21st Century Literature discussion

This thread is for general discussion of The Islanders for people who are in the process of reading the book. There will be a separate Spoiler thread for people who have finished the book.

Use this thread to discuss any aspect of the book. You can ask questions, such as "I've come across the name Kammiston on p.xxx. I've seen it before but can't place it. Remind me who he is?" (I was fortunate in that my husband was reading the book at the same time I was, but was farther in. I asked him things like this on several occasions.)

You can also ask about parts (sentences, paragraphs, chapters) that you find hard to understand. I asked about one sentence I didn't understand, and was told it amounted to saying that the reason the islands could never be accurately mapped was that, due to "vortices", things, including islands, weren't always in the same place, and time wasn't stable.

There are many mini-stories within the book. They relate to each other in various ways. If you want to discuss a particular event that may be farther along than others have read, please identify what part of the book you're referring to (by page numbers or Island names), and mark as a spoiler anything you think other readers should not learn about until they come to it in their own reading. If you are uncertain how to mark a spoiler, just above the comment box you will find a link that says "(some html is ok)." It demonstrates how to mark a spoiler.

I'd love to get some sense of how many people are reading the book and how far along you are, so please check in, even if all your message says is "hello."

I am really really REALLY looking forward to joining this discussion. But I will be late to the party. Please save me a few appetizers and mixed drinks. And thanks for the excellent pointers on diving into this one.

Well I am aspiring to read the book but with a newborn daughter and a scratched eye I cannot make any promises on whether or not I will actually achieve this.

I have read a couple of Priest's although quite some time ago and due to revisit him. I have very much enjoyed some of his reviews, blogs and non-fiction writings that I have read recently. He makes an interesting and articulate non-fiction writer although one who can be quite contentious see http://www.christopher-priest.co.uk/j... for example. Or for that matter his freely available examination of the issues around Last Dangerous Visions - one of the most famous genre anthologies that never got published.

Ben, I feel very sympathetic about the scratched eye. I've recently had cataract surgery in both eyes, and having something wrong with your eyes is just the worst. I attempted to listen to the audio book of The Islanders, and I fell asleep within pages. In the end I would up alternating between a print copy and reading on Kindle (for the large print Kindle allows).

This is the first book I have read by Priest. Thank you for sharing the link. I see what you mean about "contentious." Some of the artistic types in the Islanders are very contentious people, and reading a little of Isherwood's natural "voice" puts those characters in a new light.

Good luck with your daughter and with your eye. Newborns are wonderful, but they tend not to let you get much sleep.

I have read a couple of Priest's although quite some time ago and due to revisit him. I have very much enjoyed some of his reviews, blogs and non-fiction writings that I have read recently. He makes an interesting and articulate non-fiction writer although one who can be quite contentious see http://www.christopher-priest.co.uk/j... for example.

Ah, I remember that kerfuffle! Priest seems a bit, er, full of himself. One of the writers he disapproved of, Charles Stross, even made a T-Shirt about it. And frankly, while I've enjoyed books by both of them, I'm more likely to be excited by a new Stross book than a new Priest book.

Hi everyone! Thanks for the great resources on this challenging book. I'm very much looking forward to reading along with you. I will be starting the book tonight (a bit late, sorry), and just wondered, does this discussion run only until August 1, or a full month?

Discussion runs a full month, or as long as we want it to. Some discussions run more than a month, and some peter out after a couple of weeks. I expect this one to run for awhile. It took me longer than usual to finish this book, because I found it best read in small chunks.

I plan to go back and reread at least the early chapters, because I think they will mean more to me now. Also, this is the sort of book one keeps thinking about for a while after you finish it.

Peter wrote: "Ah, I remember that kerfuffle! Priest seems a bit, er, full of himself. ..."

Even more promising. I tend to like books by writers who are arrogant jackasses (cf Harlan Ellison, above).

Whitney wrote: "I tend to like books by writers who are arrogant jackasses (cf Harlan Ellison, above)..."

LOL! Did Llosa qualify? (I'm tending towards a "yes.")

Probably should apologize for the sidebar, but the temptation to ask was too great. :-o

Lily wrote: "LOL! Did Llosa qualify? (I'm tending towards a "yes.")
..."

No, not at all. If he's been known to criticize fellow artists with a snotty, superior attitude, I haven't heard about it. The falling outs (fallings out?) he's had with his fellow writers that I'm aware of have been over very legitimate political differences.

