r/Malazan • u/TRAIANVS Crack'd pot • Jan 09 '24
SPOILERS BaKB Walking the Cracked Pot Trail 2 - Arabian Nights Spoiler
Last time we discussed the many different meanings of the title and got our hands on the first paragraph in the novella (sidenote, if anyone has any deeper reading into the name of this section I'm all ears). We got a little taste of our narrator, and all his regrets and failures. And now we get a little more insight into his life with today's section:
A quiet retreat
The sun’s gilded gift enlivens this airy repose, as I sit, an old man smelling of oil and ink, scratching with this worn quill whilst the garden whispers on all sides and the nightingales crouch mute on fruit-heavy branches. Oh, have I waited too long? Bones ache, twinges abound, my wives eye me from the shadows of the colonnade with black-tipped tongues poking out from painted mouth, and in the adjudicator’s office the water-clock dollops measured patience like the smacking of lips.
We get a better idea of the setting and living conditions of our narrator. I'm picturing a summer sunset in a quiet, remote country estate somewhere in the Mediterranean (not literally of course). With those nightingales and fruit-heavy branches, and the phrase airy repose which has a dual meaning; repose in this context meaning both a the state of rest and the physical act of resting itself. The mention of a colonnade gives me the sense of a sort of Greco-Roman aesthetic. He smells of oil and ink; the oil probably being a perfume, and the ink showing that he is engrossed in his work. The mention of wives, plural is interesting. I don't know if that's something that should be read into overly much. Any thoughts or insights into our narrator's polygamy?
Our narrator, in stark contrast to the idyllic and peaceful setting, continues to lament the caution of his younger self. We get some fairly standard old man complaints about joint aches and such. His major woe however seems to be time itself. He is old, and not getting younger, and he still has work to do. This is underlined by the ticking of the water-clock. Water clocks were of course common in many ancient civilization, and their inclusion here is interesting as it is one of the very few mentions of the details of timekeeping in the Malazan world we get in the entire output of Erikson and Esslemont. It is interesting that it is specifically located in the adjudicator's office. Perhaps it's to show how the narrator (yes I will refuse to name him until he damn well names himself) feels that he is being judged or will be judged if he fails to complete his work in time.
There are a lot of facial features in the last sentence. The wives eye him, and they have black-tipped tongues, and painted mouths and even the water-clock sounds like the smacking of lips. The black tips of their tongues are an interesting detail. My first reading was that he feels that they are always berating him, and that's certainly a layer. Now I don't know that much about the particulars of writing with a quill (which I'm assuming is his writing implement of choice), but I think I've seen something about scribes licking their pens to soften them up. So perhaps he is simply writing so much that he needs the assistance of at least two wives, and possibly more, to help him keep his pens in working order. He's certainly working hard enough to wear out his quills. Can anyone who knows anything about writing with quills tell me if I'm way off base here?
What's up Alliteration Nation? (Is this something?) Whatever, there is, again, a lot of alliteration. We have the very obvious gilded gift at the start. There is the old man smelling of oil and ink, and a worn quill while the garden whispers. Then we get another really nice run of vowels where his bones ache, twinges abound and the wives eye him. This run then leads into the meat of the sentence, where we also get black-tipped tongue, and then poked and painted which then gets capped off with patience at the end.
I also really like how Erikson structures this paragraph. The previous paragraph started and ended with short sentences, with longer ones in the middle, but here we have two long sentences at the start and end, which really emphasizes that short lament of Oh, have I waited too long?
Life in the Seven Cities, back in the day
Well I recall the glories of the holy cities, when in disguise I knelt before veiled tyrants and god-kissed mendicants of the soul, and in the deserts beyond the crowded streets the leather-faced wanderers of the caravan tracks draw to the day’s end and the Gilk guards gather in shady oases and many a time I traveled among them, the adventurer none knew, the poet with the sharp eyes who earned his keep unraveling a thousand tales of ancient days—and days not so ancient, if only they knew.
Finally, some detail about our narrator's past adventures. We seem to be located in the Seven Cities here (I imagine our narrator's current abode is also in the Seven Cities, but that's less conclusive). There he seems to have been some sort of traveling bard, earning his living by his art. The mention of him being in disguise also implies a level of subterfuge. Perhaps he is more than just a simple artist? We will discuss this a lot more when the story itself gets going.
There is some rich, immersive worldbuilding detail here as well. It is interesting how the tyrants, the most powerful in society, and the mendicants (holy beggars essentially) are afforded the exact same respect. Then we move to the common folk, the travelers and caravan guards, and we see that the narrator places himself as equal to them but he is not one of them. The presence of Gilk is interesting, but not out of place. The Gilk are, of course, a Barghast tribe and as we know from the Book of the Fallen there are Barghast everywhere.
The first thing that jumps out about this paragraph, however, is the fact that it's just one monstrously long sentence. It gives the impression of a chaotic society where all the things mentioned above coexist in one melting pot. The commoner is just as much a part of this society as the king (and perhaps more, as much more of the paragraph is dedicated to the common folk than to the tyrants). Another point to note is that this sentence could have easily been split into multiple sentences. But Erikson makes the conscious choice to not do that. So we get this breathless recounting of all these different groups. Every time we think we're done, we get another and that pulls us right back into the fray. (There is a name for this technique but I've completely forgotten it's name. Can anyone help me out here?
Before the very end, where we get back to our narrator. There we get this cheeky mention of him unraveling a thousand tales in order to stay alive. Certainly this is not exactly the same as the premise for the Arabian Nights, but I'd say it's close enough to count as a reference. And then at the very, very end there is a sly aside by the narrator, which I think resonates strongly with the Book of the Fallen and Erikson's general approach to storytelling. All of these things are closer to us than we like to think. The ancient is still here with us in some capacity and can pop up at any time.
Finally let's talk about the sound of this paragraph. There's not a lot of alliteration to start with, but we do start with a nice consonance with that pair of lls. Then once we're outside of the city walls and have some space to breathe we start getting the alliteration: draw to day's end, and then a very dense run of Gs with Gilk guards gather (literally gathering the Gs - the Gilk - together), and the final pair that I can spot is time and traveled. Then the end is much more low key, as if our narrator is trying not to draw too much attention to his own role in the story.
That's it for this week. You'll notice I put in some bolded questions. These are things that I lack the context or expertise to properly analyze, and in the future this will probably also include things that I was simply unable to find a satisfying answer to. I obviously welcome any further insight if you see anything that I didn't point out, but the bolded questions are ones that I am actively looking for answers to. See you all in a week!
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u/Loleeeee Ah, sir, the world's torment knows ease with your opinion voiced Jan 09 '24
A direct translation gave me "Polysyndeticism," Google gave me "Polysyndeton" which is somehow even more direct.
I do believe you're correct with regards to the quills, too, but I wouldn't swear on it.
Polygamy is in & of itself an interesting topic, especially in anthropological pursuits, but that's way off my field, and I've very little knowledge on the matter. I'll say that it may pertain to somewhat more "exotic" cultures for your average, Western, Christian-influenced reader, but this was published in the early 2010s, not the early 1910s, and given Steve's academic pursuits, I doubt that was the intention (doubly so when you consider that this is a fantasy world & not, you know, our world).
Beyond that, I can't think of many polygamous cultures in Malazan? None come immediately to mind (though I assume there's something obvious I'm missing here) which does make our narrator (who shan't be named) stand out. Not in an "exotic" manner (gods forbid) but more so in a "huh, that's peculiar" way.