Monthly Archives: July 2014

Fledgling – Chapter 23

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History of Education Department
Oriel College of Humanities
University of Delgado

In which a conspiracy begins to be uncovered.

We’ve been told that Jen Sar and Ella don’t get on, and in this chapter we get to see it. At least part of it is that they approach conversation differently, Ella with her straight talking and Jen Sar with his Liaden tendency to curve unexpectedly, which makes it more difficult to tell if there are also incompatibilities in their underlying personalities.

I kind of wonder if Jen Sar would have thought better of Ella if she had succumbed to the urge to tell him that conversation with an old friend would be nice if only there were one present; it seems like the kind of response he himself might have given in other circumstances. But perhaps Ella’s right; if she had said it, she might have meant it too much.

Something I didn’t notice the first time I read this, when I wasn’t paying such close attention to the interweaving of details: the technician who tells Jen Sar about the “old wire” is doubtless one of Theo’s friend Kartor’s relatives.

Fledgling – Chapter 22

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Vashtara
EdRec Level
Library

In which Theo is introduced to menfri’at and bowli ball.

Theo is picking up the pilot’s way of moving from Win Ton, and along with it the mental toolkit needed to avoid the kind of maladapted interactions with other people that got her labelled clumsy back on Delgado.

The bit where Theo gets mistaken for a Liaden is a fairly strong indication that Jen Sar is her father in fact and not just by courtesy and by virtue of having a hand in her upbringing. Whether you find this interesting might depend on whether you were already, notwithstanding the indications that it’s not usual practice on Delgado, taking Theo’s parentage as read.

It would appear that Win Ton hasn’t read Tan Sim’s Ugly Day.

With the benefit of hindsight, at least one of the things Chair Hafley says in this chapter is very, very ironic.

Fledgling – Chapter 21

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Vashtara
EdRec Level
Pet Library

In which Cho sig’Radia offers a warning.

It’s interesting that the pet librarian doesn’t attract any norbears. One is tempted to wonder if he was chosen for norbear duty specifically because he doesn’t, and if so what that implies about the pet library’s attitude toward their charges.

The word Win Ton can’t think of a Terran equivalent for, cha’dramliz, is composed of familiar parts: “dramliz” is the Liaden word for people with supernatural abilities, while the “cha'” prefix is usually translated as “heart” when it appears in endearments like cha’leket and cha’trez. (It’s also a component of the word denoting “daring” in Korval’s motto.) That gives us “heart-wizards”, with “heart” having an emotional rather than an anatomical connotation, which suggests that here is the Liaden word which the series usually renders as “Healers”. And that’s obviously a translation convention, rather than a proper equivalent, so it’s not surprising that Win Ton was not able to lay his hand on the word.

Fledgling – Chapter 20

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Vashtara
First Class Dining Room

In which Theo and Kamele meet Cho sig’Radia and Win Ton yo’Vala.

One of the pleasures of reading the series in chronological order is the return of old friends, or at least of familiar names. We have met a scout of Line sig’Radia before, in “Phoenix”; that was a century ago, however, so I don’t suppose this is the same scout, though there are some similarities between the two. Senior Scout Cho sig’Radia is established as a person of intelligence and keen observation, but will nevertheless prove subsequently to have had at least one significant failure of insight in this chapter.

It appears that the research expedition has gained some members; in addition to Kamele, Theo, and the two professors emeritus from the forensic team, Chair Hafley has somehow ended up coming along, and a couple of people have brought their onagratas. Hafley’s is named Clyburn Tang — I think. The first time he’s mentioned is with a reference to “Clyburn’s onagrata“, which confused me considerably because up to now the word has only been used of a woman’s partner, but if one accepts that the word can be used in either direction the sentence falls into place and is consistent with various other indications that Clyburn is Hafley’s onagrata (and she, presumably, is Clyburn’s onagrata). Certainly, there doesn’t seem to be any other reason for the expedition including a man with no academic position whose main ability seems to be talking at length about clothes.

Fledgling – Chapter 19

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Number Twelve Leafydale Place
Greensward-by-Efraim
Delgado

In which Theo makes use of her research.

So that wasn’t actually the first time Kamele mentioned the upcoming research trip to Theo. With regard to the concerns I mentioned last time, I actually find this the opposite of reassuring, because it means that the trip has been a topic of conversation for several days without Kamele ever once thinking to mention that Theo would be going too.

