JDG wrote:
>
>>It's not clear that clones are _born_ in Winter and vars are _born_ in
>>Summer - it might be just the conception date, as we have - yet - no
>>way to estimate the duration of each season wrt the pregnancy time
>>of the creatures of the book.
>
>I disagree..... the narration seems to be briefly use the first person in
>the relevant section, and the term used is "summer kids" and "winter kids."
>
So? There's nothing that makes "summer kid" equate to "kid born in
summer". AFAMK, "summer kid" is just an expression that she has
just learned, that makes them different from "winter kids".
>>>-Maia is "twenty-six months before her second birthday." This suggests
>>>that a year on this planet is at least 26+ Earth months.
>>>
>>Amateur :-P
>>
>>It suggests that this planet's year is at least 52 _this planet's_ months.
>
>I actually considered that, but rejected it. This is because, in America
>at least, it is fairly common to refer to the age of young children in
>months, rather than years. For example, we often refer to a child as
>being "18 months", rather than one a half years.
>
So? Maia is not from the USA, and DB is clearly trying to convey the
idea of an _alien_ culture. The more differences from Stratos's culture
to the USA culture, the best.
>Additionally, let's consider if the planet's year is 28 months long. The
>opening line just wouldn't be as effective if Brin wrote "Two months after
>her first birthday, Maia learned...." Thus, given the strong likelyhood
>of artistic considerations, I think we can only say with any certainty that
>the Stratian year is divided into a minimum of 26 months.
>
That would be an odd way of counting time, specially if, as you suggested
earlier, the Introduction is in Maia's perspective.
>You are right, however, that there we probably should not assume that the
>Straian month equals an Earth month. Nevertheless, given the clear intent
>of the opening sentence to clue us in to the "alienness" of this World, I
>would consider it mroe likely than not that the two months are equivlanet.
>
If it's valid to take some other Brin's books into this discussion --- then He
likes multi-mooned planets, and He makes the orbital period of these months
very short. In Jijo, for example, one Loocen Synodic Month is something from
4 to 7 Jijo Days. But the "Month" in Jijo is not Loocen Synodic Month; it might
be the period between two conjunctions of Loocen and Torgen. So, maybe
Stratos's Month is another construct based on that planet's moons.
>
>I disagree. The children need to be old enough not just to tease each
>other, but also to understand the differences in conception. When I read
>this passage, I envisioned the children as being roughly 6 years old.
>Maybe I'm wrong, but that's how I saw it.
>
I have just completed 20 years of experience with children :-) A 6-years-old
would have learned the difference *much* earlier. Probably Maia would be
3-years-old. Of course, we know from other hints in the next chapters that
Maia was probably 4 or 5 years old - IMHO, too old not to have been
mocked before.
Alberto Monteiro
