On Paths Unknown discussion
CITY OF SAINTS & MADMEN
>
Dradin in Love opening thread
I think the writing in this first chapter was the best. I liked the description of Dvorak with the map tattoo, among other cool things. I immediately thought of the red light district in Amsterdam when I realized what was going on with Dvorak. I thought in the chapters after this one, the writing kind of fell apart in places. But this one was tight.
I think he likes the woman for precisely that - she's not only in a distant room behind a window, but also maybe on a pedestal, considering Dradin tells of his first love/lover as a "sweaty priestess." He's literally looking for more than the city around him can provide. I think by "afford her" he means that if she likes opera then she's out of his class, too high. But, I don't have the advantage of foreknowledge :)Also love the dwarf - such a compelling, unique twist to be tatooed as a map. Almost reminds me of Bradbury's illustrated man, but with a Mievillian bent!
I also must comment, that I geeked out over the book in the first line, specifically: "Dradin, in love, beneath the window of his love..."It reminded me of a Star Trek: TNG episode, where Capt. Picard must learn to communicate with an alien by being thrown together on a hostile planet and the alien keeps telling the same story - "Darmok, and Jalad, on the ocean..." Turns out their language is based on simile (not sure why I didn't remember that reading Embassytown). Anyway, the cadence of Vandermeer's opening phrase is the same, and it made me smile. For those of you unfamiliar with all things Trek you may not get it. But for those who, I hope it makes you smile, too.
I totally get the Star Trek reference. My husband and I frequently talk in metaphors to imitate that alien.
Mod
So, what do you think of Ambergris so far? I love how richly he sketches the atmosphere without it really feeling overdone.
I just finished 'Dradin in Love'. I'm still absolutely taken with the cadence if the first sentence - "Dradin, in love, beneath the window of his love..." To me, it has no Star Trek memories since I've never seen a single episode of that show, but the rhythm is great and immediately sucks you into the story.It's a strange story set in a very strange world, and I cannot tell where the 'reality' stops and madness begins.
The descriptions are lush and abundant, and the atmosphere is set very well - and yet I'm having a hard time actually visualizing the setting, condensing the atmosphere to solid reality, which again makes me question how much of it is just febrile madness.
The atmosphere I really love about Ambergris so far is the suffocating encroachment of the wacky forest infringing on the city. In fact, I wish there were more of that in this first story. Hopefully, there is more later. I have more but that's going past chap. 1.Love the Squid Festival. Love the mushroom people.
I don't love it when he says something really gross out of nowhere. I'd have to look for an example. It seems like he'd use really gross images as adjectives. Those were a jolt and I thouht they were unnecessary. (and not because I mind gross. I love gross. It just didn't seem to work here.)
Mod
With statements like this one for example:
"For what if she were a Modern, a woman who would not be kept or kept pregnant, but moved in the same circles as the artisans and writers, the actors and singers? What an insult such a gift would be to her then. What an insensitive man she would think him to be—and what an insensitive man he would be."
Would you guys class this setting as Steampunk?
I did feel the similarity to the early american west. Morally is a great way to say it.I just bought The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Is it a good book to read wrt to City of Saints?
Mod
I just bought The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Is it a good book to read wrt to City of Saints?"
Hmm, yes, you're right - there is actually a flavor of the early American West, though, I felt, more jungly, like South America (Sorry, I suspect I had edited my post just as you were posting. (There should be a law against editing posts. ))
Re The Heart: Well, maybe not so much in general, but there are certain parallels to the Dradin story; and i was hoping to discuss this theme more fully when we discuss the ending of the story a bit later on.
Notice how much Dradin is projecting onto the girl in the window; he doesn't even know her name yet, and he is already having all sorts of feverish imaginings about her; for example, he is going to all the expense of buying not just one, but two expensive books so that he and she can read it, very romantically, at the same time. (That part actually made me think of us here on GR reading books together! :D)
The buying of books was a great substory. Yes, we can relate to that here. The projection, Dvorak, Dradin's lack of self-awareness (like about his own appearance) the redlight feel, etc. all made me subtley uncomfortable which is something that draws me to weird fiction. Creepiness, really. I like creepy stuff.
Is it the middle of the night for you? I am having serious insomnia here in Seattle.
Traveller wrote: "No, it's morning for me. Re insomnia: I also suffer, but have learned a few things;1) Light makes a huge difference to sleep cycles. You need to be in increasing darkness for about 15 minutes to..."
