@RUTGERS.ARPA:stever@cit-vax (03/14/85)
From: stever@cit-vax (Steve Rabin ) But can you justify the chapter numbering (4 1 2 3 5 ...) ?
brust@hyper.UUCP (Steven Brust) (03/15/85)
> From: stever@cit-vax (Steve Rabin ) > > But can you justify the chapter numbering (4 1 2 3 5 ...) ? What need justification? This is nothing new; merely used better than most writers use it. The technique is called "framing," and conveyed the point of the story quite well. He could have made the first chapter a prologue and the last an epilogue, but why bother? The point is that the logical progression of the tale does not take place temporally. By arranging it this way, the reader is taken through an experience that is set up by the first chapter to give context, and leads to the last chapter with the inevitability of a a Beethoven symphony. So there. -- SKZB
cpf@lasspvax.UUCP (Courtenay Footman) (03/17/85)
I agree that The Lord of the Rings is the best 20th century fiction that I have read. I also agree that Lord of Light is the best science fiction story that I have read. Finally, in response to the person who asked about the order of chapters, if in medias res is good enough for Homer, it is good enough for Zelazny. [If they do get usenet on satelite, does that mean we will *all* be able to make high-frequency prayers?] -- Courtenay Footman arpa: cpf@lnsvax Newman Lab. of Nuclear Studies usenet: cornell!lnsvax!cpf Cornell University
@RUTGERS.ARPA:stever@cit-vax (03/22/85)
From: stever@cit-vax (Steve Rabin ) I've been reading Juan Rulfo's "Pedro Paramo", and Llosa's "Conversations in the Cathedral", extreme cases where one wants to take out the scissors and rearange chapters, or even sentences, chronologically. In fact, in the movie based on Paramo, this is precisely what the director did, using a rather large wall. In those novels the technique works. In Lord of Light it doesn't. Try reading Lord of Light with the chapters unscrambled, and I think you'll find it better that way. -Steve
brust@hyper.UUCP (Steven Brust) (03/26/85)
> From: stever@cit-vax (Steve Rabin ) > > Try reading Lord of Light > with the chapters unscrambled, and I think you'll find > it better that way. -Steve Try rewriting HAMLET substituting the main character with Romeo from ROMEO AND JULIET and I think you'll find you get a happier ending. I wonder why Shakespear didn't do it that way?
shiva@duts.UUCP (10/28/85)
> Have you read LORD OF LIGHT by Roger Zelazny? > > Did you like.... what didn't you like?.... > Stuart Cracraft So what's it to you bub???? Why the 3rd degree? -- Shiva, Amdahl
jef@lbl-rtsg.arpa (10/29/85)
From: jef@lbl-rtsg.arpa I *love* the book, but there is one thing I would change: the annoyingly cryptic inside-out time-line. It's like, 51 pages of the present, 151 pages of flashback, and then back to the present for the final 42 pages. The first time I read it, I didn't really understand what was going on until I had finished the book. ___ Jef