[Gllug] On asking and answering GNU/Linux help questions...

[Nix]

On Thu, 20 Oct 2005, Stephen Harker suggested tentatively:
> Nix wrote:
>> Hm, actually, some other things from that book seem relevant here.
>> `He hardly ever spoke of magic, and when he did it was like a history
>> lesson and no one could bear to listen to him.  He rarely had a good
>> word to say for any other magician...'
>> Peter Grandi: the reincarnation of Gilbert Norrell?
> 
> Ooh. I've started reading that book! I keep meaning to spend a whole
> day to get really stuck in to it but haven't managed it yet. Are you
> enjoying it?

I bought it last week and I'm now reading it for the third time. I have
no plans to stop soon. Combine it with _The Battle for Wesnoth_ and,
well, my hacking activities have been sharply curtailed these last few
weeks.  (Obsessional? Moi?)


I think that `absolutely fantastic' is probably an understatement. Who
cares that it's slow-moving and that the plot is lightly painted and has
a very visible Hand of Author (many critical events happen due to blind
chance) and that the characters, while well-drawn, don't change much;
the sheer writing quality is astonishing, and sucked me in within five
pages or so. It really does read as if it were written in the 1820s.

After the plot gets moving (chapter 3, probably), the book gets
absorbing enough that it's an effort to remember that the North of
England is *not* in reality a separate kingdom held in trust by the
Government against the return of the Raven King.

It rewards multiple readings, too, and *don't* skip the footnotes: some
of them are critical, and crucial points get given away in a few of them
much earlier than in the main text. (Plus, the footnotes are fascinating
in themselves, although perhaps the footnote that spans six pages and
was originally published as a short story in its own right *is* going a
little far.)



IMHO, the interplay between Norrell and other characters isn't half so
fascinating as the interplay between Norrell and Norrell. He must be one
of the most conflicted people I've ever read about... half the time he's
torpedoing himself with no assistance needed from other people.  He
could be an object lesson in why treating people pleasantly is a good
thing.

Even though I'm much like him in personality, I think Norrell *is* an
unpleasant character. He's meant to be, I think. Strange is much nicer
to read about and gets a lot of time later in the book. I don't think
the book is about any of them inasmuch as it is about the world and the
person who as much as anyone built it into its present form (hint: look
at the title of Volume III).


(If you get confused by the `gentleman with the thistle-down hair' who
pops up now and again, read the wonderful _Lud-in-the-Mist_ by Hope
Mirlees, written seventy-odd years ago and still in print. He first
appears there, and the vision of Faerie in JS&MN is in large part due to
that book.)

-- 
`"Gun-wielding recluse gunned down by local police" isn't the epitaph
 I want. I am hoping for "Witnesses reported the sound up to two hundred
 kilometers away" or "Last body part finally located".' --- James Nicoll
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