Comments on: The interconnectedness of all things

By: brunswick

brunswick — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 06:32:08 +0000

I bet Edward Woodward wished he hadn’t ticked ‘Y’ in the ‘Virgin?’ box at customs.

By: Rhinocrates

Rhinocrates — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 05:37:38 +0000

FOOBAROFL?

Heh heh.

And Rosebud is a sled, Dr Evil is Austin’s long-lost brother, Ofelia passed the faun’s test by refusing to spill innocent blood as he demanded, that policeman should have thought more carefully about why he – a virgin – was lured to Summerisle, the monster is Morbius’ id, remember to use white sails on the journey back Theseus, the answer is ‘a man’ but the queen’s your mum Oedipus and I have a pretty good idea who the fifth cylon is (I think).

So there.

By: brunswick

brunswick — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 04:48:20 +0000

Good summary. I can identify all of them except for… two.

By: Rhinocrates

Rhinocrates — Sat, 31 May 2008 21:14:06 +0000

Darth is Luke’s Father, 299 die, Deckard is a replicant, everyone (except Poirot) on the train did it, Verbal Kint is Keyser Soze, Ed Norton’s character is Tyler Durden, ‘she’ is a he, the Martians forgot to take their ‘flu shots, the Andromeda Strain mutates into a harmless form, he never met Tesla and uses his identical twin brother in the trick, Patrick Bateman just fantasised it all, Bruce Willis’ character is already dead, Clive Owen’s character stabbed McCordle but his mother whom he did not know was his mother had already poisoned him, Number One is Number Six, the man who will get Carter is on the train with him at the beginning, Malcolm’s army uses the boughs of Birnam Wood as camouflage and MacDuff was born by cesarian section… and guess what’s in that pie – that’s right, your sons.

By: Rhinocrates

Rhinocrates — Sat, 31 May 2008 20:56:37 +0000

Oh, you’ve read it already. Oh well, after chapter thirteen, it’s all pretty explicit about who’s who and what they did. The clues leading up to it are all so obvious to raise the tension – why is he obsessed with that chair and that battleship? – and then lead you astray. He’s obsessed alright, but not for the reasons you think, because he’s not who…

The shaven head bit in the first chapter means that since he shaves his head at about the time his deathwish is at its peak late in the book means that he’s alive and well and still employed by Special Circumstances, who need people like him. That’s the creepy twist in the tale – he may be a monster, but what about the people and AIs who know that and still use him?

There, I’ve just ruined it for anyone who hasn’t read it themselves.

I could start The Reduced Banks Company perhaps? After you’ve summarised Proust.

(Reduced Borges would just be silly.)

By: brunswick

brunswick — Sat, 31 May 2008 14:36:28 +0000

Groan… does this mean I have to read it again? There’s no cheat sheet?

By: Rhinocrates

Rhinocrates — Fri, 30 May 2008 20:13:56 +0000

Oh, and look out for references to “Staberinde” and a white chair along the way and note that in the the first chapter, the protagonist has a shaven head.

The owls are not what they seem. No, hang on, that one’s in Twin Peaks.

By: Rhinocrates

Rhinocrates — Fri, 30 May 2008 20:07:14 +0000

I rather like early Banks when the sf writer was still struggling to get out, resulting in some interesting blends of the fantastic and mundane (“magic realism” being the British middlebrow euphemism for anything not about angst in Kensington or shopping and fucking).

You might want to try Iain Middlename Bank’s space operas, which are rip-roaring fun with dark payoffs – I’d say that Use of Weapons is the best of them and a great example of the twist that brings everything together. Tip: it all hinges on the ambiguity of a phrase concluding chapter thirteen – “It was a good battle, and they nearly won.”

On the other hand, you could try his nonfictional tour of Scotland’s distilleries, Raw Spirit, which will be my guide book next time I go back.