Status Updates From The View From Castle Always

*There* we go. That's better.

"I thin it's stupid to think he's been turned into something," Ailanthe said.

Ailanthe my dear. Pause and think. The castle doesn't want to let him go--or so you and your friends are hypothesizing--for fear it will fall apart. You pick up a clearly magical item and then it won't let you leave. Think about that a minute. And then you start manifesting his powers. I know you're angry at the men, but THINK

I'm enjoying Ailanthe and Coren's (and now Tristram's) attempts to work out the magic of the castle, Ailanthe's relation to magic, and how to get out, but I'm wondering if things are going to be explained in a way that I'll find satisfying. I have a sense that some of it will be just that's-how-things-are. But the inventiveness of the story wins out over that misgiving--at least so far!

They found a winter coat with a zipper, though they don't know what zippers are, so they don't know what that is, and that makes me realize/remember that there have been other modern things that they've discovered and not understood in the castle. Interesting!

"It would be like trying ... trying to touch time. We experience time passing, but it's not something we can alter, any more than a fish can make water flow upstream."

"But fish can fight the current."

"I'm not saying it's a perfect example."

--love both the metaphor and their mini-argument.

Love the different approaches to magic that Coren explains--very cool.

"[The kitchen] was a strange room, white and shiny-hard and windowless, with drawers that slid as if greased and doors that opend on deep cabinets filled with spice jars whose scents mingled in the air like filmy ribbons."
--loved that, especially the last part.

Chapter 2: explorations of the castle. I like this castle! Very intriguing. And a new character, Coren.

We begin in a Greensky-like place, where people live on the branches of giant trees (love!), but the trees appear to have rejected Ailanthe, so she needs to go to Castle Always to seek her destiny. Castle Always reminds me both of the magician's house in Voyage of the Dawn Treader and the Nome King's treasure house in Ozma of Oz. Off to a promising start!