that lot
I see female rabbis can indeed exist (who'd a thought?) and it also made me realize that after all the fighting about it, the Anglicans have finally allowed the existence of female Bishops. Hooray!
Female rabbis have been around a while now. It set perfectly for me, if nothing else I think she would have been more compassionate to the poor guy's plight.
I found this line quite humorous:...the church was actually constrained by its aesthetics. Its operatives could not have guns, simply, because guns were not squiddy enough.
Well, there's a lot of humor in this book, isn't there? Magdelanye pointed out some humor in her message 3. How about we post all the lines that tickled us (up to chapter 56) here?
I found this line slightly puzzling, however:
The more they were clarified, the more the kitsch of the norms disappointed him.
Billy had these thoughts when they do the door in the wall and the key in the tarmac thing with the loose door handles and the dropped key.
Is CM referring to the TV tropes that he had referred to earlier, like Dr Who and other sci-fi flicks and TV shows?
This is one of my favorites, from Chapter 47:The Communion of the Blessed Flood prayed for the restoration of the wet....They gave thanks for the tsunami and celebrated the melting of the satanic polar ice, which mockingly held water in motionless marble. It was a sacred injunction on them to fly as far and often as they could, to maximise carbon emissions. And they placed holy agents where they might one day help expedite the deluge.
That's pretty black humor, Ruth, eh? But quite Mievillian...
I love it! Hmmm, which might say some very strange things about me personally.In the next paragraph he mentions a 'Hokusai trapdoor'. Any idea what that might be?
And while I'm asking about obscure CM mentions, anyone know which of the numerous Athanasius he might mean. He is listed as one of the Communion of the Blessed Flood's prophets.
Traveller wrote: "I found this line slightly puzzling, however: The more they were clarified, the more the kitsch of the norms disappointed him.
Billy had these thoughts when they do the door in the wall and the key in the tarmac thing with the loose door handles and the dropped key.
Is CM referring to the TV tropes that he had referred to earlier, like Dr Who and other sci-fi flicks and TV shows?"
I think it might be more about the disillusionment of knacks in general: rather than being something special and arcane and glamorous, it's mostly just doing cheap trick with everyday stuff---or at least that's what he's seen so far. Unless I seriously misread that section... Maybe I have, since the functioning phaser isn't really a cheap trick...
I'm finding the plot a bit diffuclt to follow where I am, with the focus of the investigation seeming to shift every couple of chapters. I haven't read in a few days, though, so maybe that's why. I'll get back to it tomorrow, definitely.
This is reminding me I need to get my wool socks out: it's probably going to be quite cold tomorrow. :P
HAD A HALLELULJAH MOMENT WITH THE KRAKEN THIS MORNING AND THEN THERE SEEMED LIKE NO POINT IN HOLDING BACK ANY LONGER AND i SWANNED AHEAD.oops, well, i finished it and have begun my review.
Athanasius sounds like he has strayed from an Attic studio but haven't been able to confirm.
I'm sorry I fell behind with this.... I admit that I've really been struggling to force myself to keep to Kraken. :((((
I was giggling on my way to the train station just now, holding in my mind's eye an image of a disheveled scientist sprinting down a street with phaser in hand, emphatically insisting to the Russian doll in his other hand "This is what we're going to do!" :D
Puddin Pointy-Toes! I luvvit! :D:D:D
Traveller wrote: "I'm sorry I fell behind with this.... I admit that I've really been struggling to force myself to keep to Kraken. :(((("It was when I finally grasped the larger implications of the story that I really got into it and so enjoyed the reading after that. Maybe you are not there yet. Maybe this is a bit spoilerish, but when reading squidditiy read godhead.
CM makes it all so plain...the idiotic squabbles about theological details. I ended up loving it.
Okay, as soon as I'm done doing my last-minute Christmas shopping tomorrow, I promise I'm going to pick Kraken up again, and give it a crack! (Sorry couldn't resist that.)But seriously, I think I needed that one lone voice in the desert to spur me on; thanks, Magdelanye!
once you've cracked the code, it will be way more fun, I promise you. @Natalya...I finally can see the appeal of Wati
but what are the others thinking?
Celebrate love!
oh lovely tree!thanks for the fun
Traveller wrote: "A female rabbi? I find that a bit far-fetched...."Not at all. Sarah Silverman's (the american comic) sister is a rabbi--got arrested at the wailing wall last year (because a female rabbi in Israel IS a little less likely)
Eek, I'm bad. At least I started reading Neverwhere.Let's hope Nataliya remembers... :P
i am not going to say bad, just preoccupied with moving house.Hardly a moment to read let alone write my review pf the magnificent kraken. Hopefully i will be set up soon!