This probably belongs in a different thread….

So, to get back to the Islanders. . . .
The "Introductory" is purportedly written by Charles Kammiston. Remember this name, because he will turn up later on as a character. He provides general information about the islands, but the more he writes about them, the less we seem to know. Kammiston freely admits that he writes about a subject he knows little to nothing about, but that he has "opinions without substance." He asserts that he has never left his home island and never plans to. He tells us there are "no maps or charts of the Dream Arichipelago. At least there are no reliable ones, or comprehensive ones, or even whole ones." P. 13. He discusses three groups of islands (maybe) called the Torquils, the Torquis, and the Torquins, except they may really all be the same group, except they are supposed to be in different places, but there is a lack of certainty about where they are. He admits that when it comes to discussing names and locations of islands, "Confusion is standard and normal." P. 12. He explains that difficulties arise in mapping because "the distortion caused by the temporal gradients" makes high-altitude cartography impossible. (I stumbled over this one, but he seems to be saying that time doesn't behave in a predictable way, and because of "vortices" the plane may not be exactly where the pilot thinks it is.) Kammiston also explains that this "gazetteer" will provide factual information about some islands, but as to others will provide stories about something that happened there. Here is how Kammiston explains this approach.

"There is always a lot to be said for indirect truth, for metaphors, but if you are looking up a hotel in which you might wish to reserve a room, you probably do not want to read instead a biography of the proprietor. There is altogether too much of this kind of thing, but it is for some reason the chosen method of these gazetteers. I find it rather charming, but as a non-traveler I am always much more interested in the lives of hotel proprietors than I am in the rooms they have for rent." P. 16.

He ends by cautioning us that, "you must be ready for anything that might occur," and that "None of it is real, though, because reality lies in a different, more evanescent realm." P. 17.

Also planning to join the party late. So save a few more goodies!

Plenty of goodies for all.

"as a non-traveler I am always much more interested in the lives of hotel proprietors than I am in the rooms they have for rent."

Loved this. Great intro -- he's telling us all this stuff that we really want to know, and telling us that in fact this book is for us (who would want to read what would essentially be a Lonely Planet cover to cover?), while telling us that he can't tell us anything we want to know, and that the book probably isn't for us.

I read Hull 0 Scunthorpe 3 and I have to say I like him more...

Relating to: Aubrac Grande or Aubrac Chain

(view spoiler)[
This is where the book kicked in to what I'd been hoping for. The gazetteer style makes me feel I've unearthed some hidden gem when we get to a story disguised as a factual account like this. I love the interplay between the book as artifact and the book as stories. I also feel as if seeds are being sown for later links.
(hide spoiler)]

This book is just itching for a good diagram. I've seen quite a few diagrams of Infinite Jest and they're fantastic. I'd love to put one together for this (can't find any in existence on a quick search), but I'm just not sure I have the time right now...

Maybe we could try it as a group project. I had planned on flagging all the artists as I go back through the book. Their relationships to each other would make an interesting diagram.

Interesting. How would we physically collaborate? Is there some diagramming programme that can be doc - shared?

Terry wrote: "I read Hull 0 Scunthorpe 3 and I have to say I like him more..."
Really? He sounds like a self-important jerk to me. I can't help thinking there is something deficient about a personality that is unable to accept that someone might hold a different opinion than the one they have without being wrong, wrong, WRONG.

Terry wrote: "This book is just itching for a good diagram. "

I have to confess I couldn't read it without one. I have the world's worst short-term memory. So, I've made a start (!)

One way to collaborate would be to use Mind Mapping software.

I found a mind map online, but have posted it in the "spoilers" thread, since it covers the whole book, as well as comments by the author.

Peter, I do mean in the way one may like a cantankerous old git for telling some truths (and I think there are some in there) in a way one would never dream of doing oneself. Personally moderation and understanding of the other point of view are watchwords, but over the top can be amusing when there's stuff in there you agree with. I might see it differently if I disagreed with him more, I'm sure.

Julia wrote: "I found a mind map online, but have posted it in the "spoilers" thread, since it covers the whole book, as well as comments by the author."

Thank you!