There’s an interesting narrative subtlety in this chapter: at the moment the intruder is detected, Professor Kiladi disappears from the narrative. Theo’s father exists, and takes appropriate actions, but the narrator declines to attribute those actions to the person named Jen Sar Kiladi. What with the middle section being narrated from the viewpoint of Theo, who regards him simply as “Father”, Jen Sar’s name doesn’t reappear until nearly the end of the chapter. (Readers familiar with the wider Liaden universe — a phrase I will need to find a good shorthand for if I keep using it — will know what name the narrator is not saying. Although I’m pretty sure that the person who provides the answer to Theo’s question about the ring is Aelliana again.)

In the course of writing out the previous paragraph, I’ve belatedly recognised a similar subtlety back in Chapter Twelve. In between Theo meeting up with her father and the conclusion of their conversation about what name she ought to be calling him by, the narrator avoids calling him by any name at all. (Indeed, the moment she decides to continue addressing him as “Father” is visible even before she gives voice to it, because the narrator resumes doing the same.)

Somehow, knowing the history of the Gallowglass Chair and of this particular incumbent, it did not surprise me that the staff of office is a sword cane. I wonder if that’s standard for every Chair endowed by the Gallowglass Foundation, or an individual improvisation. (I don’t for a moment consider the possibility that it might be a custom of this University: this is Delgado, after all. I expect Admin would be horrified if they had the slightest idea one of their professors was walking around with a bladed weapon.)

Fledgling – Chapter 18

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University of Delgado
Faculty Residence Wall
Quadrant Eight, Building Two

In which Kamele has unexpected news for Theo.

Back when Kamele messaged Theo to stay in the apartment and not open the door to anyone, and didn’t explain why, Theo complained about Kamele not sharing important information. I think she had a point, and I think she’d also have a point if she made the same complaint now. The announcement of the impending journey is a shock, and very sudden, but I’m not convinced it needed to be; Kamele could have laid groundwork about it being a possibility even if she wasn’t sure yet exactly when it would be. And while it’s possible that she’s playing her cards close to her chest because of the genuine need to keep the details of her investigation under wraps, what worries me is the possibility that she’s doing it because on some level she’s still thinking of Theo as a child to be arbitrarily ordered around, rather than a nearly-adult who will work better if she’s given an explanation of why the order is necessary. Technically, yes, Theo is still officially a child, but people don’t magically become responsible adults when they reach society’s official milestone; if Kamele wants Theo to behave like a mature adult, at some point she’s going to have to start treating her like one.

The Serpent of Knowledge icon on the research application is an interesting thing in that it’s a meaningful symbol both to the characters and to the reader, but means different things to each. Whatever legend they have on Delgado about Serpents and Knowledge, it doesn’t seem from Theo’s reaction that it implies anything negative; to a reader who shares the authors’ cultural background, though, the obvious reference is to the Serpent in the Garden of Eden, offering people knowledge they’re not entitled to and might be better off without, giving the situation sinister undertones that are not visible to or intended by the characters.

Fledgling – Chapter 17

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Leisure and Recreation Studies: Practical Dance
Professor Stephen M. Richardson Secondary School
University of Delgado

In which Theo dances.

It occurs to me on this re-reading that Professor Noni’s remark about moving apart and coming back together being a normal part of life has particular relevance to Theo’s life these days. She showed a similar reluctance to encompass the moving-apart that was the shift to the Wall (though that’s perhaps understandable, since it was not and still is not accompanied by any assurance that there will be a coming-back-together to follow); it remains to be seen whether she will do better at accommodating herself to the moving-apart that is the trip to Melchiza — which Kamele apparently hasn’t told her about yet, if she’s making plans to go to the Saltation during Interval.

“Saltation” comes from the Latin verb meaning “to leap”, and has a variety of meanings, some more literal and some more metaphorical, in dance, biology, and geology. Even if Theo doesn’t make it to the dance festival, she has a saltation of some form in her future: Saltation is the title of the next book in the series. (What’s more, I seem to recall that we already knew that when this came out, suggesting that this chapter is a deliberate tease.)

