Bakker LVII

[Darth Richard II]

26 minutes ago, Triskele said:

It's a Bakker thread.  No need to hold back one's vocabulary.

Yeah but reality has me feeling subdued. 

[Darth Richard II]

14 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

I suppose this won't make sense until I finish the second set of books, will it? (I've only read the original trilogy.)

It’s hard to describe without getting into really detailed spoilers but the gist is all most all the major plot threads lead to no where and Bakker said in an interview that all the hints and foreshadowing and layers of revelation was made up bullshit to make us think stuff had meaning when it didn’t. Basically all the theorizing in here  for years was us looking at random made up crap thinking it meant something and then finding out Bakker was trolling us. 

[IlyaP]

14 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

Basically all the theorizing in here  for years was us looking at random made up crap thinking it meant something and then finding out Bakker was trolling us. 

To be fair to the creative process - stories do change in the telling. (I recall William Gibson talking about the development of Spook Country, where the novel proposal ended up being quite different from what he eventually turned in to his publisher.)

From what you've told me in the past re: this board, Bakker's communications to readers, and the managing of expectations, things did not get handled very well from a comms perspective.  

 

[Garlan the Gallant]

This post is mainly for Werthead. I enjoyed his summary of the series a lot on his blog, though it would be nice if he covered the latest book as well.

[Darth Richard II]

14 hours ago, IlyaP said:

To be fair to the creative process - stories do change in the telling. (I recall William Gibson talking about the development of Spook Country, where the novel proposal ended up being quite different from what he eventually turned in to his publisher.)

From what you've told me in the past re: this board, Bakker's communications to readers, and the managing of expectations, things did not get handled very well from a comms perspective.  

 

Imagine if in Return of the Jedi the whole thing about Vader being Luke's dad was just never brought up or mentioned again and in a post film interview Lucas said "oh we just put that in empire to fuck with you and make you think it meant something".

[Larry of the Lawn]

15 hours ago, Triskele said:

I had not touched a Bakker tome in some time and somehow picked up The Unholy Consult and reread much of the final act.

I couldn't help but reflect on thinking how one element of this ending worked brilliantly which was the whole golden room confrontation between Kellhus and the Dunsult.  I thought it was a great sequence in how Mek is so confident that the Inverse Fire will work like always but then doesn't, the Dunsult then reveal themselves and are still sure they can convince Kellhus to join their cause, but then can't convince him.  But not because Kellhus has decided to save humanity or anything but has come up with a comparably sinister side-stepping of the Consult's whole goal throughout the whole series.  That every bit of logic the Dunsult had employed would have checked out with Kellhus except that no one understood that the other path of the Gnosis could be taken so far as to more or less become one with Hell and not be so threatened by it.  That ending right there is to me a pretty damn satisfying conclusion to that arc (no pun intended).

It's just so much else that disappoints.  The Serwa v. dragon scene quite awful, maybe one of Bakker's worst moments.  Then it's all the other threads that don't get any conclusions like nothing more on the Nonmen after the great setting from the previous book, nothing more with the Judging Eye, etc...

I did chuckle at one thought and don't recall if this has been brought up before:  Kellhus/Ajokli explodes one of the five Dunsult, so there are four.  If the story goes on presumably they must make sure that the job gets finished this time and enough of the souls in the three seas are killed an all that.  So they'd be like...the four Dunsult of the Apocalypse?  wonder how deliberate that was / will be.  

ETA:  We never got any explanation whatsoever on which if any faiths get damned or not damned based on their faith, did we?  And Meppa character with zero significance still blows me away.  

@IlyaP

Don't read this.

 

 

 

 

The Dunsult reveal was awesome and we all should have seen it coming a mile away.  Love the Golden Room scene, and I re-read it once after it was suggested in the AMA that maybe Shae was controlling the Dunyain.  Not sold on that theory.  Then re-read entire TUC again at the beginning of quarantine.  I think the arc that stands up best in the second series is Sorwheel's.  Achamian and Mimara's story had so much promise and I think the abandoning of the entire JE as anything more than a novelty was what really chapped my ass on the ending.  

I hope Bakker makes a pile of money somehow and is able to support himself writing someday.  Dude has a hell of a creative mind and would love for him to revisit Earwa, even if it's just some more atrocity tales or Crabicus eating sranc out in the woods.  

I also read "The Carathayan" recently, which is a joke compared to "The Knife of Many Hands" and especially "The False Sun".  If Bakker was ever going to crowd fund (and I know he's said he wouldn't be interested) I'd be throw down some $ up front on a bunch for Earwan short fiction. 

I wonder if the guy that put out the Evil is A Matter of Perspective collection could pull that off.

 

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, Garlan the Gallant said:

This post is mainly for Werthead. I enjoyed his summary of the series a lot on his blog, though it would be nice if he covered the latest book as well.

I have, although I think I only updated the PDF, not the web articles.

[Werthead]

16 hours ago, Triskele said:

It's just so much else that disappoints.  The Serwa v. dragon scene quite awful, maybe one of Bakker's worst moments.  Then it's all the other threads that don't get any conclusions like nothing more on the Nonmen after the great setting from the previous book, nothing more with the Judging Eye, etc...

I think the Serwa v Dragon scene was actually very good in terms of the setup and the actual battle. The dialogue during the scene was major cringe, obviously, but the actual fight was good.

I think it was part of the problem that Serwa was a mishandled character through the final series. She's barely in The Judging Eye, has a kind of background supporting role in White Luck Warrior and then rather abruptly becomes a badass in the final two books with her own POVs etc. I think if Bakker had her as a more constant presence through the four books it would help a lot, especially since she's the sanest (relatively) and most relatable of his kids.

