I was introduced to Fforde and The Eyre Affair relatively late - like last Thursday (Thursday Last...ha ha). I read it in two quick days and absolutely loved it. I am starting Lost in a Good Book today; I'm on page 53 and am hooked already.

I do have a question about one thing, though, and this may have already come up (but, like I said, I'm new!)

Thursday had difficulty transmitting the password (sweet madness) to Mycroft because it had to come from the narrator, otherwise it wouldn't be printed in the book she had jumped into. However, Schitt managed to insert a stanza into "The Raven" despite the fact that he was not the speaker in that poem.

Any explanations? Did I miss something? If this question has already been addressed in the fforum, please enlighten me!



Post Edited (06-15-06 14:02)

You might understand that better when you read The Well of Lost Plots, it helps you understand narrative better. Seeing as Jack was in the narrative of the poem of all times he could change it, but Thursday may have had trouble because she was not in the direct narrative that was actually read by the reader, she was probably in a part that wasn't important. I hope that clears things up for you, please someone if you have a better idea help me out.



SpecOps-27 Wordage is our business Grammar is our game.

I understand what you're saying. Jane Eyre is a different case, I guess, because although Jane narrates the tale in first person, she includes the words and actions of others in the narrative. So, for example, if Thursday had stayed in the room with Edward, when Jane returned to him the narrative returned with her and Thursday could have said "sweet madness" herself and it would have appeared in the text. THAT makes sense (I was thinking Thursday wanted Rochester to say the words because she was unable to since she was not an original character in the story, but she probably did so to maintain the integrity of Bronte's tale)

HOWEVER, The Raven is still troubling to me. That poem is exclusively first person, inner-monologue - there are no other characters. Imagine what Jack was forced into: a richly decorated room, a solitary speaker who has descended into madness over the loss of his love, and a freaky bird that has flown inside and alighted on the banister. The speaker allows the raven's words (or the lunatic's imagined words of the raven) to be printed in the text...but how is Jack able to insert his own words when he is not the speaker of the poem? Thursday was not able to change Jane Eyre's narration from first person, and she could not have inserted her voice in place of Jane's, so how can Schitt do it? I have a mental image of him choking the poor speaker and forcing him to say those words...but that is a big stretch!

I think in general, the answer is 1) it's a big bloophole, but to remove it would make the story fall apart, and 2) since the story is all-important, and TEA is itself a story, any rule can be broken so long as it enhances the narrative.

In other words, Jasper screwed up, but we don't care because we love the book so much anyway!

Jack only inserted his own words into that edition, or rather that copy of The Raven, so the poem was changed by having him in it.

Being inside a poem is a little different from being inside a novel, because in Jane Eyre Thurs had to be careful to keep the plot essentially the same, although the words might be slightly different, whereas in The Raven it seemed to matter less that Jack Schitt changed the sense of what was being said, but he appeared to be forced to follow the poem's meter and rhyme scheme.

"Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves!"
- Alice in Wonderland



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Metaphors be with you!

True, although in a poem it's pretty much ALL about the words, so I'd think it would be even more vital to keep the words the same that it is in a novel.

On the other hand, I don't think Jack really cares about preserving the words, and Thursday could probably butcher Jane Eyre just as much if she wanted to.

And that's a good point, that Jack is in only one copy of the poem, whereas Thursday is in the manuscript of Jane Eyre, so anything she does will affect every copy.

I thought of that (that it's only a copy of The Raven) b/c my first thought was "Oh, no! He screwed up The Raven"! :) And it was a pretty awful screw up - it's one thing to insert your own thing into poetry, but to insert something that poorly written...I guess that was appropriate b/c Jack Schitt did not seem a very literate/poetic man, and it was definitely his voice we were hearing.

I agree with MuseSusan that it was a bit of a screwup. It did not in any way ruin the book for me - I still loved it - but I do wish that one part had been left out. Or that Jack's words had been more seamlessly integrated into the poem. From what I have read on the fforum, TN readers are intelligent enough to have grasped something a little more subtle!

Right, it's all about intentions. Thursday wanted to preserve the literature, Schitt did not. I just thought it was interesting that in a poem, unlike a prose novel, a visitor (Jack Schitt) was constrained to speaking (and thinking?) in the original meter. When Thurs and Acheron were in Jane Eyre they could basically do whatever, it was only the characters and setting that remained unchanged.



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Metaphors be with you!

<oops, got a SPOILER in here, thanks for the hint, Muse>

I'm thinking this may be enforced by the imagino-transference process. After all, when what Schitt gets into (and Polly earlier) is the scenery of a poem, where does the handling of the language come from? From the viewpoint of their subjects, poetic language sets a restriction to what they can say (or think). Only the work of the author and the apreciation and understanding of the reader turns this into an inherent part of the creation.

