Reading the Chunksters discussion

Here comes another testing time for me, but I hope the books is going smoother for you.

Please share your thoughts below.

I am still enjoying this. Although I am roughly a week behind because of moving house and a lot of other stuff.
The story of Henry is so different to those that Moore has already covered and I am glad to meet the man riding the bicycle with rope for tyres. Moore covers a tremendous amount in this chapter, but I did begin to get irritated with the device of Harry meeting people who tell him bits of the history of Northampton and the people associated with it. Interesting though all of this is. I am highlighting so much to look up later that this book is going to keep me busy for a long time.
I was especially affected by Pastor Newton's history and its link with Henry. The description of Henry's return home after hearing the tale was especially touching I thought.
I also think that the writing is much more clear and spare than in previous chapters, which I prefer.

I actually start seeing some glimmer at the end of the tunnel, not light, but glimmer. Still have 15 pages to plough through, and I will post.

Glad that you have a glimmer Zulfiya.
The chapter Modern Times left me cold. There were one or two things, but I really didn't feel much interest or sympathy in the Inebriate character.

We finally had two chapters in a row that were both in the same time period! I'm still enjoying the book. It has definitely become a quest for clues and connecting threads as well as the unfolding of a story. The thing is that I, at least, am still groping for meaning at this point. "Modern Times" dwelt so much on May and the beauty of her baby--surely that will have some significance later on. She and the child are present in both chapters. Likewise with Henry's disappointment over the revelation about the past of the hymn's author. The thematic interpretations of his discovery are obvious, but how does this tie in to the book as a whole? I'm sure that it will become more obvious as we continue.

I personally believe it was easier for me to read because these were stories driven by verbs aka actions., NOT nouns and adjectives with the abundant details.

I could actually follow these chapters on audio without the print support.

I also noticed that these are the chapters with the social themes - the first one is about social success and the second one is about slavery.

This is why I said that I started seeing glimmer at the end of the tunnel. The stories are more relatable and more "followable", but this is my progress so far.

As for the semantics of the stories, I do not see any connective branches in the novel so far, and the stories are not forming a pattern for me, but I do get the feeling that something is not right.

The connective links that I have noticed are that the main character in each chapter is seen by the characters in previous chapters. The concept of fate is also a prominent theme so far; as is the concept of, and actual crossroads. Features like the pucks hat, the destructor and the doorway half way up a building are also referred to in several chapters.

The more I read the more I fall in love with the book and the characters. They are so real, so human and so relatable I think.

I have a theory about what is going on and am looking forward to finding out if I am right.

Karen wrote: "The connective links that I have noticed are that the main character in each chapter is seen by the characters in previous chapters. The concept of fate is also a prominent theme so far; as is the ..."

I'm rereading these chapters right now, but Karen, I'm dying to know more about your theory. You should scatter some hints :).

The following observations all contributed to my hypothesis.

The characters apparently see each other and this seems to be during the events that have been previously been described. For example in Modern Times, Oatsie sees Henry riding his bicycle: "He had a faraway and faintly troubled look upon his strong, broad features and did not seem in the same expansive mood as when they’d last met.." Henry appears to be returning from his meeting with the church warden. The troubled look is consistent with his feelings having found out about Pastor Newton's history.

I have also noticed references to how people are linked to places, how places can become compressed into two dimensions: "all the houses, churches and hotels would be eventually compressed in only two dimensions, flattened to a street map or a plan...".

The observation in an earlier chapter of what lies beneath the playground ".....the layers of human time compressed below, ring markings on the long-felled cement tree-stump of the Boroughs."

Moore is such a surprising writer though I could well be wrong! ;)

Karen wrote: "The following observations all contributed to my hypothesis.

The characters apparently see each other and this seems to be during the events that have been previously been described. For example i..."

Thanks for sharing. I like how you phrase it when you say that people are linked to places and how places can become compressed.

The synchronicities are very strong to me. I am so struck by how time and place seem to fold in upon themselves and then kind of flap open so that we can glimpse the world inside. And yes, so compressed and interwoven by people and events that they bleed or melt into each other to the point that boundaries become uncertain. The geometry of it is fascinating to me.

I don't have a hypothesis; rather, I have the impression of the themes running through the chapters so far: Justice, Redemption, Good, Evil. But more than just themes...more like archetypes. Much, much bigger than themes.

