Persuade me to read The Darkness that comes before

[sologdin]

inconceivable!

[Darth Richard II]

Ha! Good one.

[Callan S.]

I lent the book to someone and he was having trouble with all the names and organisations.

I said you really don't have to get it all on the first try - it's okay to read it a second or even a third time after. I didn't. I mean it's basically built for multiple readings and if you're trying to digest it all on the very first go as if you need to save yourself readings, it's a bit of a false economy.

Basically just get swept away in the tumult of a holy war starting up. Granted, if you don't feel the tumult, okay - but I did - it's not hard to feel the mob forming throughout the story, as well as the migration of the mob.

Of course the author might be gunning for exactly that - that alot of complicated stuff could be driving it, but you'll miss it all in the moment of being swept along in the flow. But if you want to beat him at that game, you can't complain that he's set a hard task - either perservere or acknowledge defeat.

[Darth Richard II]

I love some of the rationalizing going on in here now that we have two, TWO people who haven't become super instant Bakker converts.

[Tears of Lys]

I love some of the rationalizing going on in here now that we have two, TWO people who haven't become super instant Bakker converts.

Are you serious? He's detested by large swaths of the populace.

[Jo498]

The tremas are diareses, not umlauts. (Bakker uses the same conventions as Tolkien in anglicising names from his made-up languages.)

Like, say, Fëanor.

Thanks! But one needs a diarese only if one would'nt know whether two vowels would be pronounced as one sound or not. How would "Kuniuri" be pronounced any differently without dots on the second "u"? It would always be roughly "Koo-nee-oo-ree", wouldn't it?

He should say before the name list in the end. So I suppose the c's are all k's except for the silent ones like in Cnaiur (= Nayoor)? That's how it is in Tolkien (except that there are no silent consonants there)

[Happy Ent]

How would "Kuniuri" be pronounced any differently without dots on the second "u"? It would always be roughly "Koo-nee-oo-ree", wouldn't it?

My guess is that Bakker uses the trema here to indicate /uː/ as in boot, instead of the myriad other ways that u can be pronounced in English. I’d have used ú for that.

The silent K in Cnaiür is a matter of much debate on this board. I think of Cnaiür’s name as starting with something like the velar nasal consonant /ŋ/ (in eng. sing [sɪŋ]) , at least that’s how I pronounce it in my head. This isn’t really silent (it’s different from /n/), but there is no obvious English FEIK-PROH-NAWN-SEE-AY-SHUN way of transliterating it.

Maybe (G)NAY-OOR?

[lokisnow]

ah how I hated, nay, loathed, the names the first time I read the series. I swore I'd never reread them because the names were too ridiculous.

well at least I still can't tell what the names of all the various races/peoples/cultures are. other than Scylvendi, I know they are the barbarian steppe people. And I'm reasonably certain I just spelled Scylvendi totally wrong, I don't think I've ever spelled it right. I generally just approximately guess when it comes to typing.

It was a big relief when I saw Sologdin adopt the convention of referring to everyone by the initials, thusly: DA, AK, CuS, NP, X, CS, E

&c, &c, &c

except I don't need to remember it for Serwe, she's got an easy to remember name.

Here's a guide to everything you need to remember for the first five books:

Three cities, listed North to South: Sumna (the same thing as Rome), Momemn (where the emperor lives), Shimeh (the same thing as Jerusalem, where the holy war and AK are both headed).

Everything else is functionally irrelevant and can be totally ignored, it's just flavoring.

three factions, from north to south: The pope (he's got some silly name like Shriah, but he's a Pope), The Emperor (really the heir Conphas is the important one on screen during the story, not the elderly butt sitting on the shiny chair), the Muslims (they have some name like Kianene or Cishaurim or other nonsense, but you can ignore all that).

three sorcerer schools, the first two are not affiliated with religion, the last one is:

Mandate = badass motherfuckers

Scarlet Spires = strength in numbers

Cishaurim = Muslim Sorcerers

There are other schools mentioned but they're all just window dressing and irrelevant.

Main characters:

Anasurimbor Kellhus - a monk

Drusas Achamian - a Mandate sorcerer

Esmenet - a whore

Serwe - A girl

Cnaiur urs Sciotha - a barbarian

Conphas - an heir to an empire

Supporting cast

Anasurimbor Moenghus - a father

Xinemas - a master at arms

Proyas - a zealot

Maithanet - a pope

That's about it, most of the rest isn't all that important.

Oh there is the Consult too, pay attention to those bits, but I don't need to summarize it, because it's pretty brief as it is.

[Jo498]

I think I am fairly good at names (got through all those big russian novels without much trouble), but Bakker really seems to have gone out of his way to make them really special.... To name two very similar (young handsome war-leaders) Proyas and Conphas wasn't a good move either, because I tended to confuse them as they have the same vowels in their names.

As the parallels with the first crusade have been pointed out, I also tend to bracket the names and think Shriah = Pope, Sumna= Rome, Momnem= Constantinople, Shimeh= Jerusalem. And the lost provinces of the Nansur Empire are basically modern Turkey and bits of Syria.

As for Cnaiur, I tend to agree with Happy Ent that it might be supposed to start with something like the ~n in Spanish. Still, the names and stuff are very pretentious altogether.

[Happy Ent]

locke, that’s a useful overview for newcomers.