I'll just quickly pop in here to say I'll take your advice of taking a walk during lunchtime drowsiness. I get that every day. I hate that feeling and I have insomnia sometimes as well. Usually I get to sleep by reading until I can't concentrate very well. It has helped me. Though other times that has kept me awake longer.
Mod
Regarding the 'metafictional' aspects: As chance would have it, I have just finished reading Jean Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation. It deals with how artificial our modern society has become. A lot of the artificiality, that of "simulacra and simulation", the latter being artificial representations of reality, have become, at the very least, as real as reality itself, so Baudrillard says.
..and in many ways it is true of our modern, techno-gadegty information society where 'simulations' such as the internet, has taken on a life of its own.
Many writers, usually those tagged as "postmodern" authors, have taken up that idea of simulation and have started writing fiction that is self-referential and that 'pretends'. I find Vandermeer a particularly playful author. He plays around with the ideas of symbols and with the idea of 'signification' a lot.
This ties in with his sense of humor at times, though at other times it is plain creepy, i agree, and at times, the creepiness and the humor mixes. Take Dvorak as a human map, for example. (Funnily enough, Baudrillard starts off his "Simulation" essay with a map as an example of a simulation as well!)
Vandermeer sketches (ha!) Dvorak as a symbolic 'timeline'. He is therefore playing around with "a map as a symbol" in ways that want to bend your mind a bit...but i suspect Dvorak might be a symbol in an even more significant way, which we can maybe discuss along with the ending of the story later on.
So, I'm really enjoying Vandermeer's subtle sense of humor. One has to look for it a bit, but once you start to recognize it, you start to see it everywhere.
An example of humorous bits for me was how his father became so emotional about the story about the two women - I really had to giggle at their names, since Justine and Juliette are the names of the two sisters in the Marquis de Sade's novel Justine. Also, I had to giggle at how Vandermeer's Justine came to her end. If you'd read De Sade's Justine, you'd know what i mean, but i don't want to spoiler in case someone still wanted to read Justine.
Another point of humor was, for me, the title of the book he is buying for the lady in the window. The Refraction of Light in a Prison , which for me, seemed perhaps to be a subtle reference to Isaac Newton's publication Opticks which deals with the refraction of light through a prism - a really fascinating subject, but which might also be symbolic - also to be discussed later on.
One more quick thing before i forget: i find it interesting that Dradin is a missionary; i wonder which religion? Christianity, or a made-up religion? But be as it may, it reminded me of the film The Mission.
Mod
1) Light makes a huge difference to sleep cycles. You need to be in increasing darkness for a..."
Yolande, I wish you were doing this discussion with us... nice to see you popping in, in any case. :)
Mod
Oh, and the Truffidians idea is also cute - the name sounds vaguely mushroomy to me.
Traveller wrote: "Yolande wrote: "Traveller wrote: "No, it's morning for me. Re insomnia: I also suffer, but have learned a few things;1) Light makes a huge difference to sleep cycles. You need to be in increasi..."
Yes, unfortunately I didn't get this book. I found "The New Weird" and voted for it because it's the only one I have but it was in the minority ;) It's probably better though 'cause right now I'm so swamped I wouldn't be able to keep up. I'm supposed to be reading 'The Years' by Virginia Woolf' in the other group but haven't even been able to start yet.
If a side read did appear at some point for "The New Weird" though I would join that.
Mod
Mod
Yes, that reading women group has taken some serious chomps out of my available time this year. :P
Do you mean, as in "truffles?"Got 2 more hours sleep.
Love the "light thru a prison/prism" reference.
I don't get your South America idea and the idea about the moral tone. Will you say more?
Mod
First thing we have to keep in mind, is that the book strictly speaking falls in the 'fantasy' genre, because the world it is set in, is, although it corresponds in most respects to the real world, a fantasy world.
The only reason I am linking it in my mind to South America, is because there are jungles near Ambergris, which feel to me like the tropical jungles of South America. I mean, North America doesn't exactly have jungles except maybe Florida, and those aren't... I don't know, the Ambergris jungles feel more like South America to me - especially the missionary aspect. (Dradin has been working as a missionary in the jungles). I mean, you had lots of missionary activity in South America in the past 2 or even 3 hundred years, not so?
I suppose with "moral tone" I had partly meant what the people in the novel find 'proper'. I had not meant to link that to South America, since, of course the novel takes place in a fictional setting.
