ThursdayNext : www.jasperfforde.com
A discussion of all things Thursday !
Pondering
Posted by: Ooktavia (---.nv.iinet.net.au)
Date: October 25, 2002 11:24AM
<HTML>So, last night, I could not sleep, due to people in the next room (do NOT ask)
And I found myself wondering, at 4am (apart form Can you beat people to death with a torch?), the following thing.....
Since, due to Mycroft's marvellous invention, one can enter any book, if the book you visit is not a work of fiction (the Stonk guidebook doesn't count, as it was one) are the people you meet like the really historical ones in the world of the book or are they the way the author imagined them?
Specifically, I am also thinking of works covering theology, or mentioning God, etc- if the author is also ommniscent within the book, does that mean the world of the book will have 2 Gods, the Author and the author's creation, or only one? If only one god, which?
How can the god withinn the book be created by an all-powerfull author, who is also in the book (like Wordsworth was??) Answers on a postcard, please!
At this point my brain melted, and I went to sleep.
Obviously this isn't relevant to Jasper's works as we all know he is a god, anyway......</HTML>
And I found myself wondering, at 4am (apart form Can you beat people to death with a torch?), the following thing.....
Since, due to Mycroft's marvellous invention, one can enter any book, if the book you visit is not a work of fiction (the Stonk guidebook doesn't count, as it was one) are the people you meet like the really historical ones in the world of the book or are they the way the author imagined them?
Specifically, I am also thinking of works covering theology, or mentioning God, etc- if the author is also ommniscent within the book, does that mean the world of the book will have 2 Gods, the Author and the author's creation, or only one? If only one god, which?
How can the god withinn the book be created by an all-powerfull author, who is also in the book (like Wordsworth was??) Answers on a postcard, please!
At this point my brain melted, and I went to sleep.
Obviously this isn't relevant to Jasper's works as we all know he is a god, anyway......</HTML>
Re: Pondering
Posted by: jon (---.abel.net.uk)
Date: October 25, 2002 01:33PM
<HTML>As I understand the Prose Portal (and I'm not saying I do) any characters you meet inside a book are as they are written....so Richard III would be a villain, Henry V a hero, etc. (and not as they really were, i.e. the other way round). Therefore in any work featuring God, God would be only a character within the book, not in fact a real God at all. (I would suggest at this point that J.Ff. does not send Thursday into the Bible, Koran, Talmud or Bhaghavad Gita in any future books, since we would like him to remain alive for the foreseeable future).
The author question is interesting... I do not think that the author of a book would appear to any fictionaut unless said author had written themselves into the narrative, and even then, following the logic above, they would only be character called 'The Author' and not in fact the real person. Enter Three Men in a Boat and you should find the narrator is called only J., without having any other names at all. After all, Thursday never came across Charlotte (Posh) Bronte while in Jane Eyre, did she?
I suspect we shall find out a lot more about this sort of stuff when we get WOLP.</HTML>
The author question is interesting... I do not think that the author of a book would appear to any fictionaut unless said author had written themselves into the narrative, and even then, following the logic above, they would only be character called 'The Author' and not in fact the real person. Enter Three Men in a Boat and you should find the narrator is called only J., without having any other names at all. After all, Thursday never came across Charlotte (Posh) Bronte while in Jane Eyre, did she?
I suspect we shall find out a lot more about this sort of stuff when we get WOLP.</HTML>
Re: Pondering
Posted by: poetscientistdrinker (---.cache.pol.co.uk)
Date: October 25, 2002 07:18PM
<HTML>Sorry, I'm trying to imagine what's going on in the room next door now, and that makes thinking hard for me...
Ignoring the stuff about the prose portal, yes, you can injure somebody with a torch. If it's big enough.
I went to Poland to climb the highest mountain, and one of the guys I was with was an absolute nutcase. Most of his pack was taken up with
Mars Bars and marzipan as he refused to eat any dried foods, any sauces or pasta. He lived on Mars Bars and rice for the entire two weeks. The rest of the pack contained the biggest torch I have ever seen. You could have used it to communicate with ocean liners if only you could find somewhere high neough in Poland to stand. It was so big he really needed a team of Sherpas to carry it, and then mount it on the back of one like some primitive seige engine.
Anyway, one night we were staying in a mountain hut and somebody complained that somebody kept looking at them through a knot-hole in the wood. "I'll sort them out," shouts the nutcase, and before we can stop him he shines this bloody torch at the mysterious eye. A brief burst of swearing later, and the eye was never seen again...
Should Ms Next recommend this to Frodo if she ever passes through 'Lord of the Rings'? - I reckon we could save at least 400 pages....</HTML>
Ignoring the stuff about the prose portal, yes, you can injure somebody with a torch. If it's big enough.