Also, Shigek is Egypt, complete with a Nile delta and pyramids.

Everybody from the North of the Nansurium are Norse vikings, Picts, etc.

Think of Conphas’s army (the Columnaries) as Romans from Asterix. (They are probably byzantine, but I can’t tell the difference.)

The Shrial knights are the Templars.

The only large culture I don’t have a model for is the Eastern three seas, Ainon. Face mask, pleated beards, make-up, cultured. I’m always asking for somebody to post a link to some ancient culture that we can use as a model.

(I love the names, which RSB clearly has paid a lot of attention to. I really don’t understand the critcism. The books are not set in an English-speaking culture.)

[Happy Ent]

Edit: What I’m looking for is a simple mapping such as Ainon = ancient Babylon.

[The Marquis de Leech]

My guess is that Bakker uses the trema here to indicate /uː/ as in boot, instead of the myriad other ways that u can be pronounced in English. I’d have used ú for that.

The silent K in Cnaiür is a matter of much debate on this board. I think of Cnaiür’s name as starting with something like the velar nasal consonant /ŋ/ (in eng. sing [sɪŋ]) , at least that’s how I pronounce it in my head. This isn’t really silent (it’s different from /n/), but there is no obvious English FEIK-PROH-NAWN-SEE-AY-SHUN way of transliterating it.

Maybe (G)NAY-OOR?

I mentally pronounce Cnaiür as K-nye-oor. I know the C is supposed to be silent, but it just makes Bakker look like he's trying to pull off odd spelling for the sake of odd spelling, rather than a genuinely alien name.

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

1) The man's name is spelled Bakker. What we think of as non-standard English spellings should not be a huge surprise, even were he writing in an English-analogue language. (Though, having said that, I still always think 'Backer' rather than 'Baker', even though I know better.)

2) Nah, Kuniüri does not have to be Koo-nee-oo-ree, particularly without the diaeresis. Different vowels, different emphasis, different elision (or lack thereof) -- recordings and/or IPA would be best, but I think Bakker's been trying to find that balance between precision and accessibility. Arguably failing, but trying!

3) Try it. It's a remarkable series. It may or may not be to everyone's taste, nor will everyone think he's achieving what he wants (or what we think he wants), but it's worth getting from the library and testing out. However, it's also totally valid to simply not enjoy it.

[Happy Ent]

By the way, does anybody have the German translation? The translation of Tolkien, as far as I remember, correctly transliterates Feänor into Feanor. Does Eärwa become Earwa in the German translation (it should, otherwise the translator made a huge blunder.)

(Reminds me of German rock fans chanting Mötley Crüe, which is just ridiculous.)

[The Marquis de Leech]

By the way, does anybody have the German translation? The translation of Tolkien, as far as I remember, correctly transliterates Feänor into Feanor.

I don't know about the German translation of Bakker, but I can confirm that the translated Silmarillion turns Fëanor into Feanor, Finwë into Finwe, and Manwë into Manwe.

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

I don't have the translation, and it would be far beyond me anyway, but based on this review: No. Eärwa is still Eärwa, but Drusas is Drucas. (Then again, the reviewer could just be making mistakes -- this one has Serwe and Cnaiur, while other found pages use Earwa. Of course, so do some English reviews, which is laziness, so it's not definitive until someone can see the text.)

[Happy Ent]

You’re right, auntie. I found an excerpt at Klett-Cotta: http://www.klett-cotta.de/buch/Weitere_Autoren/Der_Prinz_aus_Atrithau/5570

It says Kûniüri. What a shame. Also, page 34 contains a list of other nations, which is really lazy. “Die Galeoth”? That doesn’t sound German. I’d have gone for “die Galeothen”. Ah, well…

[End of Disc One]

I lent the book to someone and he was having trouble with all the names and organisations.

This is what the appendix is for. A lot of people refuse to look at appendices, or maps, or a dramatis personae. I personally like looking at those things. The Darkness that Comes Before, Gardens of the Moon, A Game of Thrones...I had a lot of fun starting these books and trying to figure the world out with the help of the appendices.

[Weeping Sore]

Writers only ever write about things they love?

If you're saying that one can portray without condoning, you are absolutely right. However, the sexual dynamics just feel like a sincere (semi-repressed?) expression on the author's part, his descriptions of feminine beauty/ sexuality seem sort of vague compared to his rapture at phallic prowess and sperm. But that doesn't have to be a deal-breaker, and I'll admit Bakker's got a lot more to offer. The real reason I stopped reading is Kellhus. I like Akka, but A. Kellhus does not seem believable and the superficial resemblence to the author (tall, long curly blonde hair) seems too much like narcissistic wish-fulfillment to me (an alternate universe where superior intelligence = being invincible, irresistable to the ladies and having the world at your knees).

As for the pronunciations, I actually listened to the Audible version of The Warrior Prophet, which cleared things up. (The recap at the beginning alone covers most of the names, not sure if you can get an excerpt for free.)

ETA: maybe the homoerotic overtones I'm ascribing to Bakker's work here are more accurately narcisisstic-onanistic.

[Darth Richard II]

Are you serious? He's detested by large swaths of the populace.

I wasn't really serious. :P I just find some of the Bakker love on this board to be amusing/annoying, and it was late at night.