[Dragaera] ryhme or reason?

[Steve Rapaport]

In addition to Philip's great analysis of this question, I should just add
that it's a very unusual book indeed these days that is told entirely in
chronological order, skipping nothing, without flashbacks or foreshadowing.

Likewise, if Vlad told each of these books as a long anecdote, he would also
be in good company if he told them in a fashion designed for maximum
dramatic impact, rather than simple chronology.  Dragon tells the story of
Vlad's role in Pathfinder's rediscovery.   Some parts of that are in the
past, some skip around a bit.  That's life.

I have to wonder what kind of books Tom normally reads that makes these
books seem so unusual.

Steve the Younger

2008/10/27 Philip Hart <philiph at slac.stanford.edu>

>
>
> On Mon, 27 Oct 2008, inuyashadontask at aim.com wrote:
>
>  The question is, Is there a reason to disorganized chronical pubilcation.
>>
>
> Writ large, SKZB tells the story that is of interest to Him and sets
> it at the appropriate stage(s) of Vlad's life.  Vlad might also choose
> to tell stories from his life out of order for various reasons which
> we haven't much explored here.  Etc. etc.
>
> Writ small, individual Texts occasionally concern several related threads,
> or can be more suspensefully told out of simple chronological order;
> presumably this shows Vlad's sophisticated sense of narrative (arising from
> Dragaeran and/or Eastern models), or reflects a whim on
> the part of the Translator. Possibly related to the "sophisticated Vlad"
> interpretation is Vlad's apparent evolution into something approaching the
> divine, as we see in his multithreading in _Issola_; also possibly related
> is the gods' maybe nonlinear perception of time, or just Devera's.  The
> anachronism of Vlad telling stories in ways affected by his latter growth
> might be simply resolved by noting that nonlinearity in time could mean
> preechoes.
>
> ExtraTextually I think SKZB has mentioned finding straight-forward
> narrative to be constraining or tiresome if unvaried.
>
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-- 
\Steve