Another bit of Delgado gender-role reversal: Theo’s conversation with Bek suggests that it’s not considered polite for a boy to ask a girl out, or directly issue any similar invitation; he’s limited to dropping hints and hoping that she will both recognize the hint and choose to act on it.

Fledgling – Chapter 16

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Retrospection on an Introduction
Number Twelve Leafydale Place
Greensward-by-Efraim
Delgado

In which Kamele and Jen Sar took a step forward in their relationship.

The second of the full-chapter flashbacks, and it perhaps says something that I let the first one go by without remarking on how it fits into the idea of re-reading the series in chronological order. Which is, clearly, that a flashback chapter belongs where it’s been put by the author, because even if it’s describing chronologically-distant events, the remembering of those events is happening at this point in the story, and it matters to this story that it’s happening here. To have moved these chapters to before the beginning of the novel because that’s when the events-being-remembered happened would have been to do an injury to the story.

(If you were around for the planning stages of this re-read, you may recall that I lost sight of that at one point, when I was deep in the analytical “timeline-all-the-things” headspace that made a full-series chronological re-read possible. I want to take this opportunity to apologise for the mess that conversation was, and to express my gratitude for being talked down from doing anything then that I would have regretted when I found my way back to that other, wiser headspace which knows why a full-series re-read is worth doing.)

About Tra’sia, cha’leken!, the “expression of joy” that Jen Sar declined to translate: We have seen “tra’sia” before only as part of the phrase “tra’sia volecta”, a Liaden greeting for which we have not, to my recollection, ever been given a word-for-word translation. What we do know is that it’s Low Liaden, used for family and close friends; in High Liaden, one might instead say “Entranzia volecta”. We have not seen “cha’leken” before at all, though we have seen “cha’leket”, which is used to refer to a person for whom one feels a sibling’s affection; it might mean a person for whom one feels affection equally strong but of a different nature.

So, the full phrase might perhaps mean something approximately like, “Greetings, beloved!”, or perhaps, “This is a good thing, beloved” (if “tra’sia volecta” is something like “good morning” and “tra’sia” is more like “good” than “morning”). Another possibility is that it’s the Liaden equivalent of the “I see you, sister” that Priscilla gives Lina in Conflict of Honors.

And whatever it means, I have a strong suspicion that the reason Jen Sar was chagrined about it is that it was Aelliana who said it and not him.

Fledgling – Chapter 15

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University of Delgado
Faculty Residence Wall
Quadrant Eight, Building Two

In which Kamele and Jen Sar make plans for the future.

If Theo was unhappy about moving from the suburb to the Wall, how much less is she going to like leaving the planet entirely? Even if it does solve a lot of problems.

I don’t think Jen Sar is unhappy with the idea of looking after Theo, as far as his own preferences go. But there is also to be considered how it would look to outsiders, if Kamele left her daughter in the care of a man — and not only a man she doesn’t have an ongoing relationship with, as far as the world knows, but a man with whom she recently broke off a relationship — rather than, say, her close friend Ella. And particularly at this point in time, when she’s moving in deep political waters and any deviation from customary behaviour may become a weapon against her. And Kamele knows all this as well as he does, which is why, I think, he’s surprised at her even making the suggestion.

Fledgling – Chapter 14

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History of Education Department
Oriel College of Humanities
University of Delgado

In which Kamele receives bad news and confusing news.

There’s a remarkable amount of world-building texture packed into the two paragraphs of Professor Beltaire’s family history.

If, as Kamele mentions, the University regards diversity of thought as a positive good, there’s likely to be some conflict with the Chapelia, which seems from what we’ve seen so far to incline toward the one-Path-fits-all attitude. On the other hand, there must be some kind of common ground, or at least lines drawn, otherwise the Chapelia would be busy at all hours accusing everyone in the University of consorting with complexity.

It occurs to me that we haven’t actually been told what happens to people the Chapelia choose to teach a lesson, though the message has been loud and clear that it’s not something to look forward to.

I find myself wondering where the Chapelia stands on the equality of the sexes. Are there male Simples? If so, are they treated the same as female Simples? Does it matter that their get-up obscures gender markers, or is that just a consequence, not significant in itself, of the general attempt to obscure all individual differences? The thing about only women being able to buy their children out of trouble may be only an acknowledgement about wider Delgado society’s view about who is responsible for children, and doesn’t necessarily show anything about the Chapelia’s own opinion of the matter.