Kevin's Watch

well, here we are at the beginning. thanks, everyone for joining us.
please proceed with your commentary, interpretations, and insights
in any manner you choose. this is my first close reading of a Donaldson
series and i have only glanced at other dissections once or twice.
i am admittedly a novice so forgive any gaffs in my presentation and please don't feel inhibited or constrained in the presentation of yours.
all are welcome in discussion.

and without further ado...




The Gap into Conflict: The Real Story - Chpt 1


Most of the crowd at Mallorys Bar & Sleep over in Delta Sector had no idea what was really going on. As far as they were concerned, it was just another example of animal passion, men and women driven together by lust--the kind of thing everybody understood, or at least dreamed about. The only uncommon feature was that in this case the passion included some common sense. Only a few people knew there was more to it.


And so Stephen R Donaldson begins the saga that is The Gap Cycle with "The Gap into Conflict: The Real Story."

It's supposed, by some, that a good writer tells you how to read the story in the first few sentences. If that be the case, Donaldson has told us, before we even meet the first character, to reverse our expectations. sort of contradictory ideas, passion and common sense. reversal of expectations in the language.

As if the title and the last line of the paragraph weren't enough to signify that nothing is what it seems, the narrator sits down in our living room and gets really close really quick with his assertions on human nature. passion and animal lust -- the kind we all know about. universal knowledge.
and we don't even know who is telling the story,
but we know it's going to get "intimate" quickly and we'd better be comfortable for whatever comes after.
("the real story" signifying the seamy underbelly of something.
i'm guessing lust and animal passion. heh.)

and here i have to comment that i was having a conversation about just this thing with a friend and i wondered about Donaldson's penchant for getting the sex right up front and on the table the first thing, in a story.(rape of lena, terisa's eremis lust)
its a theme i'm interested in exploring in this close reading of this work in particular.
i was saying, to my friend, that there could be any number of reasons why an author would do it. Either the story is blatantly about it, or its inconsequential in some way and the author wants to get it "out of the way" so to speak.
then again, it could just be "the gun."
you know the gun thing right?
pull it out in the first scene if you're gonna use it.

since Donaldson gets it in the first paragraph, where he's already indicated things are not what every body in Mallorys thinks they are, i'd guess that

#1 - we, the audience, are everybody in Mallorys, and
#2 - the story is not about the sex.

if tone is an indicator, that first paragraph just turns on the tv set and waits for us to get comfortable on the couch and BAM!

there we are in DelSec, surrounded by, as he says, "Laidover miners, discredited asteroid pilots, drunks and dreamers...- the people who either didn't fit or weren't welcome in Alpha..."

and then he begins to tell it.

"for them the story was basically simple."

and once again, soon there after, reversal. morn and angus who "called attention to themselves because they obviously didn't belong together."

and who is first in character "birth order" ?
Morn Hyland, beauty. Angus Thermopyle, beast.
elsewhere Donaldson tells us that Angus truly came first, as a mantra, then Morn, compelling him to write their story, conspicuous in their disparity.
and lastly, Nick Succorso, the most desirable man in DelSec.

and a camera pan...what the observers see.

their eyes meet across the room.
one beauty. and one attractive pirate.
lust and common sense.
not likely.
"their charged flesh drew them together"

and then they left the bar, "to become the kind of story drunks and dreamers told each other early in the morning, wheN Mallorys was quiet and the thin alloy walls, seemed safe against the hard vacuum of space and the luring madness of...the gap."

alrighty then, Mr. Donaldson,
reverse my expectations.
tell me a ripping yarn.
tell me,
what's the real story?

Damn, I love the intro to this book. The idea that what we're seeing, while a story, is not the real story.

As LuciMay says, its a set-up. And we know that its a set-up. We just don't know who is being set-up or why.

A stronger read-and-find-out intro I cannot think of.

--A

Donaldson does lure you into this story. I love the onion-peeling effect.

There's a lot I want to say ... but the first chapter isn't the place. I wanna save it for a few chapters.

Lucimay wrote:pull it out in the first scene if you're gonna use it.

I think I know why Donaldson always fires that weapon right away. It's because he writes about consequences, how people live with the consequences, how they overcome the consequences, how they redeem themselves from the consequences. Character's story arcs are all about their facing themselves and their own actions and overcoming. So... it's gotta happen soon if we want to start having consequences.

- - - - - -

Why is it Mallorys, with no apostrophe, anyway? Is it not a Bar and Sleep belonging to one "Mallory"?

Wayfriend wrote:Donaldson does lure you into this story. I love the onion-peeling effect.

There's a lot I want to say ... but the first chapter isn't the place. I wanna save it for a few chapters.

Lucimay wrote:pull it out in the first scene if you're gonna use it.

I think I know why Donaldson always fires that weapon right away. It's because he writes about consequences, how people live with the consequences, how they overcome the consequences, how they redeem themselves from the consequences. Character's story arcs are all about their facing themselves and their own actions and overcoming. So... it's gotta happen soon if we want to start having consequences.

