h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The word 'spoon' ...fair point, well presented. Have you read any books by C.J.Cherryh? i.e. 'Foreigner' and 'Invader'? Quite readable.

This is novel someone who hasn't been dragged here has posted a message, wow!

I can't say that I have read anything by Cherryh but once I have read the stack of unread books at the side of my bed I shall probably read something of theirs. Although I have to warn you that most of the books at the side of my bed have been there for quite some time as I keep buying more and the pile grows particularly as the more I buy the thicker they seem to become so it takes longer to finish them. Currently I'm finishing the Language Instinct by Steven Pinkers (which against all popular opinion is fascinating and not exceptionally dull as I keep being told but that was slowed down by Oscar Wilde and James Joyce and now it's going to be halted whilst I read The History of The English language which is about the same size as my head so that could take some time...

That was quite a conversation stopper, errrr, ummm, Antelope, see I told you that worked. Have you read the Flutterbye Collector by John Fowles (feel free to reinterpret the flutterbye part) because that's great. He splits the narrative between a kind of detached view from the main character and a diary from the other girl (it's really hard to discuss books without ruining the plot should someone else ever read them, oh I give up). The bloke kidnapps the girl because he's in love with her and thinks he can give her a better life but then half way through we're introduced to her diary and then it switches between events as described by her and events as described by him which makes it extremely emotive but then at the end there's this major revelation and you end up screaming at the book. It's very effective.

I like Poe too (both the teletubby and the writer), I think his stuffs brilliant but a lot of it is quite dark...

Just thought I apologise for the fact that this message is really disjointed but my brains not in gear yet as I've just finished exams and have been camping in the sun since Wednesday so I'm in need of sleep which will only be sought after the football and the GP qualifier so if I haven't bored you too much already I'll probably write something of more meaning at a later date.

Re: The Flutterbye Collecter, there was a play of the book put on here in Edinburgh, and having seen the play, the book might be somewhat unsurprising. The character of the captive woman was impressive, do you not think? Playing her required more, I think, of everything. Strength, variety. The male character seemed almost 2-dimensional- or standard perhaps. Ofcourse he was in the play everywhere and had a great deal to say and do, but one feels the actor must have felt the part limiting. There were so many facets to the womans character.

Do as you are told. Read some C.J.Cherryh.

I agree with you that the trapped woman would have been a hard part to characterise as in the book there was a great use of internal monologue which would have been extremely difficult to express on stage but I think perhaps the man was slightly more developed than you give him credit for. Whilst I'd agree that his personality traits were quite ambigious and so his character may have looked simpler, I think that in actual fact it would have been quite hard to make the noticable distinction between the level of satisfaction he took in his plan and the level of love and passion he felt at the same time. I don't know which element was emphasised in the stage version but in the book he seems to be initially overcome with some psychopathic obsession but then as we learn more about him it becomes more about his true love. He seems to do everything he believes is possible in order to make her return his feelings but the more he 'helps' her the more unrequited his love becomes so I believe it would have been hard to get the edge and intensity of his love across to the audience without it being influenced by their stereotyped concepts and thus making him seen obsessional and mad. His actions and plans were extremely well thought out and considered and he seemed to be an exceptionally intelligent character but at the same time he was too blinded by this desire to have the girl as his wife to see how unacceptable his actions were. In this way he could be seen to be every bit as naive as the girl as she firmly believed that she could reason with him to get herself freed but yet he firmly believed that he could make her love him.
I think that the moments of greatest poignancy were actually derived from the conflicting views and dimensions of the two characters, his overwhelming passion is most overt when he's with her yet her overwhelming repulsion at his character is equaaly evident when she's with him. At the end, when she finally dies, it's extremely disturbing to realise that he's likely to do the exact same thing again to someone else. It's only at this point that we realise that his love for her wasn't as deep as we were lead to believe and so the earlier feelings we had towards him are completely re-evaluated. Despite the fact that we previously recognised his actions were wrong it was still made possible to feel some small sympathy for his desperation. However, at the end there's no way in which you're able to feel sorry for him anymore and so you end up feeling repulsed for having felt even the tiniest bit of sympathy for him at all... but then maybe I was just getting too much from reading the book.

If you go to the theatre a lot did you ever get to see Angels In America? That was stunning, half the time you sat in tears of sorrow and the other half you were sat in tears of laughter. It was really skillfully written and performed.If you haven't seen it yet you ought to find out if it's still running anywhere.I saw Arthur Millers A View From A Bridge recently too, that was equally well performed although the female lead was quite weak. Actually if you live near Edinburgh you should go and see the touring RSC production of Taming Of A Shrew as they've given it a modern slant and it really changes the perspective of Katherina and Petruchio.

Do I have to do as I'm told straight away or can I finish the book I'm reading first?