I like that you mentioned the dimensional aspects. It runs through so much of the chapters; seeing something as if from a great height where, because of this overarching perspective, the observer can sometimes see what is going to happen before it does (Ern in the cathedral again). To someone "on the ground", such predictions would seem magical or miraculous; but in actuality it's just the perspective from which those events are observed.

I didn't think of that flattened perspective so much as two dimensional as three dimensional, with that higher view/power as a fourth dimension (the Angels/Angles, the Destructor). But we're on the same page I think.

However, again, you actually have a hypothesis while I'm still just still down in the weeds with the trees - unable to see the forest yet :).

I'm going to write more in a bit but I've been bursting to ask if anyone realizes who Charles (Sir Francis Drake) really is. I've been dying to tell.

The only way I knew this was because I watched a movie a couple of weeks ago, got interested in the actors and did some reading. It blew my mind when I connected the dots to Oatsie :).

"Modern Times": The motifs introduced in the earlier chapters continue as we meet Charles (Sir Francis Drake). Pigeons make another appearance. Of course, pigeons are everywhere, but I think Moore continues to give them special relevance, again associated with time, crossroads, destiny:

"...it was a pity that you couldn't tell beforehand how your life was going to be, and never mind about your death. Things could go either way for him at present and it was as unpredictable and random as the movements of those roosting pigeons, how events would finally fall out."

He meets Henry (for the 2nd time since his boyhood) and then, of course, the encounter is reprised from Henry's perspective in the next chapter. Time and events continuing to fold in upon themselves.

Predestination, the idea that there is a greater, inevitable "plan" (which can fill one with excitement and hope - or total horror) is a major theme that continues throughout this chapter. The idea that everything is foreordained, that we are all just actors in some grand "play".

"What it was with death that worried him was that it made him feel like he was trapped upon a tramline that was only going to one place, that the iron rail was set already in the road in front of him, that it was all inevitable, although actually that was the thing that worried him with life as well, upon consideration. It was how life seemed sometimes like a skit that had been written out beforehand, with a punch line that was set up in advance. All you could do was try and keep up with its twists and turns while the momentum of the story dragged you through it, one scene following another."

And then shortly thereafter: "It was as if life were some great big impersonal piece of machinery...".

Synchronicity surfaces yet again (after meeting Henry again), when Charles meets May (Vernall) Warren, who happened to know him back in South London when they were children. Charles is struck by the coincidences he has been presented with while standing on a street corner: "It made him think gain about his previously held opinions as regards predestination and if people ever really had a inkling of the path ahead of them."

Of course, as we are discovering, there are/have been quite a few people associated with Northhampton who have had strong inklings indeed.

Something is definitely converging upon this place. Or been there all along and, if so, what is the catalyst for the convergence?

"There was always the suggestion of a pattern in the way things worked that you could almost understand, but when you tried to pin down what the meaning or significance might be it all just fizzled out and you were left no clearer than you were before."

The strange, submerged, peculiarity of Northampton (strongly felt and heard of by Peter the Monk) is picked up on by Charlie as well:

"he had a sense of wonderment at what had just occurred, at the whole atmosphere of this peculiar place where it would seem that such things happened all the time".

Indeed.

When I first read this chapter, I didn't have much sympathy for Charles, but reading it again made him more real to me. His powers of self-observation are pretty honed and honest. Like when he talks about people who thought of him as a climber, when in reality:

"What kept him on the move, he knew, was not the destiny that he was chasing but the fate that he was running from. What people saw as a climbing was no more than him attempting to arrest his fall."

And of course, those last, poignant paragraphs in the dressing room, as he does his makeup and prepares himself for his role as The Inebriate.

Just one stroke of makeup and pretense from sharing the fate of his father.

Cindy wrote: "We finally had two chapters in a row that were both in the same time period! I'm still enjoying the book. It has definitely become a quest for clues and connecting threads as well as the unfolding ..."

I like how you phrased it - "a quest for clues". That's exactly the frame of mind I'm in. I hope it lasts!

"Blind but Now I See"

This chapter took more than 2 reads to get anything from. I found my eyes glazing over more than once. And it seems surprising because the events of Henry's life included many that were interesting, moving, and certainly turbulent. Born and branded a slave, part of the Great Emancipation, part of the exodus to Kansas. He knew Bill Hickok, Bill Cody and Elvira Conely (who became close friends with both of the Bill's). She also knew Britton Johnson, a famous African-American cowboy who apparently was the best shot in the West. Then, travels to New York, then to Great Britain on the Pride of Bethlehem (a cool tie to our book), sheep driving, meeting a beautiful white girl, falling instantly in love and settling in Northampton because they knew it was the place for them.

