Lois’s answer to “Just finished rereading "Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen." Thank you for such an interesting and f…” > Likes and Comments
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The first time I read it I was anticipating a larger, more dramatic event being part of it, but really enjoyed the complicated relationship between Jole and Cordelia - and Miles and also the ongoing presence of Aral. I have since re-read it a number of times, knowing exactly what it is, and it is a lovely read. Glad to read a book that isn't saving the world again. You've got a great way of emphasising the practical. (Though I think my all time favourite on that has to be ImpSec and the engineering - to avoid spoilers,
And adding "and the complexities that the years add to relationships and your experiences of them. My late father was a big personality who's been gone for over twenty years but I still talk about him with other people who remember him.
Sometimes I wonder if Cordelia would really go through with having 6 babies, as she'd intended. I mean, yes, Aurelia was already born by the end of the book, and the next one was in the uterine replicator, but I do wonder if the shine might wear off after having, say, three or four kids. Especially considering that Cordelia would be in her 80s by then ... even for a Betan, that's not exactly young.
I certainly know people who planned a big family and then stopped at two. Equally though she might find it unbearable to think that a child of Aral's would be left unborn. It might depend on how much she is grieving still. Also, she can afford a lot of help.
It is one of my favorite things when characters takes a totally unexpected twist while still being true to who we have come to know them to be.
I was pretty upset for awhile. Not because of the relationship, I love that, but because you didn't tell me about it sooner so I could savor contemplating it. I don't mind that you didn't tell Miles, he had enough to deal with.
"Sometimes I wonder if Cordelia would really go through with having 6 babies, as she'd intended." She managed baby, toddler, preteen and teen-aged Miles. Six girls should be a cake walk.
I actually didn’t like Gentleman Jole, but not because of the nature of their relationship. My problem was that that particular relationship just did not feel authentic to me. It seemed like a mechanism for making a point (or several points), not an organic coming together. Unlike almost everything else Bujold has written.
@ somewhere upthread --
I note with bemused interest that more than a few readers who swallow down the polyamory without difficulty choke on the large family. Choose your 21st C. transgressions, I guess...
@ Florence -- well, it was organic my from point of view. It was a development that had been in my head (optionally, to be sure) for literally decades, with no place to put it in because Miles's viewpoint didn't know it.
One of the more curious negative comments on the book was that Cordelia "didn't seem like herself". Given that we'd least seen inside her head 40 book-years earlier, of course she had changed. Just thinking of my own life as the handiest reference, and comparing myself now to age 32, I would have been almost unimaginable to myself.
Ta, L.
Another comment on GJ&RQ that I don't think I've made elsewhere is that in my grand tour of seeing how many genres I can fit into one series, GJ&RQ is closest to what is called "women's fiction". These, I gather from my limited acquaintance, are stories focusing on middle aged or older women with agency and effect, often the hubs of their families. (What would be called "mainstream literature" if it wasn't all about women and their domestic interests and thus needing, oops, to be shuffled off to a lesser category.) A more antithetical focus to the usual concerns of the SF genre is hard to imagine, and I had a lot of fun shaking these two immiscible genres together and seeing what kind of salad dressing came out.
Ta, L.
As to "Six girls should be a cake walk" -- it depends on the girls. Can't imagine that much genetic potential fizzling down to ordinariness.
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Dec 19, 2021 11:50AM
The first time I read it I was anticipating a larger, more dramatic event being part of it, but really enjoyed the complicated relationship between Jole and Cordelia - and Miles and also the ongoing presence of Aral. I have since re-read it a number of times, knowing exactly what it is, and it is a lovely read. Glad to read a book that isn't saving the world again. You've got a great way of emphasising the practical. (Though I think my all time favourite on that has to be ImpSec and the engineering - to avoid spoilers,
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And adding "and the complexities that the years add to relationships and your experiences of them. My late father was a big personality who's been gone for over twenty years but I still talk about him with other people who remember him.
Sometimes I wonder if Cordelia would really go through with having 6 babies, as she'd intended. I mean, yes, Aurelia was already born by the end of the book, and the next one was in the uterine replicator, but I do wonder if the shine might wear off after having, say, three or four kids. Especially considering that Cordelia would be in her 80s by then ... even for a Betan, that's not exactly young.
I certainly know people who planned a big family and then stopped at two. Equally though she might find it unbearable to think that a child of Aral's would be left unborn. It might depend on how much she is grieving still. Also, she can afford a lot of help.
It is one of my favorite things when characters takes a totally unexpected twist while still being true to who we have come to know them to be.
I was pretty upset for awhile. Not because of the relationship, I love that, but because you didn't tell me about it sooner so I could savor contemplating it. I don't mind that you didn't tell Miles, he had enough to deal with.
"Sometimes I wonder if Cordelia would really go through with having 6 babies, as she'd intended." She managed baby, toddler, preteen and teen-aged Miles. Six girls should be a cake walk.
I actually didn’t like Gentleman Jole, but not because of the nature of their relationship. My problem was that that particular relationship just did not feel authentic to me. It seemed like a mechanism for making a point (or several points), not an organic coming together. Unlike almost everything else Bujold has written.
@ somewhere upthread --I note with bemused interest that more than a few readers who swallow down the polyamory without difficulty choke on the large family. Choose your 21st C. transgressions, I guess...
@ Florence -- well, it was organic my from point of view. It was a development that had been in my head (optionally, to be sure) for literally decades, with no place to put it in because Miles's viewpoint didn't know it.
One of the more curious negative comments on the book was that Cordelia "didn't seem like herself". Given that we'd least seen inside her head 40 book-years earlier, of course she had changed. Just thinking of my own life as the handiest reference, and comparing myself now to age 32, I would have been almost unimaginable to myself.
Ta, L.
Another comment on GJ&RQ that I don't think I've made elsewhere is that in my grand tour of seeing how many genres I can fit into one series, GJ&RQ is closest to what is called "women's fiction". These, I gather from my limited acquaintance, are stories focusing on middle aged or older women with agency and effect, often the hubs of their families. (What would be called "mainstream literature" if it wasn't all about women and their domestic interests and thus needing, oops, to be shuffled off to a lesser category.) A more antithetical focus to the usual concerns of the SF genre is hard to imagine, and I had a lot of fun shaking these two immiscible genres together and seeing what kind of salad dressing came out.Ta, L.
As to "Six girls should be a cake walk" -- it depends on the girls. Can't imagine that much genetic potential fizzling down to ordinariness.