I think the book - and the whole series - also suffered from Bakker not knowing if the third series is going ahead, otherwise I suspect certain storylines (like the Judging Eye) would have been jettisoned if he knew there would have been no third series, or if he 100% knew there was, that would be a bit clearer. I think PoN had this issue as well, where it's really unclear if the gods are real or not, and then five seconds into AE it's abruptly clear that yes, they are real and have real power, whereas Bakker could have set that up much better in the first season but apparently didn't because he didn't know if there would be a second series.

[Kalbear]

I think that's a big problem of the second series in general. 

In the first series, every character with a major PoV gets a fairly substantive, interesting arc with a lot of twists and turns along the way. Conphas doesn't get a ton of screentime, but he also doesn't get a massive plot either so it's okay and his ending is fun in a just desserts kind of way. But Akka, Cnaiur, Esme and Kellhus all get good screentime and resolution. (Okay, maybe not Esme, but the rest).

Whereas here we get Psatma who gets an incredibly shitty resolution overall, Sorweel with a fairly boring arc for half the series, Serwa completely sidelined, Kelmomas doing weird shit and being sidelined in the last book, and Akka and Mimara do basically nothing in the entire last book. The most consequential person is a head on Kellhus' belt in the final book. Kellhus not being a PoV aside from a couple of weird pomo chapters in book 3 was a problem, especially when his whole arc revolves around his slowly descending into madness and psychological possession across 4 books. 

Ultimately the second series revolved too heavily on the conclusion being satisfying and the mysteries being resolved in a great way instead of the story itself being particularly great. That's not just on Kellhus, mind you - Psatma opposing Kellhus because he's Ajokli would have been better hinted at elsewhere too. Kelmomas being hinted as the No-God would have been better. Mimara having fewer hints as being the prophecied one or whatever she was would also have been better, given the lame payoff. 

[IlyaP]

3 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

Imagine if in Return of the Jedi the whole thing about Vader being Luke's dad was just never brought up or mentioned again and in a post film interview Lucas said "oh we just put that in empire to fuck with you and make you think it meant something".

I...really wouldn't care? I don't have any real emotional investment in Star Wars. But I get your point, and it is taken. That would probably be frustrating to not have it followed-up on, given the narrative weight it held.

[Darth Richard II]

15 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

I...really wouldn't care? I don't have any real emotional investment in Star Wars. But I get your point, and it is taken. That would probably be frustrating to not have it followed-up on, given the narrative weight it held.

Not just not followed up on, completely ignored.

[IlyaP]

1 hour ago, Darth Richard II said:

Not just not followed up on, completely ignored.

Now that right there is some sadistic entertainment! 

[sologdin]

Bakker said in an interview that all the hints and foreshadowing and layers of revelation was made up bullshit to make us think stuff had meaning when it didn’t

i don't see why we should care about RSB's extratextual statements about the novels; we can disagree with his interpretations, and, even were we fully in the grip of an unsophisticated intentional fallacy, we know his extratextual statements at times are unreliable, either by design or by being overcome by events.  he can say something lacks meaning--but that's comically, arrogantly false if readers have ascribed significance to it; this is an attempt by an author to monopolize the interpretation of the text; he can't undo the readers' judgment by saying that he didn't put that in there so therefore it was not taken out--it's a container metaphor of literacy that is inaccurate.

[Kalbear]

The problem with that, solo, is that not only did he say that it did not have any meaning, he specifically stated that it was designed to feel like it had meaning in order to deceive. One can attempt to find meaning in a lot of things when it isn't intended specifically as an allegory, but that's not the same as deliberately putting in things that make you search for meaning. 

At least it is to me. 

[Darth Richard II]

Well, even if you want to go by the whole death of the author thing...you end up with a good 3/4th of the plotlines being dropped and going no where and an ending that makes little sense.

[IlyaP]

1 hour ago, Darth Richard II said:

Well, even if you want to go by the whole death of the author thing...you end up with a good 3/4th of the plotlines being dropped and going no where and an ending that makes little sense.

Rocks fall, everybody dies? It was all a dream? Maggie shot Burns? Ronald D. Moore appears alongside a few cylons?

[Rhom]

27 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

Rocks fall, everybody dies? It was all a dream? Maggie shot Burns? Ronald D. Moore appears alongside a few cylons?

Sauron wins

[Darth Richard II]

2 hours ago, IlyaP said:

Rocks fall, everybody dies? It was all a dream? Maggie shot Burns? Ronald D. Moore appears alongside a few cylons?

That is WAY more spot on then you would think.

[Larry of the Lawn]

TAE has some insanely good moments.  The first two books are fucking awesome, and the second two are really close.  It is difficult to reconcile expectations as a reader with the final product, regardless of what Bakker has said.  Specifically his comments about reading Delillo and his work being the opposite are easily dismissed as him trolling.  I also wonder about how TAE would have been different if he'd had the same editorial staff all the way through.  For all the jumping around and as much as I generally didn't give a shit about the Momemn storylines TJE is a pretty tight book, and so is the TWLW.  

When I did the reread I was more impressed by the last two books than the first time through, and it didn't seem like it would have taken much to clean them up.  Of course, I know absolutely zilch about writing or editing.  Also if anyone wants to crowdfund me to make some cunuroi inspired overlayed sculpture out of live stone in some assholes wine cellar, as depicted in TJE, please let me know.   Would love to quit my day job.

[Darth Richard II]

I don't know shit about editing either but I imagine the 4 chapters or so of people fucking corpses could be cut.