By now some of you have had time to get to P. 101, the island Gannten Asemant, or "Fragrant Spring." Here we get a description of an art show of works by Dryd Bathust. This gives us our first good look at the artist, but also ties in two other characters who will continue to turn up throughout the book, Esphoven Muy and a young journalist named Dant Willer. We are told that Bathurst has "extraordinary" force of personality, and is a popular subject of "endless tittle-tattle and gossip," with a particular focus on his romantic exploits. Bathurst does not sound very likeable to me. In general, artists in this book do not sound like people I would like to know. Do any of you think the author intentionally paints "artistic temperaments" as making those who possess them difficult to deal with? Put differently, is there some sort of assumption that artists are self-absorbed, egotistical jerks?

So I decided to read The Dream Archipelago as a sort of extra credit assignment to see if the additional stories in the same setting added anything to the experience of reading The Islanders. The Dream Archipelago is a collection of six short stories set in the eponymous location. Stylistically they resemble the short fiction pieces embedded in The Islanders, but in subject matter they seem on average a bit darker, with a turn towards horror.

About that style. One thing I noticed reading a bunch of Priest's fiction in a row, not broken up by gazetteer entries, is that there's something detached and sort of flat about his fiction, like his characters are separated from you by a thick pane of glass (an analogy the author uses himself in several places), making it difficult to identify with, or even much like his characters. I think in The Islanders, Priest makes very good use of the even greater flatness of the interposed gazetteer entries to make his fiction stand out more than it would otherwise.

I've also concluded that I don't consider what Priest is writing to be Science Fiction. Oh, the stories are decorated with SFnal devices, but there is no attempt at coherent or believable world building -- that does not appear to be what the author is interested in. I think I'd clarify The Islanders as an odd form of magical realism that pretends to be science fiction.

So, about The Dream Archipelago: would I recommend it for readers of The Islanders? Only if you really liked The Islanders, as it is more of same, but without the clever structure.

Casceil, I think it's a good question which touches on real-life perceptions. For me, 'difficult to deal with' is a world away from 'self-absorbed, egotistical jerks'. But I think that often in real life we do feel the urge to judge people by our own criteria. Artists tend to be dissolute, erratic and unreliable. For me, though, that often comes with the territory, and with the genius. It doesn't by any means give them a licence to be mean or to hurt people, but it does mean that allowances can sometimes be made for the different plane they operate on. If we don't extend any such allowances, I wonder if we squeeze the life from genius and into a box.

Peter, I'm not sure what you mean by 'no attempt at coherent or believable world building'. I'm not sure I can agree unless you clarify more. It seems to me that that's exactly what he's doing. I would go further than classifying this as sci-fi and say that in fact it's in the best traditions of seriously classic sci-fi such as Alfred Bester and Philip K Dick. Of course, it has a sort of post modern (post post modern?) twist, but that's where it becomes of its time as well is being in that classic tradition, for me.

One book of Priest's that I see a link with is Inverted World, where the physics, magnetism, gravity, etc of the world are very different and carefully worked out. He also touches on some of the ideas about magic that he introduced in The Prestige. It's almost like another set of things that these islands connect are all his other books (those are the only two I've read, but I'd be very unsurprised if this idea continued to hold).

Terry, the stories are set over a period of something like 100-200 years, and there are mentions of technological progress, but the technology seems the same in all stories. Also, many of the technologies described in the book (like personal computers) had huge social effects in our society, but none in the society of the Dream Archipelago. As Ursula K. Le Guin notes in this review: "the cultures of the countless islands are uniformly those of 21st-century Europe, right down to such decade-specific details as instant messaging and installation art." It seems more like a reflection of our world and times than a real living, breathing world to me.

Also, the time vortices seem to be basically plot devices, and poorly worked out. And they don't explain why the Dream Archipelago is unmappable -- did Priest think no one made maps before aircraft and satellites? I suspect that Priest, like M. John Harrison, feels that: "Above all, worldbuilding is not technically neccessary. It is the great clomping foot of nerdism." (Rest of quote here.)

(And Bester did world building, and Dick was flat-out crazy.)

As for connections among his books, from Priest's website we have: "There are four CP novels containing Dream Archipelago material: The Affirmation, The Quiet Woman (minor links), The Islanders and The Adjacent (partial links)."

Terry, you raise some interesting points. I am generally rather leary of trying to distinguish science fiction from magical realism unless it is clear that the author intends one rather than the other. It's been thirty years since I read anything by Bester, and I'm not sure I have ever read anything by Philip K. Dick. I am interested in discussing the use of attractive forces like magnetism and gravity, but I think I'll take that over to the spoiler thread.