...but all novels have some relation to the real world, no matter how 'weird' those novels are, and i am trying to establish the 'setting' in terms of not only geography but culture too. That doesn't mean to say that because the 'physical' geographical setting, corresponds to a real-world place, that the 'society' in the novel has to correspond to a real or the same place.
Although to me it feels like South America, I guess it could just as easily be the jungles of Africa or Asia... a jungly place with missionaries... -but are Vandermeer's missionaries precisely Christian missionaries? ..or has it got it's own kind of people and/or religions, which might just be subtly different?
Mod
Per Wikipedia re Jeff Vandermeer: He was born in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, but spent much of his childhood in the Fiji Islands, where his parents worked for the Peace Corps; this stay and the trip back to the United States through Asia, Africa, and Europe, influenced him...
So, perhaps not South America, ironically enough. It's perhaps just that some aspects of the Dradin story reminded me of the film The Mission, which takes place in the jungles of South America:
..and also, another story about Ambergris felt to me like the conquest of South America by Cortés and the Spanish conquistadors.
On the other hand, the mention of an Occidental woman might suggest it's more Asia somewhere (as Occident tends to stand in contrast to Orient). He mentions too that the city is ancient (which could be either South America or Asia)- but wait - when, in which time period are we set then? ...since in his childhood already he saw the corpses of trains... ;)
Mod
You make the call on the thread/how far to read.OK, I get what you're saying now. You know, I didn't think of any particular jungle, but I can see what you are saying. Also, I just assumed they were missionaries of some made up religion - probably because I have been so immersed in Game of Thrones for the last few years.
I wish there were a mega spoilers thread where you could just let it rip. I want to read about all the connections in your head. I don't care about spoilers personally. I can't remember long enough to get spoiled.
BTW, you just reminded me that some of my favorite books I read last year featured jungles and missionaries and Heart of Darkness themes. Annihilation and The Poisonwood Bible which I loved and The People in the Trees which I really loved. Which makes me realize that there is some Heart of Darkness action going on here.
Mod
I'm probably the only person in the world who hasn't read Poisonwood Bible yet... it keeps getting crowded out by other books. Not read Annihilation or The People in the Trees either, so you're ahead of me there!
Michele wrote: "I didn't think of any particular jungle, but I can see what you are saying. Also, I just assumed they were missionaries of some made up religion - .."
Hmm, this is why I love group discussions and love getting other people's point of view. You can never guess how other people interpret literary worlds and events until you actually discuss it with them.
Yeah, I do think that JvdM really pretty much made up his own world. :) And yet there are enough similarities to the real world, that it becomes almost believable, which makes it a good 'simulation', huh?
I had to look this word up:
col·um·bar·i·um
also col·um·bar·y
n. pl. col·um·bar·i·a also col·um·bar·ies
1.
a. A vault with niches for urns containing ashes of the dead.
b. One of the niches in such a vault.
2.
a. A dovecote.
b. A pigeonhole in a dovecote.
Him mentioning it both in conjunction with ashes and the pigeons - is that deliberate wordplay? Sounds like something JvdM would do... ;)
Regarding a spoiler-free thread- yes, I'll make a separate completely spoiler-free thread where we can discuss the ending.
Good find on columbarium. Very deliberate I think.As I think of it, in fantasy and scifi, religion seems to be made up or real-world depending on what suits the author.
Another madeup religion I was really caught up in was Battlestar Galactica. And then of course, I truly was a child of The Force.
My husband is older and was brought up a very strict Catholic. I was deliberately left to figure things out for myself re: religion. Now that I think of it, he behaves and thinks as if he were a practicing Catholic. I behave and think now as if The Force is a real religion in a lot of ways. Church didn't get my attention at 10 years old but Star Wars sure did.
A strong religion has many aspects of a simulation.
If you live in the religious simulation as a child, it probably literally molds the pathways of thought and behavior in permanent ways.
Just yesterday my husband says he still has the thought/feeling he needs to confess that he is disobeying his parents (a regular confession he would make as a child). And then he has to remind himself his parents are dead. I thought that was pretty cool- how powerful that experience was for him 50 years later.
So, if I believe in a religion from a made-up world. I am in the simulation inside the simulation. Simulation usually triggers recursion in my experience.
Mod
I think it's that we sometimes need symbols to represent our beliefs for us, and religion does that pretty well? Also, people do need ritual - ritual has a lot of psychological power, and it is as if the Catholics understood that very well.
Most definitely, I would say humans must have symbols and rituals. And also make meaning.
