Miévillians discussion

Chapter 33: Isaac's construct 'comes alive' :p , and warns Issac of David's treachery.

Our friends tarry too long notwithstanding; militia storm in and a fight worthy of video games or action films ensues.

The Weaver makes another appearance, to Rudgutter's dismay. I wonder where Mieville was going with the Weaver? A sort of spinner of fates? A metaphor for 'fate' itself?
The Weaver sweeps up our four friends and takes them on the ride of their lives.

End of part four.

Sorry if I've said this before but I love the rhythms of the Weaver's speech. It's very poetic and at times reminds me of Allen Ginsberg's "Howl".

I wonder if this could describe our friends in PSS:

"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,

dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,

angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night"

http://www.wussu.com/poems/agh.htm

Oh, more discussion of Weaver here - I'll be happy to join having just reread this chapter.

First, a blatant copy-paste action from an earlier thread, which actually fits better here, after the events of this chapter:

Weaver is terrifying to me - because he is so unpredictable. It is scary when you cannot reason with a sentient creature because its motivations are so alien and non-understandable, and therefore cannot be anticipated and/or relied upon.

Weaver follows only its own weaver-y logic, and he can seemingly carelessly inflict huge casualties in his pursuit of harmony/beauty/whatever he pursues, and there is nothing a person can do about it.

The powerlessness that he evokes is the scary part.


The image of the web of the world is something that I struggle to understand - all I can immediately think is world-wide-web and then snicker at it.

"The crawling infinity of colours, the chaos of textures that went into each strand of that eternally
complex tapestry... each one resonated under the step of the dancing mad god, vibrating and sending little echoes of bravery, or hunger, or architecture, or argument, or cabbage or murder or concrete across the aether. The weft of starlings’ motivations connected to the thick, sticky strand of a young thief’s laugh."

A creature that sees and experiences and understand the above just HAS to be as mesmerisingly alien as Weaver.

"It is without beginning or end. It is complex to a degree that humbles the mind. It is a work of such
beauty that my soul wept."

By the way, this chapter may have been the official starting point of my true love for Yagharek. (view spoiler)[Yes, even despite me now knowing what he did. I still cannot help loving him. (hide spoiler)] His intricate narration is the only way the unreal world of Weaver's realities could have been shown to us.

I saw the Weaver, especially referred to the mad, dancing god, as a reference to the view of the interconnectness of the universe through a web of filaments. My introduction to the concept came from The Web That Has No Weaver : Understanding Chinese Medicine. Other sources for a web construct to describe creation can be found in Shamanism and the Aborigines of Australia (I think?). In any case, I loved the Weaver as fate, a wrench, and a power not in anyone's control. Wonderful!

I've collected all of the Weaver's monologues here:

http://www.goodreads.com/story/show/3...

I assembled some of them into a love song here:

http://www.goodreads.com/story/show/3...

I thought the scene with the militia storming the warehouse was rather slapstick. It might work better on the screen of a game or film. Things improved once the Weaver appeared.

Ian wrote (comment 2): "Sorry if I've said this before but I love the rhythms of the Weaver's speech. It's very poetic..."

I also like the other-worldliness: all the words are familiar (I bet it doesn't throw "palimpsest" in every other sentence), and yet the meaning is tantalising and somewhat elusive.

Nataliya wrote (comment 3): "The image of the web of the world is something that I struggle to understand - all I can immediately think is world-wide-web and then snicker at it..."

If it's any consolation, I had the same thought, especially when "worldweb" is used, more than once. In fact, how it's described in this chapter does have strong parallels:
"every possible thing ever is woven into that limitless, sprawling web. It is without beginning or end. It is complex to a degree that humbles the mind... The web is not without flaw... the worldweb flexed under the weight of time."