Group Read: Arcadia Part 2, Chapters 12-22

Here we go with part 2.

Do you want the character list again?

This isn't the cover on my book, but I like it -

>1 Bookmarque: I have that cover. It's cooler in real life because the rotated 'L' shape is actually a cutout through the front.

Having now read through chapter 22, I had to go back and re-read that first meeting between Jay and Scholar Henary. Chapter 22 20 kinda blew my mind a bit... ;)

EtA: Pics...

  

>2 ScoLgo: Now I wish I remembered what happened in 22! I'm up to 33. Tomorrow I'll try to go back and look.

I’m just at 22 but haven’t read it yet. It is all starting to bend and fold in on itself. The timeline is rather wonderful in how we can’t quite reconcile which is past, present and future. Rather snakey like Andrea’s theory of how time works.

>3 clamairy: I'm sorry, the part I was talking about is in Chapter 20, not 22 and is Henary's perspective on the first time meeting Jay, (chapter 5 was Jay's perspective of that meeting). Seeing it from Henary's point of view completely changed the frame of reference, much like the literary equivalent of a 3D stereogram.

I don't think that was too spoilery but best to err on the side of caution, eh?

>2 ScoLgo: Oh that is cool. I wish the American publishers had done something like that.

>5 ScoLgo: Ah, right! Yes, that was eye opening. I am enjoying this, though I certainly wouldn't call it an easy read.

I am finding Angela's narrations hilarious. It seems as if the further I get into the book the funnier they get.

P 88 Chapter 13 - so they induce a forced pregnancy to harness the emotional spikes needed to make Angela’s abilities sharper and greater? How revolting indeed. Later, Jack More is sent to find and talk to the grown up baby that came from this. What the heck for? She was thrown away like garbage. Bleah.

P 108 Ch. 16 - Poor Jay having the scales fall from his eyes about The Story. Is the Bible/Koran/Talmud connection too much at this point? Still keeps me thinking about the Record and that which Objectively So.

P 110 Ch. 16 - now Chang’s distress is more clear - he really should have kept that sponge cake down.

I love how people across all of the timelines resemble each other for different reasons. Dead ringers.

So Pamarchon says that Rosie speaks in the old dialect. Hm. Just how circular is this timeline? We associate agrarian trappings as strictly ancient, but are they? Strikes me as they are a baseline, a starting point, sure and possibly a holding pattern until high tech takes over again, but could they also be a renewal scenario? A way of life that people return to because it’s so ingrained, comfortable and soothing? A place to recharge and reset? Why doesn’t it stick even though it seems we cycle through it over and over?

Is Persimmon’s tedious book Angela’s original world? Seems like the same bleak authoritarianism.

P 147 Ch 19 - Yup, Henary wants Jay to be rebellious. Is counting on it.

My brain hurts. The opening scenes of the Anterwold narrative is some ancient document in that timeline. It’s in some barely readable language and Henary wants to keep it secret so it doesn't become a mystical object/text for the woo-woo crowd.

On page 160 - is A referring to Dark Matter?

>2 ScoLgo: This is the same as my copy. A lovely book with the door ajar to another world at the front.

Oh man I’m slow! It wasn’t until chapter 17 that I realised Henary = Henry and Ossenfud = Oxford

Is Persimmon’s tedious book Angela’s original world? Seems like the same bleak authoritarianism.
I’ve just wondered the same thing!

And now, in chapter 19, I’m thinking that Pears himself is able to move through time like his characters. Volkov’s (fake) reason for wanting to come to the UK is “I want to see Salisbury cathedral”. Arcadia was published in 2015. In 2018 two Russians were accused of poisonings in Salisbury. The reason they gave as their defence for being there was “to see the cathedral”. There are so many similarities here that it’s spooky!

Oh that is creepy!

>8 Bookmarque: & >10 Sakerfalcon:
Is Persimmon’s tedious book Angela’s original world? Seems like the same bleak authoritarianism.

I thought that too.

Persimmon is someone I reckoned was to play a serious part later in the story. Do not read the next bit until you have finished the book.
I thought Persimmon was going to turn out to be Oldmanter.

>13 pgmcc: Yeah, I figured that is was as well. So much fun!

I've now run into Henary seven times. I'm wondering if he'll burst into song the next time. (Sorry! This is how my mind reacts to being blown.)

>15 Jim53: Haha! If only Pears had named the hermit Herman instead of Jaqui! ;-)

>15 Jim53: & >16 ScoLgo: Bwahaha!

I came across this article today while wasting time instead of reading. It sounds like the beginning of what might lead to Angela's thinking.