I've given more thought to the behavior of the artists in relation to artists I know in real life. I think it is a very complicated subject, because artists do necessarily play on our emotions with the art they create, and they must have somewhat different views of the world to produce art that stands out and touches people. As far as their personalities, it may be just that some of them have good manners and others don't. Some artists are considerate of others, but some either don't care about the feelings of others, or are emotionally tone deaf to the feelings of those around them. Priest's artists all seem to some degree self-absorbed, and some of them really just do not care what other people think or how they feel. Let's discuss Yo's tunnels over on the spoiler thread.

Peter, thanks for the links, good find.

I actually agree with Casceil that categorisation is not a key interest of mine. I do see your point with regards to technology, but for me that's only a part of world building. The continents, wars, social developments, laws, etc build the world for me. There are elements of sketchiness to it but that is actually part of his modus operandi for this book, I think (a feature not a bug).

I haven't read far enough to know how well the vortices are explained in full, but I suspect from what I read in Inverted World that he has a very clear idea of how such a thing would work. Obviously, how much of that he chooses to share with the reader is a thing, but I am reserving judgement on that.

I think it is to do with how islanders physically experience reality/physics/geometry in/around these vortices. For example, if you travel a mile North, then a mile East, then a mile South, then a mile West, you would expect to end up in the same place. I think such givens are not givens in the archipelago. I'm not saying that's exactly it, but I think that's the general area of problem with mappability that we're playing in.

I am looking forward to getting along to the spoiler thread.

I am very much enjoying the 'several passes' approach at the story elements. Getting fragments from different points of view of the same story is very effective, even more so when some passes are 'head-on' while others are quite tangential.

Terry wrote: "I am very much enjoying the 'several passes' approach at the story elements. Getting fragments from different points of view of the same story is very effective, even more so when some passes are '..."

I agree, Terry. I'm a bit behind in the reading, only at page 90, but it's nice to see Priest's very deliberate filling in of events and people and places with each new piece of information. There seems to be a major theme of doubles and duplication throughout, as well, which I'm enjoying a lot.

The theme of doubles and duplication carries with it a question of "which of the two is the real one," and ties into an ongoing theme about reality and illusion.

Many things are mentioned but not really explained in this book, including the vortices. I assume this is a deliberate choice on the part of the writer.

Anyway, if you start messing with time, the consequences vis-à-vis physics are severe. I really don't think Priest really worked these issues out.

To me, world building includes working out the consequences of any elements you add to your world. Priest just introduces things, they have no effect, and often aren't even mentioned again. Clearly, his interest is elsewhere.

What we agree on is that his interest is elsewhere. For me that's a good thing in this case. The idea behind the book fits exactly, for me, that we only get pieces of the whole. My own opinion is that he had worked or much of what he holds back, but holds it back to maintain a sense of mystery and to further the style of the book.

Personally I don't agree that you need to explain everything you introduce. Certainly a writer can give the impression he is clumsily using plot devices or world mechanics without due regard to believability or coherence (cf. later seasons of Lost), but to avoid this I don't believe I as a reader need to understand it all. I just need to believe that it hangs together, behind the scenes, and here, I do.

I've just finished, so some of my thoughts on exactly what he does to satisfy me here will make their way into the spoiler thread.

I don't think you have to explain everything you introduce, but I do feel you have to account for their effects. I think Priest adds a number of world changing elements to his setting, but they seem to have no visible effect, and I believe they should.

I think the elements had effects but the reader was left to guess what they were. There was quite a bit that didn't neatly tie together.

I'd disagree. Most cultures are in a state of constant flux and change, and a world at war like the world in these stories would certainly be. But, there's no real sense of history or sequence in the stories, aside from the Covenant, there's isn't any sense any events happen before or after each other because nothing really ever changes. You can follow individuals' histories, but the culture seems to have none.

Individual islands have a little bit of history, like the islands with tunnels. But it does seem very unclear how the timing of events on one island relates to the timing of events on other islands.

Again, for me is a feature not a bug. Here I believe it's deliberate... I think he wants a sense of timelessness in the archipelago, of floating along.

Terry, I think you are right that it is a feature. I am sure the author intended that dreamy sort of timelessness. And Kammiston does emphasize, in the introduction, how separate the islands are.

And that timelessness is a fine thing, but I feel that is partly what makes this magical realism instead of science fiction. It is a neat effect, but not a realistic one.