THE DEEP ONES: "A Fine Show on the Abyssal Plain" by Karen Tidbeck

"A Fine Show on the Abyssal Plain" by Karin Tidbeck.

Discussion begins December 21.

First published in the April 2013 issue of Lightspeed.



ONLINE VERSIONS

http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/a-fine-show-on-the-abyssal-plain/

BIBLIOGRAPHY

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1579690

SELECTED PRINT VERSIONS

The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2014

MISCELLANY

http://www.karintidbeck.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karin_Tidbeck
http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/articles/the-swedish-invasion-an-intervie...
http://www.unboundworlds.com/2012/10/special-to-suvudu-jeff-vandermeer-interview...
http://tinyurl.com/z24lzlj

Online for me.

The author's name is Karin Tidbeck, not Karen. The first syllable sounds like "car".

>3 AndreasJ:

Fixed in #1. I'll see if I can get the subject line changed.

Online for me, as well.

>4 semdetenebre:

Thanks.

Since the story is entered as a work into LT, I'll just take the opportunity to touchstone it here: A Fine Show on the Abyssal Plain

The guerrilla theater premise put me strongly in mind of Delany's Triton, and the "Abyssal Plain" play narrative reminded me both of The King in Yellow (the play) and--in its first iteration at least--a little of The Hymn of the Pearl.

Bringing in Ada at the end highlighted the question of what, exactly, these players might be, by juxtaposing them with someone who seems to be a comprehensible human being of our period and capabilities. They clearly have an order of rank from the Director at the top, through Nestor and Journeyman to Apprentice at the bottom. I was given to wonder if they weren't component intelligences externalized from a single entity.

Conversely, I wondered if Vivi/Apprentice is being recruited at the start, that act of recruitment then being worked into the play. That scene, BTW, has a hint that Vivi may be Swedish - the mention of ones, a fiver, and a golden ten fits Swedish coinage. (The name fits too, being the usual short form of Vivianne.)

Despite the clearly supernatural nature of the troupe, their plays deal with human affairs and human-style fable. That suggests to me that either they're of human origin, or the universe they inhabit is strongly human-centric.

Hm. I like the idea of "recruitment" for the first section of the story, so that Vivi is made into "Apprentice," and only retroactively considers her prior identity to have been an assumed role. In any case, the reader is being recruited as the audience which Apprentice repeatedly doubts.

I can see why you nominated this story. Impressive as it is on first read, it seems like one that might require some discussion to bring out the real meat of the thing.

The play theme of "Abyssal Plain" reminded me of the Norse Myth in which Thor wrestles with the World Serpent. The endlessness nature of the play ties in well with the idea of the World Serpent itself, as well as with the ambiguity (as I understand it) of just what the outcome of the wrestling match is: is it world's end, as prophesy promised? Does Thor successfully keep the World Serpent at bay for another period of time?

The troupe also reminds me of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern of course.

I like this one quite a bit, but agree it'll take considerable discussion to tease out more of it.

I feel I haven't got under the skin of this one.

A superficial thought: it did seem to be quite meta or self-referential because it "seemed to be about" (i.e. at least partly about or using as a springboard) the act of creating fiction: where do plots/stories come from; where do fictional characters come from; what is their relation to their creator; what is the point of artistic creation (is it for an audience, are we that audience (when a character says they can hear the audience, is it us that they can hear? Is that breaking the fourth wall like in a Grant Morrison comic book))?