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  • To Clear Away the Shadows, David Drake

    From Joy Beeson@21:1/5 to All on Mon Jun 19 23:33:37 2023
    _To Clear Away the Shadows, David Drake, 2019, Simon & Schuster


    I'm enjoying this book very much, but the point of view shifts
    frequently, and with, at best, only a blank line to signal it.

    I'm learning to catch on quickly. Perhaps it's like Dr. Kolitshev,
    who was incomprehensible at first, but quite clear before I'd finished
    my first physics lecture.

    I wish I could remember his exact words when he ordered us not to ask
    "why". In Dr. Webber's class, and in Dr. (hey, it's been sixty
    years)'s class we could ask "why", but in physics, we ask "how".

    --
    Joy Beeson
    joy beeson at centurylink dot net
    http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/

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  • From Joy Beeson@21:1/5 to jbeeson@invalid.net.invalid on Wed Dec 27 21:41:41 2023
    On Mon, 19 Jun 2023 23:33:37 -0400, Joy Beeson
    <jbeeson@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:

    I'm enjoying this book very much, but the point of view shifts
    frequently, and with, at best, only a blank line to signal it.


    I finally twigged that there are only two points of view, and one is
    narrated in first person and the other is narrated in third person.

    We tend to call any book-length work of fiction a "novel", but to my
    mind, a novel, no matter how complex, is a single story.

    This is not a novel. I wasted many pleasant minutes thinking up names
    for what it *is* and rejecting all of them.

    "Picaresque" was first down the trash chute.

    The Oddesey had a goal, and each of the incidents along the way were
    important primarily because they hindered the reaching of that goal.

    There were many stories along the way, but this is definitely not a
    collection.

    ----------------------------------

    "To Clear Away the Shadows" has been back in the library for ages, and
    the current occupant of my go bag is close to the end of its final
    renewal, so I don't think I'm ever going to remember where this post
    was headed.

    "Adventure" isn't the right word either.

    I can't spell "sui generis", and I'm pretty sure I've seen this
    structure before.

    --------

    I never saw a picture of David Drake until recently. He was a very good-looking man.

    Past time to shut down the computer, do my sciatica exercises, and go
    to bed.

    --
    Joy Beeson
    joy beeson at centurylink dot net
    http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/

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