I'm reading The Somnabulist...
Mar. 26th, 2008 10:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akujunkan...and very much enjoying it. Here come a few pages of general impressions and speculation, about 190 pages in, recorded so I can come back and see if I was right once I finish the book. Oh yeah, probably lots of spoilers, although I doubt they'd make much sense at all to anyone who hasn't read the book.
Initial thoughts on content: nothing at all graphic, but given the conservative beliefs of many LT members (and their apparent inability to uncouple fictional reading material from real life convictions), I can see why they might have had problems with the content, and thus the book. Personally, I'm enjoying the carnival weirdness of it, and think that Barnes has walked the adding-the-freakish-without-overdoing-it line perfectly.
Checklist:
And I'm pretty damn sure I've figured the novel out as of page 209. Spake Grischenko: "They failed with me but they have succeeded with another. An old associate of mine...They have a sleeper."
You mean...the titular Somnambulist!?!
Poor Moon. He's never gonna see it coming. (Although, I do wonder about the "mongoose" code name. It would have been a cincher were mongooses bald, but they're not. In other words, there's still a chance I'm wrong; I just really, really doubt it.)
That will be all.
Initial thoughts on content: nothing at all graphic, but given the conservative beliefs of many LT members (and their apparent inability to uncouple fictional reading material from real life convictions), I can see why they might have had problems with the content, and thus the book. Personally, I'm enjoying the carnival weirdness of it, and think that Barnes has walked the adding-the-freakish-without-overdoing-it line perfectly.
Checklist:
- Saw Edward's true proclivities coming from a mile away, as well as who his friend was and why he hated Skimpole so much.
- Remembered where we'd first seen the five-petalled black flower and immediately made the connection to the section dividers in the text itself.
- Thought there was something pretty damn significant about Cribb's surname; had this confirmed by the excavation scene on 139.
- Am currently guessing at a seriously inappropriate relationship with Charlotte as well; first hint on 158, anvil to the head on 183, although I wonder whether this will ever be made explicit or not.
- Saw through Speight long before his "suit" comment on page 197...
- ...and it made the interconnection between Cribb's identity, the Celtic/Arthurian "Summer Country" Church, and the ultimate role of the Sleeper (as yet unrevealed) as plain as day.
And I'm pretty damn sure I've figured the novel out as of page 209. Spake Grischenko: "They failed with me but they have succeeded with another. An old associate of mine...They have a sleeper."
You mean...the titular Somnambulist!?!
Poor Moon. He's never gonna see it coming. (Although, I do wonder about the "mongoose" code name. It would have been a cincher were mongooses bald, but they're not. In other words, there's still a chance I'm wrong; I just really, really doubt it.)
That will be all.