Shades of beige

Mr Thalassocrat · 08 Oct 2008, 23:21 · from 2008-October.txt.gz

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From: thalassocrat08 at gmail.com (Mr Thalassocrat)
Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2008 08:51:55 +0930
Subject: (urth) Shades of beige
In-Reply-To: <6089163B-484C-41BF-A296-9AAC264A18AB at io.com>
References: <410C7F2E-C485-429C-9EAE-4A9E9DC7B032 at io.com>
	<b12d82080810062047g57dc3798q519206c66cadbc1e at mail.gmail.com>
	<6089163B-484C-41BF-A296-9AAC264A18AB at io.com>
Message-ID: <b12d82080810081621n22aea05eo3f145da892a7c062 at mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 2:36 PM, Adam Thornton <adam at io.com> wrote:

>
> On Oct 6, 2008, at 10:47 PM, Mr Thalassocrat wrote:
>
>> We get an explanation from Gid for at least one character's preferred
>> colour styling: werewolves wear shades of grey.
>>
>
> Sure.  Which is why all the color focus has to mean something.

One of the people who kidnaps/arrests Margaret wears "a birch suit with
those black stripes". Another wolf? A hyena? A zebra, perhaps?

Scott wears a "bone-white-and-Chablis seersucker suit". A white wolf? An
incontinent polar bear? Anyway, something unpleasant, no doubt. (Gid
actually says shades of grey or white, for werewolves.)

If Carrie is a beast-woman (and I still don't see anything to suggest that),
then I guess the color preference rule would make her beast-part something
green. Tree frog?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Red-eyed_Tree_Frog_-_Litoria_chloris_edit1.jpg
I
guess maybe not :)

>  Eg: Almost all of the story is tightly focused on Cassie - we see what
>> she sees, and so on. But there are three scenes where the focus is on Gid
>> sans Cassie: at the start, when he's shot, and when he's spirited away from
>> Cassie's apartment after being shot. After that: no more Gid-focus. I really
>> don't understand that. If you're going to shift focus to another character
>> at some points, why not at others, and why not to others?
>>
>
> And the first scene *makes no sense* as a framing device.  Right?  I mean,
> *The President Of The United States*?  *Really?*
>

Pick up thre book, skim the first few pages, toss it. Risky! But I guess the
little god&evil dialog must be intended to frame a theme. I do find it quite
difficult to unpack Gid's position on this, so I'm not sure how this is
supposed to work.

>
>
> A bunch other things. Overall, either there's a lot of hidden stuff going
>> on here  (and Wolfe has taken some scary risks that people will just toss
>> the book without caring enough to puzzle it out); or else he's jumped the
>> Shark-God (except for the beautiful writing in the last third).
>>
>> I enjoyed this one a lot more than _Pirate Freedom_.
>
> I think there's something to be gained from looking at it as a Lovecraftian
> story.

I hope that isn't something you need to do to make sense of it - I have zero
interest in HPL. Which obviously may be why I have probs with the book.

Here's one thing I don't get at all: India calls Gil her "Hitler".
????????????
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