Miévillians discussion

Thread for discussion of parts five and six, from chapter 58 to chapter 72.

I loved the whirlpool imagery & the upsky creature fishing from the rock nearby, in chapter 63. & then: '"Siller," Fremlo said.' & it hit me what CM had just done. Brilliant.

& then we come to the Big Reveal. Captain Naphi hasn't really sacrificed a limb to her Philosophy. As she says, only the weak minded need such a spur to their hunt: "I would not so wait…. My rigour, Mr. Vurinam, is such that I have both made & refused to make a sacrifice."

Thankfully, Hob cries bullshit. That don't even bloody mean anything!"

Oh dear, I just made a slew of posts, & had to go back & edit all but one because I realized I'd failed to use ampersands….

Oh goodness, well excuse me where I haven't used &'s please, since I don't have time to go and correct my slips in Railsea decorum...

I love how CM plays and teases: NOW. AT LAST. SURELY.
This must be the moment to return to the Shroakes & to their rail. Surely.
It is, in fact, yes, Shroake O’Clock.

Shroake O’Clock; he he.

I had to laugh at the Robinson Crusoe bit as well, especially CM's obvious sarcasm at: In the second year he got a bit lonely & then luckily he found the footprints of another human being on the island. He followed them & met a native, who was astonished but impressed by him & became his happy servant.
LOL!

When it got to this bit I found myself blinking in surprise, I must say, until the penny dropped: He made it into the old train’s hold where he discovered that, by happy chance, it had been carrying seeds. These he planted. He continued building until he had made a small township of corrugated iron. His crop grew. Sham collected rainwater & wove flax. He tamed local animals & got more stuff from the train. Sham made bread.
Swiss Family Robinson?

All of this is making me wonder how many references to 19th century adventure/'boys' novels I have actually missed: for instance Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped?

Mmm. Yes, I daresay there are many such.

You're completely excused for the &s. It was just a challenge I'd set myself, & I'd been doing well until taking almost a week's hiatus from the discussion.

You know, when he started intruding (you might say) as a more direct narrator, telling us to wait or not yet for certain parts of Sham's or the Shrokes' story, I was little annoyed. But as it went on, and especially when he hit the "Now. At last. Surely." bit, I smiled. It is kind of fun to be teased.

Interesting how Sham is stranded, almost had to be though, I think, for what I surmise is CM's purpose with the book.

Referencing the dangers of Sham walking on bare ground, or perhaps the dangers of striking out on your own beliefs, he writes, "But maybe it's also useful for them if everyone believes it. If people are too scared to just go."

Linking that to an earlier sentence ... "There were many disinclined to take the shape that their homes would rather they did." I think they directly speak to teen angst, or finding your purpose, that aimless quality we all had, and that sometimes you must not worry about fitting in but rather find your own shape, or frame, of mind.

Also, what's with "Siller"? Derek, I think I missed "what CM had just done." Care to elaborate?

Scylla & Charybdis. Greek mythology, which I think is also the origin of the phrase "between a rock and a hard place".

From the wikipedia article: "Scylla and Charybdis were mythical sea monsters noted by Homer; later Greek tradition sited them on opposite sides of the Strait of Messina between Sicily and the Italian mainland. Scylla was rationalized as a rock shoal (described as a six-headed sea monster) on the Italian side of the strait and Charybdis was a whirlpool off the coast of Sicily. They were regarded as a sea hazard located close enough to each other that they posed an inescapable threat to passing sailors; avoiding Charybdis meant passing too close to Scylla and vice versa. According to Homer, Odysseus was forced to choose which monster to confront while passing through the strait; he opted to pass by Scylla and lose only a few sailors, rather than risk the loss of his entire ship in the whirlpool."

So, Naphi & co. have done exactly this.

Derek wrote: "Scylla & Charybdis. Greek mythology, which I think is also the origin of the phrase "between a rock and a hard place".

From the wikipedia article: "Scylla and Charybdis were mythical sea monsters ..."

Ah, clearly forgetting my high school English. Thanks Derek. I should have "realized the rock and a hard place" though. State of my sad grey matter I suppose.

Allen wrote: "Ah, clearly forgetting my high school English. "

English? They taught Greek literature in English? No wonder the world's in such a sad state. Of course, a great many of the great English writers were Irish... [I bet that Shakespeare fellow was, really.]

Well, if you think about it, for many centuries scholars in the Roman empire and on the British Isles were raised on "The Classics", and for many many years Greek mythology was so intertwined into an "educated" Englishman's education, that it's not that much of a leap...