Whoosh - makes me tired just typing it. What an incredible journey. But so dully told. I know that Moore is relating this journey through the mind and words of Henry - such a quiet and humble man. But the chapter suffered for it. I did enjoy looking up information about the Kansas Exodus, Elvira Conely and Britton Johnson.

The threads we've been discussing are there though:

"The walls and corners of Northampton fell away behind like weights form off his back": again, those almost geometric references to walls and, most especially, corners. Plus the inference that Northampton's atmosphere is almost tangible, if only when one feels the effects of its absence.

I'm intrigued about the references to Northampton's trees and especially the one that had such significance to Henry and Selina.

There is another reference to viewing things from a great height:

"From up above he figured how he must bear a resemblance to one of them tin novelties he'd seen, them where you cranked the handle and a little feller sitting on a bicycle rode inch by inch on a straight wire with only his knees moving, going up and down there on the pedals."

It makes me think about how from a great height, or a greater, more powerful perspective, we might be viewed like toys...or puppets...or chess pieces...or billiard balls.

Another reference to the peculiarities of Northampton itself (mentioned several times in "X Marks the Spot"):

"It was as if the folks what writ them history books just couldn't see Northampton somehow, like it had a veil across it or like they was horses wearing blinkers with the whole town on they blind side.

Reference to the bad places in the Boroughs:

"sometimes it would seem to him as if the Boroughs was built crooked specially so's it could harbor all the gloom and hunts up in its corners" (again, a reference to corners). "Sweet in the mornings, lazy in the afternoons, come dark this was another place entire."

"Unearthly, that was what it was after the daylight went, the daylight what was holding back another world where anything might just about be possible."

It isn't until the end of the chapter that we find out why Henry has been scratching his left shoulder during some of his reminiscences - it's his brand. "There was two hills, looked like they got a bridge between 'em, else like they was pans hung on a scale for weighing gold." I found the reference to scales (a symbol of Justice) very intriguing. I'm hoping there's something to all of this.

I'm well into book two and yes, there is something to all of this. Coming back and reading your post was really helpful because I had forgotten what Henry's brand looks like and the image is used again in a different context in book two. It makes me wonder what Henry's role is in the grander scheme.
The trees, the murkiness, the crookedness and the higher perspective are all present and some aspects explained later. In fact, I had just read a reference to Henry from the point of view of a character in book two so it was particularly timely that you posted.

Hi Karen, I'm glad you're ahead of me and can confirm that there is significance to some of the themes and threads that are so fascinating to me.

BTW, I posted in an earlier thread asking if anyone had realized just who in real life Moore based his character Sir Francis Drake on. I don't think it has any real relevance, but it was cool to discover :).

Paula wrote: "BTW, I posted in an earlier thread asking if anyone had realized just who in real life Moore based his character Sir Francis Drake on."

I didn't guess so perhaps you'd care to enlighten me?

Drew wrote: "Paula wrote: "BTW, I posted in an earlier thread asking if anyone had realized just who in real life Moore based his character Sir Francis Drake on."

I didn't guess so perhaps you'd care to enligh..."

Looks like it didn't post.

The actor Sir Francis Drake - Charles - well, he is Charlie Chaplin. Google Charlie Chaplin, especially with regard to his early years and you will see it. His brother Sydney, where he was born and grew up. His parents and what happened to them. That scene in the pub with his father. Farno. All of it. :)

I watched a Charlie Chaplin movie a couple of weeks ago, got interested in him. Went to Wikipedia and found a trove of stuff Moore put in his character. Complete happenstance that I stumbled over it.

Paula wrote: "Drew wrote: "Paula wrote: "BTW, I posted in an earlier thread asking if anyone had realized just who in real life Moore based his character Sir Francis Drake on."

I didn't guess so perhaps you'd c..."

Wow, don't you love it when that happens?!

I have been watching the American version of "Shameless" and had a moment of serendipity while reading Choking on a Tune. I know I'm getting a little ahead of the discussion, but I appreciated Alma's comments on what it was like to grow up poor as opposed to the TV version.

I'm trying to catch up. Hopefully, now that I finished The Weight of Ink - which was excellent - I will make better progress.