Following this thought the imagino-transference must obviously be confined to the meter...Schitts lines would have had to be better otherwise...

And to the original question: I imagine Schitt is so enraged and crying out in the background so loud that, all safeguards nonwithstanding, he gets through. Think of a live TV scene on the street where someone in the back of the reporter is making all sorts of faces. He will not be heard, but certainly noticed.



Post Edited (06-15-06 11:50)

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(Bear in mind any mention of imagino-transference isn't until The Well of Lost Plots…)

I'd definitely say that Schitt's version of The Raven, though written in first person as if he's actually writing it, is not actually written by him. That is, he has nothing to do with the actual words that are used, but they reflect his own state of mind. (I could make a case that all the events of The Raven are actually happening inside the narrator's own head, and that therefore, anyone who enters the poem must necessarily be the narrator since there is nothing outside the narrator, but I won't.) At any rate, although the poem now reflects Schitt's own state of mind rather than that of the original narrator, it ought to be written in Poe's own style exactly.

Honestly, though, I am not at all distressed by the way Jasper seems to break his own rules here. He's written such a crazy, unpredictable world that the last thing I'd expect it to be is internally consistent.

Lost in a Good Book spoiler ahead, sort of:

I am reading that one now (and loving it, by the way...) and I just ran across something that sort of addresses this issue. Page 182, in the Jurisfiction library the Chesire Cat tells Thursday there are some places you should not go and "Edgar Allan Poe is one of them. His books are not fixed; there is a certain 'otherness' that goes with them. Most of Macabre Gothic fiction tends to be like that...go into those and you may 'never' come out - they have a way of 'weaving' you into the story, and before you know it you're stuck there."

So maybe the fact that The Raven is a Macabre Gothic piece explains JS's strange stanza being inserted into the text?

I am LOVING this discussion. Can I clone some of you and insert you into desks in my literature classes? I wish some of my students were this keen to discuss the fine points of books!

*applauds*
Well spotted, and a perfect explanation.... almost as if Jasper had put it in on purpose. It explains why both the text of the poem, and Jacks own mentallity was changed.

Rob



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That statement is either so deep it would take a lifetime to fully comprehend every particle of its meaning, or it is a load of absolute tosh. Which is it, I wonder?
Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

Hooray - I got applause! <takes a bow>
I was glad to see something that indicates "not a bloophole". I defended Jasper to my bookclub naysayers when they were trying to poke holes in his time travel theories, so when the Poe thing came to me I was desperately looking for a defense of that too! :)

But you did notice that daffodils don't bloom in summer, right?

Check out the Book Upgrades center for some things that really are bloopholes.

Who was it who wrote:

'A desire for consistency is the hob goblin of little minds.'?

I read this over 1000 paydays ago, so I may have the words wrong but the essence is still there.

If pressed I would say that the case that Jack is in the mind of the poet, and is not in the manuscript of the Raven, whereas Thursday was in the manuscript, in association with Gothic variability, that is almost quantum like (Thoughts of Ridcully) would allow enough leeway to explain the differences.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

A picture is worth a thousand words. A chocolate is worth a thousand pictures.

Wilde said that "Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative" is that the quote you're thinking of?

I think the quote Colchester girl gave on 15 June gives us everything we need:

Quote:

Lost in a Good Book spoiler ahead, sort of:
I am reading that one now (and loving it, by the way...) and I just ran across something that sort of addresses this issue. Page 182, in the Jurisfiction library the Chesire Cat tells Thursday there are some places you should not go and "Edgar Allan Poe is one of them. His books are not fixed; there is a certain 'otherness' that goes with them. Most of Macabre Gothic fiction tends to be like that...go into those and you may 'never' come out - they have a way of 'weaving' you into the story, and before you know it you're stuck there."

The other issue is that Thursday *could* have popped out and said the password in one of the scenes, but that would have changed every copy of the book (because they were in the original manuscript) and Thursday didn't want to do that.
On the other hand Jack had no desire to protect the work, the fact that it was a copy, not the original, and the weird effects the Cat mentioned may have made it more mallable.

Rob

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That statement is either so deep it would take a lifetime to fully comprehend every particle of its meaning, or it is a load of absolute tosh. Which is it, I wonder?
Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."

The quote is by Ralph Waldo Emerson from the essay "Self-Reliance" (1841)

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My computer beat me at chess, but I won at kickboxing

Another LIAGB spoiler:




When Thursday does get back to rescue Jack Schitt from The Raven, he's tied up the narrator and completely taken over the poem. This may explain why his thoughts make up the poem, rather than the narrator's. Also, @#$%& reprints (Miss Havisham's words, not mine) may be more vulnerable to change.