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Chapter 5: Transom Dental
By: Brett Coster
Also: J.D. Giorgis, Gord Sellar, and Julia Thompson
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Title:
Transom Dental = transcendental. Is this pun Yoga Bear approved?
A transom is a window above a door. And dental...perhaps refers
to the escape method used to get out of Kremer's gaol. So, is
this a play on Dennis seeing the light to get out of the gaol, using dental
floss? Just how twisted is David's mind?
"He writes science fiction. His mind is at least as twisted as is
necessary to do that successfully. :)" - Julia Thompson
"The Chapter Title is certainly a play upon the felthesh-induced practicing
of dental floss." - John D. Giorgis
"Transom = wooden crosspiece (usually in windows but can be used to hold
vertical slats of wood together.)."-Gord Sellar
Analysis:
Anyway, this involves Dennis recruiting his escape gang, using the practice
effect to develop his escape method, and a warning from his soon to be true
love who is inextricably drawn to him, and vice versa.
Apart from the latter bit, this is like the setup in the Great Escape. It
brings back to my mind all those Colditz stories, where the German guards
were duped into letting seemingly innocent items be used in escape attempts.
That and the staged diversions used to distract the guards to the wrong part
of the compound.
Pixolet also makes its reappearance, as Stiv drops into a felthesh trance,
that strange electrical disturbance around a strong use of the practice
effect.
Just in case any of us still thought this was set on an alternate Earth,
when waking his gang Dennis points out that the moons have just set. I know
when I first read this book, I still harboured the idea it was another
earth. Not being the first Brin book I'd read, I even considered that maybe
the Moon had somehow split, but I guess that the effect on Earth if that
actually happened would be too horrendous for the minimal amount of change
related in this book.
"Dr. Brin uses some interesting language on pg. 92:
"Between heaves Dennis glanced up at the needle grin that told him the
pixolet was still there, watching their struggle. *Enjoy*, he wished at
the creature and joined in another push."
The aspect of the pixolet existing to *watch* him suffer is interesting,
because virtually the same language is used to describe the Niss Machine in
_Startide Rising_, the Niss again in _Heaven's Reach_, and in regards to
Mudfoot throughout the _Jijo_ Trilogy. My memory is vague (it was about
eight years ago) but I think Athaclena's father has a similar role with
Buoult in _The Uplift War_, no? How about in the other Brin novels?
This character definitely seems like an enduring theme in his work.
Another enduring theme is the role of children. The precocious Young Gath
seems remarkably like Alvin or Toshio. Indeed, it seems that all of Brins
works, save _Sundiver_ and _Heart of the Comet_ seem to have prominent
roles for young people. It might be an interesting discussion to consider
the role of youth in Brin's work...." -John D. Giorgis
I'd never thought about Pixolet as prototype Mudfoot or as the watcher in
basically all of David's boooks. I hadn't realised that as a feature. But it
IS a feature. I can't drag out Sundiver, but the Kanten is essentially a
watcher, and there's the journalist in Earth, too. You're correct about the
Niss and Mudfoot. Alvin is also a watcher, really, and explicitly so as a
budding author. But he is different because we also hear his voice as an
actor, too. Only Maia in Glory Season is without a watcher, at least until
Renner turns up. Or is Maia herself the watcher as events unfold around her?
If so, she's the most active of the watchers, like Alvin an actor as well.
And does anyone watch the watchers a la Transparent Society? I really is a
theme of David's.
And notably, the watchers all still have some crucial role in the stories
and are all shown as being honourable characters - even though Dennis keeps
cursing Pixolet. That is, the observer is not seen as cowardly or no good,
at least in the end, but is instead a catalyst in the plot for actions to
occur while otherwise seeming disinterested. No Dr Smiths here.
Physics requires an observer, doesn't it? Otherwise we all go meow like
Schroedinger's Cat, so maybe this is David taking the role of the observer
as a given in his work. Another Physical Law in action.
And perhaps an homage to HG Wells, whose Watchers popped up, never
explained, in The Time Machine - which in this case is pretty much what the
zievatron is.
Of course, Galactically speaking, we are all watchers as we cannot do too
much to affect the events of the universe, again something that flows on
into the Jijo trilogy.
Notes:
-Out of curiosity, what does Dennis see glinting underneath the logs? Is
it the saw? -John D. Giorgis
-By inference, the zipper comb has now been practiced into
diamond hard teeth. It would be fascinating to analyse the teeth. Would they
have become an alloyed steel - so where did the alloy come from? - or are
they crystals? Or has the carbon of the steel been transformed into
diamond? -Brett Coster
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John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - ICQ #3527685
"The point of living in a Republic after all, is that we do not live by
majority rule. We live by laws and a variety of isntitutions designed
to check each other." -Andrew Sullivan 01/29/01
