Meeting Lyn's brother...

[fajrdrako]

Lyn has been my good friend since the 1970s, but I have never met her brother Michael or his wife Heli. They have lived in Calgary for a very long time, and have never come to Ottawa - until this week.

Lyn wanted her local friends to meet them, so she rented the party room at her condo building and invited us all over. We made it a pot-luck supper, and had a wonderful time. It was a bit like a Who Cares revisited.... A Who Cares was a kind of party we used to have every second Saturday night in roving locations, in which anyone associated with local fandom was welcome to turn up, and bring their friends.

Those days of easy socializing are behind us, but we had a wonderful time. There was a vast amount of food, and Beulah brought some delicious carrot cake.

I liked Michael and Heli, too. I expected Michael to resemble Lyn's father, whom I'd met, but he didn't. Nor did he resemble Lyn. He was just... himself, I guess, which is fair enough.

Afterwards, Beulah drove me home and we dropped in on maaseru to share some of the leftover carrot cake with her and maaboroshi. (Amazing, that there should be leftover cake, with that crowd!) We chanced on the beginning of the Kenneth Branagh As You Like It which instantly charmed us (and hooked us) with its multicultural melange of nineteenth-century Americans in Japan, Tudor England dialogue, ninjas, and Star Wars ambience. (And, muttered maaboroshi and I to each other, all this and femslash too. Gotta love Branagh.)

I didn't see more than the first third of it; dying to see the rest.

maaseru said that As You Like It was the first live play she saw, and that marked the moment when she fell in love with Shakespeare and with theatre. And she hasn't seen that particular play since, not even in movie form.

I don't think I've ever seen it at all - I've just read it.

Comments

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

Well, he'd be dead, if his father hadn't had the status to get him the treatment [wry g].

Or, if he hadn't gotten hit with soltoxin, perhaps another Ivan?

Nah.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Well, he'd be dead, if his father hadn't had the status to get him the treatment [wry g].

Possibly. But if his mother was, say, a servant of Count Vorkosigan who was caught in the attack, I'm sure the Count would take responsibility. But he wouldn't have Cordelia's unshakable determination in the matter, and she wouldn't have the resources or the clout to get them. Point.

It's an interesting question, though, and so is the opposite: if Miles had been born of normal size and strength, what would he have been like? Would he be as hyper? or as much of a genius?

I guess there's no way to answer these questions except to re-imagine the stories as many possibilities - alternate universes.

I'm rather glad Miles is as he is.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

if Miles had been born of normal size and strength, what would he have been like? Would he be as hyper? or as much of a genius?

I've wondered that on occasion. I'm sure most of Lois's readers have at one point or another. It's almost impossible to divide Miles from his disabilities, though. They're such a large part of his identity, and in such a positive way (although he obviously doesn't think it's positive [g]). I've always assumed he's much better looking than he thinks he is, too, given his love life...

One of the things I liked best about the beginning of Komarr is the description we get of him from Ekaterin's point of view rather than his own for a change. Other than her being startled by his height (I have a tendency, when I run across people who are shorter than my own 5'3", to think, oh, there's someone Miles's height! -- and really, 4'10" isn't that short, even for a man), she describes him as looking pretty normal. A faint hunch, lean but solid. And we all know he's got charisma coming out of his pores...

I wonder if he hadn't had to perfect charm as a strategy when he was a kid, if that's what would have been the most different about him had he not been disabled.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

It's almost impossible to divide Miles from his disabilities, though.

Yes. It's so much a part of what he is. The body affects the personality. I too think he's better looking than he thinks he is: he has a skewed image of himself. He doesn't even see how clever and hyper he is. Which is really part of the fun. We see him through his own eyes and through our eyes at the same time.

Yes, the need to hone his talent for charm might be part of his situation. And given how long and hard he had to fight for the ability to walk, that perhaps led to his perseverence when the going gets difficult.

If he had been perfectly normal, would Aral have spent so much time with him during the Regency years, when he was young? That close attention from his father might have further developed his verbal and reasoning skills, and his sense of strategy.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

If he had been perfectly normal, would Aral have spent so much time with him during the Regency years, when he was young?

You'd hope so, but perhaps he wouldn't have felt the urgency to do it.

I've been listening to Paladin of Souls lately, and the description Illvin gives of his and Arhys's childhood maps very closely to Miles and Gregor -- Arhys the heir with the missing father, raised by Illvin's father alongside him. Except that Arvol dy Lutez was a reasonably good man with a very bad reputation, and Serg Vorbarra was the exact opposite [g].

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Interesting parallel between the two books - I still haven't read Paladin of Souls, except for the first paragraph.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

So, what's it going to take to get you to read beyond that first paragraph? [eg]

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

So, what's it going to take to get you to read beyond that first paragraph?

A few hours of leisure at a time - ? An impossible dream, I know!

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

Only usable as an excuse if you haven't been reading anything else. Because then you could be reading Paladin!