Whenever I think i must pick Kraken up to finish it, it suddenly feels like I'm moving through molasses... :((((( I don't know why i just can't seem to get on top of it. I'll be honest in telling you that half the time I'm wondering what the heck is going on in the book, and i suppose I'm not quite used to feeling that way... :S
re the mollasses feeling, it sounds as if you have lost the momentum and are being sucked in by spell of indifference. Trav!Don't lie down in the snow! Crack the code! may i suggest backing up a bit and a concerted ferocips momemtum and just finish he thing!
Asfor me i am finished reading but its not finished with me.
Oh golly... looks like I'm not going to have a choice here. I feel like I'm participating in one of those ultramarathons, and my legs feel like jelly and I just want to sit down, but there are people who know me, egging me on and shouting: "Don't you dare sit down Trav, cuz we ain't going home until you cross that finish line!";)
Hoo boy...ok, I'm getting up again and LOL, let me take a copy of Neverwhere with me to keep me company on the long Kraken road! ROFL.
you will be so glad when you crack the code, it really is a laugh riot. The short chapters are meant to be read quiclly i tbink. and with zest.i will do my best to finish my review!
In that case, i hope I get there soon. :)
what about some of the otherreaderz Any new impressiibs from a second reading?
has it really been a month since I threw that comment into the void? in that time I have been brooding on this book and finding traces of CM wherever I read. I have written a first draft of my review and just about finished with my notes and exegesis.
Looking forward, Magdelanye!
hhh...I have just poured myself a shot of Kraken and am rereading the ending. I can see why this book may awaken an alarming unease of fundamentalist atheists! ooo that was below the belt! This Kraken acts fast!
Glad to see you're enjoying both the book and the drink, Magdelanye! :D
what a punch that Kraken has...I was ill for 2days although I had a few more insights to tie in and at the end of the session I had rather more than less paper..the fact of the matter is that I have 7 reviews waiting to post. its awkward on the device. So time goes by and crap! I was afraid this would happen reading China and gaiman sclose together and now I NEED HElp!! in which book is the plastic cow with the 4 visible stomaches??
That Kraken really packs a punch, doesn't it, Magdelanye! ;) I believe the cow stomach thing is in Kraken.
couldn't remember if it was Billy or Richard that had that bizarre encounter.... they are blending in my mind. Most here seemed to dislike poor sweet Billy but aren't they both operating the same archetype?
Yep, they do, and to me Billy is at least as likeable than Richard; he's certainly more intelligent!
I would agree with that, and as the comments go I think I was in the not-liking-Richard-as-much camp ... To take it further, I waffled on whether to call either or both an antihero. So you all spurred me to take a closer look at the archetype. And, while I'm not generally given to wikipedia considering you never know if it's sourced properly, I didn't find a couple of passages worth noting under the antihero category:"Literary Romanticism in the 19th century helped popularize new forms of the antihero, such as the Gothic double.[citation needed] The antihero eventually became an established form of social criticism, a phenomenon often associated with the unnamed protagonist in Fyodor Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground.[12] The antihero emerged as a foil to the traditional hero archetype, a process that Northrop Frye called the fictional "centre of gravity."[13] This movement indicated a literary change in heroic ethos from feudal aristocrat to urban democrat, as was the shift from epic to ironic narratives.[13]
The antihero became prominent in early 20th century existentialist works such as Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis (1915),[14] Jean-Paul Sartre's La Nausée (1938) (French for Nausea),[citation needed] and Albert Camus' L'Étranger (1942) (French for The Stranger).[citation needed] The protagonist in these works is an indecisive central character who drifts through his life and is marked by ennui, angst, and alienation.[15]"
So ... social criticism: check, and doublecheck for Mieville. And I particularly like the "urban democrat" moniker and a "central character who drifts through his life." I must read up on the documentation, as the first use of antihero was more of a "rogue" type character, i.e., main character lacking hero qualities like courage and morals.
Both Billy and Richard, on the other hand, have courage and morals in my opinion - or at least a moral center/compass focused on what they think is the right thing to do, and courage for both to take on the final battles. So, are they the romantic lit type of antiheros? Indecisive, alienated, etc. Maybe, but in the end don't you think both authors are pushing the antihero boundary, turning each into a decisive third type of hero? Hmmm ... You all have made me think!
the archetype I was placing both these young men under is the puer or eternal boy...someone's already mentioned Peter Pan; this would be the fallen Peter and the journey required is through the underworld, easier to trace for Richard but Billy too goes through his own descent to transformation.
Let's do this thread like the previous one; a few chapters at a time, shall we?