From: Peter Westlake <peter@harlequin.co.uk>
Subject: Re: (urth) Re:Long Sun Worth it?
Date: Tue, 09 Nov 1999 11:09:48 +0000

At 22:37 1999-11-08 EST, Patri10629@aol.com wrote:
>The question baffles me. Alga's initial dismay baffles me. But, I am, in 
>general baffled:)

I had the same reaction as alga in the very beginning; I think it's
because of the very simple and direct style of writing, and the
bright colours (1). The initial feel is rather like a comic book (2);
it reminded me strongly of _Castleview_ in that respect (3). Only after
reading for a while and *observing*, watching the events unfold
and picking up impressions of Silk's character from his actions (4),
does the quality of the writing become clear. Not a comic, but
a stained glass window.

1) I'm sure colours are important, but being only a Bear I can't
recall the details without going home and looking them up. Let's
think: the main appearances of Blue and Green are obvious, so I
started looking for Red. There's Blood, and Rose, and probably
others. Then there was the orangey colour of the scarf, and I
have a feeling yellow turned up too, but that might just have
been the (erroneous) colour of the sky on the covers (5).

2) I know there are literary comics, but those aren't the ones I mean.

3) Likewise, no disrespect to _Castleview_. We must have another
go at that some time! I actually understood one or two bits last
time I read it.

4) No-one ever *tells* us a thing about Silk, but we come to know
him very well from seeing his actions and hearing his words. This
ought to be the textbook example for "show, don't tell". It's a
towering literary achievement, a real tour de force. It also
explodes utterly the common belief that it's impossible to make
a "good" character interesting.

5) The British editions had stained glass windows on the spines,
and to begin with they joined up into a bigger picture. But then
two of them repeated and stopped joining up. Was this just a bug,
or couldn't they afford any more artwork, or what?

>Yes, read it. It is yummy and good for you.

So it is. I've read the first book several times now, having
started again every time another book came out, but I can't
imagine ever tiring of it.

Spectacled Bear.


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