I went to Poland to climb the highest mountain, and one of the guys I was with was an absolute nutcase. Most of his pack was taken up with
Mars Bars and marzipan as he refused to eat any dried foods, any sauces or pasta. He lived on Mars Bars and rice for the entire two weeks. The rest of the pack contained the biggest torch I have ever seen. You could have used it to communicate with ocean liners if only you could find somewhere high neough in Poland to stand. It was so big he really needed a team of Sherpas to carry it, and then mount it on the back of one like some primitive seige engine.
Anyway, one night we were staying in a mountain hut and somebody complained that somebody kept looking at them through a knot-hole in the wood. "I'll sort them out," shouts the nutcase, and before we can stop him he shines this bloody torch at the mysterious eye. A brief burst of swearing later, and the eye was never seen again...
Should Ms Next recommend this to Frodo if she ever passes through 'Lord of the Rings'? - I reckon we could save at least 400 pages....</HTML>
Re: Pondering
Posted by: Ooktavia (---.nv.iinet.net.au)
Date: October 26, 2002 05:36PM
<HTML>I forgot, in Daffodils, Wordsworth's in the poem to start with.... but it still makes me wonder, if in the world an author creates, he/she is a omniscient god, and in that world he includes an omniscient god, where the boundries cut it.
I wasn't thinking of beating them to death, only of inserting it...........
As to what they were doing (I found final details out this morning) they were playing strip poker with the added incentive of lots of booze and wacky tobacky and also an ecletic shaver.The results were......., well disturbing. But tonight they're all out getting drunk.
and another thing- if someone *not* from a book dies in it, does their body turn up in the text, and would that change the book totally? A whole range of books could be turned into murder mysteries THAT way.....</HTML>
I wasn't thinking of beating them to death, only of inserting it...........
As to what they were doing (I found final details out this morning) they were playing strip poker with the added incentive of lots of booze and wacky tobacky and also an ecletic shaver.The results were......., well disturbing. But tonight they're all out getting drunk.
and another thing- if someone *not* from a book dies in it, does their body turn up in the text, and would that change the book totally? A whole range of books could be turned into murder mysteries THAT way.....</HTML>
Re: Pondering
Posted by: poetscientistdrinker (---.cache.pol.co.uk)
Date: October 26, 2002 10:31PM
<HTML>I'm guessing it would only really affect the book if the characters A: noticed and B: cared. Pretty much the same as the lack of a any mention of toilets in most fiction appears not to affect the decision making of the characters, except in reverse.
They might end up puzzling over it, but then if I found a dead body I wouldn't suddenly turn into Miss Marple and try to solve the mystery behind it.
I guess it depends on the circumstances and the characters.
Of course if a stiff falls out of the sky and crushes the lead role to death, we can expect dramatic changes. But as long as it isn't the original manuscript, you'd be able to read the original version by buying a new copy...
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btw Sounds like one of those drinking games where the hangover is only the start of feeling awful...</HTML>
They might end up puzzling over it, but then if I found a dead body I wouldn't suddenly turn into Miss Marple and try to solve the mystery behind it.
I guess it depends on the circumstances and the characters.
Of course if a stiff falls out of the sky and crushes the lead role to death, we can expect dramatic changes. But as long as it isn't the original manuscript, you'd be able to read the original version by buying a new copy...
///////////
btw Sounds like one of those drinking games where the hangover is only the start of feeling awful...</HTML>
Re: Pondering
Posted by: Ooktavia (---.nv.iinet.net.au)
Date: October 27, 2002 06:58AM
<HTML>
Not so much the start of feeling awful as the start of looking ridicous. There are now 3 blokes in this hostel with only one eyebrow. God only knows what else was shaved.........</HTML>
Not so much the start of feeling awful as the start of looking ridicous. There are now 3 blokes in this hostel with only one eyebrow. God only knows what else was shaved.........</HTML>
Re: Pondering
Posted by: poetscientistdrinker (---.cache.pol.co.uk)
Date: October 27, 2002 07:46PM
<HTML>You'll be able to tell in a couple of days as it gets incredibly itchy.
Oops...
Can I just confirm my suspicions? How many of them play rugby?</HTML>
Oops...
Can I just confirm my suspicions? How many of them play rugby?</HTML>
Re: Pondering
Posted by: Ooktavia (---.nv.iinet.net.au)
Date: October 28, 2002 11:35AM
<HTML>None of them, as far as I know, but they did all troop off to the Interhostel Football game, where they flattened the competion and won the bar tab (again). Niether of the girls who took part have shaved anything visible, unless they cheated and shaved their legs......
I'm on the lookout for expressions of supressed discomfort!</HTML>
I'm on the lookout for expressions of supressed discomfort!</HTML>
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