- - - - - -

Why is it Mallorys, with no apostrophe, anyway? Is it not a Bar and Sleep belonging to one "Mallory"?

ahhhh. thank you! thats exactly what i was looking for.
consequences. of course. see. i'm dense. i should've got that.
you're dead on, way. same thing with the gun then huh. consequences.
gotcha.
really. i'm sorry to effuse but i just really needed to understand that inclination.
if it was a snake it woulda bit me, as my daddy used to say.

hahaha! you CHECKED on me didn't ya!! with the apostrophe!!
i knew someone would!!! i hadda look twice when i was typing the quote!

Donaldson considers rape the worst form of evil a person can do to someone. So when he wants to burden a character with seemingly insurmountable consequences, he has them rape someone.

No, Donaldon spells it with no apostrophe in the book. (At least, my copy.) Is there a grammar rule I don't know about? Does this mean something?

Luci, that really was fantastic. I can tell you put some time and thought into your post. The flow, the structure, the quotes you use to illustrate your points. How you reach back to the essay at the end to illuminate the hints at the beginning. Good job!

You make an excellent point about SRD bringing the sex up early, combined with his explicit directions that we must dig deeper. You're right: sex isn't the real story. In the essay, he talks about the difference between drama and melodrama. Sex in stories is inherently melodramatic. The way we romanticize it, fantasize about it, and use it as a way to draw "natural" connections between people who normally wouldn't be connected--these are inherently melodramatic contrivances. It's too easy to say that people are driven together out of animal lust (even though we often are); too easy to call this merely natural. Sure, it's natural. But the way we twist this passion into something unnatural is, at least in part, The Real Story. We are animals. But we're more than animals. We are animals aware of our animal passions; though this awareness doesn't imply understanding of those passions. If anything, this awareness brings about the very confusion, heartbreak, and perversions that wring the natural beauty out of this natural, physical connection. And boy, are we going to see that firsthand! We conscious animals use sex as power, as illusion, as revenge, as diversion, as protection against the solipsistic void of ourselves.

Wow, Malik, tell us how you REALLY feel about sex....

Excellent posts everyone. Donaldson really does a different setting of the stage style in the Gap series compared to his other works.

Cameraman Jenn wrote:Wow, Malik, tell us how you REALLY feel about sex....

Well, that's what I thought Donaldson was trying to say. And agreeing to an extent . . . but this is a book about how people do all the things I mentioned above--specifically how Morn, Nick, and Angus do these things.

A stronger read-and-find-out intro I cannot think of.

me neither, Av.

In [u]The Real Story[/u] was wrote:In contrast, he was dark and disreputable, probably the most disreputable man who still had docking-rights at the Station. His swarthy features were broad and stretched, a frog-face with stiff whiskers and streaks of grease. Between his powerful arms and scrawny legs, his middle bulged like a tire, inflated with bile and malice.

So, "swarthy" is code for black, right? Angus is a black man.

Based on the many casting conversations I've had here at the watch, I'm not too sure too many people noticed that. Heck, I didn't even notice it until my third reading.

Does this make a difference? Is Donaldson like Stephen Colbert, he doesn't "see color"? Or is this part of a subtle, deeper aspect to the story?

And why is it overlooked (if indeed it is)? There are other black characters in the GAP, and for the most part that seems to stick.

I've always understood swarthy to refer more to Middle-Eastern / Israeli / Indian peoples, but not blacks.

what?! swarthy is code for black?????

i so totally didn't know what that word meant and have been
reading it wrong for eighteen kajillion years!!!!! think of all the
black characters i've missed!!!
holy shit. i may have to read eighteen kajillion books again!!
dudes!!!


swarthy

adjective
naturally having skin of a dark color; "a dark-skinned beauty"; "gold earrings gleamed against her dusky cheeks"; "a smile on his swarthy face"; "'swart' is archaic"



oh man. why'd he DO that???? crap crap crap.
nooooooooooooo. Angus. black angus. cow. noooooooooooo.

Merriam Webster wrote:black
2 a : having dark skin, hair, and eyes : SWARTHY

Yes, Lucimay. The overtones that this throws over the upcoming chapters is almost appalling.

I find it hard to believe that Donaldson didn't consider this. And I also find it hard to believe that he considered it, and decided that this would not muddle the issue for readers in an unintended manner.

Black Angus: now THAT I had not noticed!

Swarthy doesn't mean he is black. He could have olive toned skin and still be considered swarthy. He's just not pasty pale germanic derived white like I am.

I agree to that technically. But then again, I've found the term used a lot in literature as a less gauche way of saying "black man" often enough. (Hence: code)

Ok, well I don't believe he is a black man. I think he just isn't lily white like me.

i guess there's only one thing to do.

(no cheating jenn)


off to the GI...

What if I already cheated?

ok

this is all i found. no one has actually asked if angus is black and i didn't feel it necessary to ask after i found this.

SRD in the GI wrote:Sigourney Weaver would be good at Sorus Chatelaine--but she would also handle Min Donner well. Personally, I would prefer Anthony Hopkins for Vector Shaheed--that is, if he refuses to play Warden Dios. I think there are several black actors who would be good at Dolph Ubikwe--but the names I want have suddenly fallen out of my head (except for the always stellar Morgan Fairchild). And of course who but Vin Diesel could play Angus?

I already sent the email asking so it's too late. I'll post his response when he sends it.