Quote from: H on October 05, 2016, 11:42:07 am

By the way, I'm loving that Serwe bit. Saubon? What about the Captain, Bakker said we're not done with him yet. What makes all that very interesting to me, is we know Kellhus has created his own Ciphrang/sorcerer hybrid running to Zuem right now. We obviously, know that the Captain was one also, how many more have done the deed and went on to the Outside? Intriguing. Very.

MSJ, sorry, it was not obvious for me, regarding the Captain being a Ciphrang. Was this concluded based on Mimara's Judging Eye?

And a moment from Titus Groan's big setpiece:

'His hands were now grappling with one another and it seemed an eternity before the fingers ceased their deadly, interlocked and fratricidal strangling. Yet his panic could have taken no longer than a few moments, for the echo of Irma's scream was still in his ears when he began to loosen his hands.'

One more:

'Glorious,' said Steerpike, 'is a dictionary word. We are all imprisoned by the dictionary. We choose out of that vast, paper-walled prison our convicts, the little black printed words, when in truth we need fresh sounds to utter, new enfranchised noises which would produce a new effect. In dead and shackled language, my dears, you are glorious, but oh, to give vent to a brand new sound that might convince you of what I really think of you, as you sit there in your purple splendour, side by side! But no, life it is impossible. Life is too fleet for onomatopoeia. Dead words defy me. I can make no sound, dear ladies, that is apt.'
   'You could try,' said Clarice. 'We aren't busy.'

Another one, a favorite, with an incredible apt use of metaphor:

'Whether the scouring, sexless eye of the bird or beast of prey disperses and sees all or concentrates and evades all saving that for which it searches, it is certain that the less powerful eye of the human cannot grasp, even after a life of training, a scene in its entirety. No eye may see dispassionately. There is no comprehension at a glance. Only the recognition of damsel, horse or fly and the assumption of damsel, horse or fly; and so with dreams and beyond, for what haunts the heart will, when it is found, leap foremost, blinding the eye and leaving the main of Life in darkness.
   When Steerpike began his scrutiny the roofscape was neither more nor less than a conglomeration of stone structures spreading to right and left and away from him. It was a mist of masonry. As he peered, taking each structure individually, he found that he was a spectator of a stationary gathering of stone personalities.'

From Titus Groan:

'Through daily proximity to the great slabs of stone, the faces of the Grey Scrubbers had become like slabs themselves. There was no expression whatever upon the eighteen faces, unless the lack of expression is in itself an expression. They were simply slabs that the Grey Scrubbers spoke from occasionally, stared from incessantly, heard with, hardly ever. They were traditionally deaf. The eyes were there, small and flat as coins, and the colour of the walls themselves, as though during the long hours of professional staring the grey stone had at last reflected itself indelibly once and for all. Yes, the eyes were there, thirty-six of them and the eighteen noses were there, and the lines of the mouths that resembled the harsh cracks that divided the stone slabs, they were there too. Although nothing physical was missing from any one of their eighteen faces yet it would be impossible to perceive the faintest sign of animation and, even if a basinful of their features had been shaken together anf if each feature had been picked out at random and stuck upon some dummy-head of wax at any capricious spot or angle, it would have made no difference, for even the most fantastic, the most ingenious of arrangements could not have tempted into life a design whose component parts were dead. In all, counting the ears, which on occasion may be monstrously expressive, the one hundred and eight features were unable, at the best of times, to muster between them, individually or taken en masse, the faintest shadow of anything that might hint at the workings of what lay beneath.'

That's really funny, Hiro. I just reached out to him last night, among some twenty other reviewers who have previously reviewed the series. He mentioned he was waiting for TUC but that he would bump up TGO. So coming sooner than later now!

Cool. I enjoy his and Larry's reviews at Ofblog in particular.

Quote from: The Great Scald on July 19, 2016, 10:07:50 pm

Bakker's repeated use...of ellipses...and italics to emphasize profundity.

Meta-licious.

But what about all the CAPS?  Bakker does those a lot too.  Actually I really like those.  The best use of it, I think, is from the White Luck Warrior in that brilliantly written confrontation with Wuttea.  Reading it -- "IS NOT THE TRUTH INFINITE?" -- really sent a chill down on my spine.  I really got a sense of the horrifying majesty of the dragons.  Absolutely NOTHING like Daenerys Targaryen.

Yes, those stylistic tics, baroque and even, here and there, rococo. It does feel overdone, and gives me the impression that it's almost a comment on the writing of genre. Underlining meaning by any means necessary? Surely Bakker as a writer must be aware of the use of these tools, therefore I assume a certain comment, distance or even irony in their usage.

On the other hand, while certainly not as present in TGO as in previous volumes, the pattern of using sun/star/fire-light to backlight/halo/contrast/illuminate a character or scene in a significant-iconic-quasi-religious way, became so obvious that it left me wondering how conscious Bakker was of using this device. It stood out and not in a good way. Or Bakker is getting ironic there as well?

While this is not a perfect work, it does possess vitality and passion.