FOREIGNER: Discussion Post #4
Jun. 13th, 2011 01:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kraitI hope you enjoyed chapters 5 & 6, in which even more excitement finds Bren...
Discuss away! Has your view on anything changed? Do you have new suspicions or insights? Things you're hoping will happen, or hoping won't come to pass?
Discuss away! Has your view on anything changed? Do you have new suspicions or insights? Things you're hoping will happen, or hoping won't come to pass?
Impressions, thoughts, maunderings
Date: 2011-06-13 09:47 pm (UTC)1. We open with Bren at nadir -- he's ill enough that his entire body hurts and he's been packed away in bed like a child; he notes that his servants don't obey him, they obey Tabini.
His mind's still working, though! Cenedi enters and he immediately starts assessing: is Banichi playing some kind of strategem? Better keep my answers neutral and polite till I see where it's going.
Actually, his mind seems to be working better than before -- he's upset at Cenedi's appearance but manages not to show it, and to be courteous. Maybe he's been out long enough to catch up on some of his missing sleep? He gets even better when he's had some more rest, managing to be funny to Djinana, sensibly do some research since he's in a never-before-seen area for humans, and then work out a possible way to reach Tabini in case his message was compromised. Go, Bren!
Then it gets even better: he re-encounters Ilisidi, keeps his footing, and even looks to be winning her over, somewhat -- she's dropped the Mad Old Bat routine and is really considering his words and his position, by the end of the ride.
2. I'm totally interested in the "doubtless prurient details" of the "shameful marriage" in the ghost-story book, too. :D Less prurient, more intellectual consideration: that Bren considers it a "curious" idea -- do Mospheirans really have no shame about any kind of pairing? No class or ethnic boundaries that you "just don't" cross over?
3. Security fail again! Where are B&J&T&A when that alarming invitation comes!? Why are they so evasive when he does manage -- too late -- to get hold of them? Some thoughts in this direction, with spoilers for later books, over on the spoiler post.
I loved the conversation with Djinana. (Author-ishly speaking, it was a great way to give us the step-by-step process of assessing an atevi social situation, since Bren's familiar with the general rules but not the person involved, and Djinana's familiar with the person but not the rules for a paidhi, so they trade bits of information one piece at a time and react to each one.)
4. More atevi terms are sneaking in -- we've now got not only aiji and paidhi, but nandi (to Bren), aiji-ma (to Ilisidi), nadi and nadi-ji (and a conversation proving there's a significant difference between the two).
My Fangirl!brain tends to absorb these things almost unconsciously -- every time I read a Foreigner novel, I find myself trying to address people with appropriate titles! I'll try to refrain from doing so here nadiin-ji.
Re: Impressions, thoughts, maunderings
Date: 2011-06-14 06:03 pm (UTC)Re: Impressions, thoughts, maunderings
Date: 2011-06-15 03:53 am (UTC)I think the precise details of the forms of address are not quite hammered out at this stage. Nai-ji appears to have been dropped, and I don't think Bren addressing Ilisidi as aiji-ji would quite fly later on.
Talking to Djinana is a great little bit to read.
further thoughts!
Date: 2011-06-13 10:02 pm (UTC)6. Random things I really love:
>>> Breath failed him. Self-control did. He flung it all out. "Banichi, I'd walk a thousand miles to have a kind word from you. I'd give you the shirt from my back if you needed it; if you were in trouble, I'd carry you a thousand miles. What do you call that? Foolish?"
Another flaring of Banichi's nostrils. "That would be very difficult for you."
"So is liking atevi." That got out before he censored it. "Baji-naji. It's the luck I have.
I can't help feeling so strongly for Bren, his frustration and his knowledge that even an ateva speaking Mosphei' and a human speaking Ragi can't bridge this one essential difference. D:
>>> "[...]We have to like somebody, we're bound to like somebody, or we die, Banichi, we outright die. We make appointments with grandmothers, we drink the cups strangers offer us, and we don't ask for help anymore, banichi, what's the damned point, when you don't see what we need?"
"If I don't guess what you like, you threaten to ruin my reputation. Is this accurate?"
I LOVE this bit! All the frustration and the lack of vocabulary and the yearning come through so strongly for me here! The way "we need another person to like, or we die [of despondency]" becomes "we require objects/foods that we like, or we disregard the efforts of others to keep us alive and allow them to be dishonoured" is really just... the giant faultline in the atevi-human foundation stone.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-14 04:07 pm (UTC)"There's a strong stimulant involved, which the dowager considers healthful, or at least bracing" -- it makes me wonder whether human herbal teas might harm atevi!
I despise drinking milk and can't imagine drinking it warm, especially if it tasted like something that just poisoned me. Gahhhh.
Once again Bren puts his foot wrong, repeatedly wrong, when he's thinking rather than just reacting; he horrifies Djinana, does the same probing into man'chi that he did with Jago, and then goes ahead and writes an "in case I am dead" note for Tabini!
On the other hand, just like the first time I read it, I am... really, deeply horrified at Banichi and Jago just vanishing. I'm not sure if it's because their man'chi isn't to him, if it's because they have other orders, or if it's because they see him being child-sized and acting childlike (showing emotions on his face, swearing) and have a hard time remembering he's an adult and needs an adult's level of security.
And then Bren uses the word for prefering a specific kind of salad or cold drink for Banichi, Jago, and Tabini - as silly as it might be, it's also really sad, because he has this emotion that no one around him has, and he can't explain it any better than I'm sure Ian Bretano could explain it. "It means the feeling I have for my mother and my brother and my job, I have for Tabini and for you and for Jago." Oh, Bren.
Aha! The midedeni show up, finally! And I did remember them more or less accurately - they think you're supposed to Associate with everybody you meet - because everybody should be favorable in the way that normal atevi find their associates favorable. And they're apparently even farther east than Malguri, which thinks of itself as "the East". Interesting.
Ah, the wonderful (safe) breakfast, the offer of a tour - there has to be a way for a gentleman to say that he will not go without at least one of his own security, but Bren obviously doesn't know it. Still, once again, he seems to be doing okay as long as he's just reacting.
And the mecheita! <3
I had forgotten how big they are - a head as long as a man's arm from shoulder to fingertip? That's a big, uh, riding-monster. I did remember that Bren didn't have the best first experience with Nokhada... poor Bren.