Steve Berliner
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
At the end of The Curse Of Chalion, Palli quietly took Cazaril's poem to the Lady Of Spring. As you won't be revisiting Chalion-Ibra, in your mind, what happened to that poem? The way Palli "unobtrusively pocketed" that little slip of paper seemed like foreshadowing of greater things...
Lois McMaster Bujold
Yep. Palli took it because he was impressed with it, and didn't want Caz to throw it away. Despite his rocky authorial start, I see Caz as a future Quintarian religious poet (in his rare spare time) of lasting merit, in the mode of William Blake but more lyrical. Words that make the hairs stand up on readers' necks, that mean more than they mean, as he tries to fumblingly explain. The Daughter of Spring is a patroness of poetry, after all; he seeks to make flowers to lay on Her altar. And to recapture, as if in a dream, some ghost of that overwhelming moment of union.
He never credits his own poetic power, because it falls so far short of his direct experience of Her.
Ta, L.
Yep. Palli took it because he was impressed with it, and didn't want Caz to throw it away. Despite his rocky authorial start, I see Caz as a future Quintarian religious poet (in his rare spare time) of lasting merit, in the mode of William Blake but more lyrical. Words that make the hairs stand up on readers' necks, that mean more than they mean, as he tries to fumblingly explain. The Daughter of Spring is a patroness of poetry, after all; he seeks to make flowers to lay on Her altar. And to recapture, as if in a dream, some ghost of that overwhelming moment of union.
He never credits his own poetic power, because it falls so far short of his direct experience of Her.
Ta, L.
More Answered Questions
Marcus Frödin
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
Not so much a question but I’m coming up on the end of the Vorkosigan saga and am already feeling an intense longing for more books that I haven’t felt since I finished the Culture series. So just a plea from a recent but now steadfast fan for more Miles please if one could wish? :-)
Talli Ruksas
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
Concepts of gender identity, being non-binary, and the pronouns used for them seem to be changing rapidly even among fairly young children I'm told. I wondered if you were creating Bel today if you would have used something other than "it"? Although apparently it's preferred at about 10%.
Catherine Nemeth
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
“The Mountains of Mourning” shows the Barrayan system in action. In the case of someone getting disappeared by ImpSec, the only recourse would seem to be to be family/friends going to their Count and asking him to intervene, which would probably mean him going to the emperor, as ImpSec seems to be operating without any restraint except from the Emperor & Auditors. That suggests ImpSec has a fairly recent origin?
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