Great stuff on religion ... It's making me look at Dradin differently. I think I was eager to get into the world, I almost skipped past WHO Dradin is, although with his flashbacks to family I started getting a better picture. Then that changed how I read the beginning. This story is subtle. We have to break through into the columbaria as we go :)Interestingly, the episcopal church here has a columbarium - with the nooks holding urns sealed up. It's outside in a beautiful courtyard so I had no trouble envisioning his walk through the alley. Just wish we had as many mushrooms.
Mod
Squid Sighting!!The Tournament of Books judge of the day reminded me there was at least one squid in Annihilation:
" a tough little squid I nicknamed Saint Pugnacious, eschewing its scientific name, because the danger music of its white-flashing luminescence made its mantle look like a pope’s hat."
How could there not be?
Mod
I have plenty of other books to read. No pressure from me.
Mod
Firstly, this woman seems:
1) expensive (nicely dressed, haughty, educated.)Check.
2)aloof and unattainable (never looks up, has a haughty air, is sitting far ABOVE (note, above) only visible through a window. Check.
3) attractive. Yeah, one can usually see that from a distance even.
Hmm, so, the aloof and unattainable is something to strive for, like a Madonna on a pedestal, and yes, on a pedestal = above(literally)..... check.
Delicate and breakable, therefore, someone who needs protection. Check.
Does the above seem like a pretty patriarchal view of what a desirable woman constitutes? Most certainly, and how fitting, then, that he is a missionary!
In any case, I had to chuckle at the phrase: “Not a woman I know,” he said, “but a woman I should like to know.”
Mod
"Thus began the fantasy: that in some other room, some other house—perhaps even in the valley below—the woman from the window lay in her own bed by some dim light and turned these same pages, read these same words."
That would be so incredibly romantic in just a slightly different context...
... and having read the story before, I now find his imagining of her bedroom so painfully poignant.
In any case, note how he fills in everything about her in his mind. Everything he "knows" about her, is an imagined thing. Don't we all tend to do that when we get a "crush" on somebody we don't know very well?
We fill in the missing bits how we would like them to be.
Hmm, I wonder if we shouldn't start a new thread; this one is getting awfully long?
Mod
Since I have an ebook for this, I don't know the page, but it's about a page or two after the bits in bold that he reads from the book he had bought; after these bits: "BEING CHAPTER ONE: THE MYSTICAL PASSIONS The most mystical of all passions are those practiced by the water people of the Lower Moth, for though they remain celibate and spend most of their lives in the water, they attain a oneness with their mates that bedevils those lesser of us who equate love with intercourse. Surely, their women would never become the objects of their desire, for then these women would lose an intrinsic eroticism.
Thread is here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Mod
Getting settled into any fantasy, I tend to assume a fully made up world (with reality contributing as it must), so I was frustrated that we were not given more information on Truffidianism, given that we are dealing with a missionary. (I had not assumed necessarily that it was patriarchal, although the fact that they seem to have priests and no priestesses is suggestive.) Clearly he is visually identifiable as a priest by his clothes, and also being a priest carries a certain social standing (the 'How dare you touch a man of God?' thought on his part).
All of section II is his walk back to the hostel, which I loved and which was necessary for the character of the city to come through. I found his encounter with the mushroom dweller arresting.
Traveller, it looks like the place you mention for the next thread is a page or two after the beginning of section III. Shall we do Section I and II in this thread and section III in the next?
Mod
How did I miss this post? GR acting up again. Hmm, I personally think Dradin is as far from a fop as you can actually get. (view spoiler)
The story mentions that he is filthy, ragged and sweaty after his time in the jungle.
The heat withers him this far from the river, but he ignores the noose of sweat round his neck. Dradin, dressed in black with dusty white collar, dusty black shoes, and the demeanor of an out-of-work missionary (which indeed he is),[...] He had been looking down to pick up the coins he had lost through a hole in his threadbare trousers, their seat torn.. [...] The driver’s mangy beast had left its stale smell on Dradin, but it was a necessary beast nonetheless, for he could never have afforded a mechanized horse, a vehicle of smoke and oil. Not when he would soon be down to his last coins and in desperate need of a job...
This obviously bothers him, as he realizes the huge gulf between himself and the object of his passion. He feels he cannot present himself before her:
... unwashed, come before her dusty and smitten, a twelve o’clock shadow upon his chin. Obvious that he had come from the Great Beyond, for he still stank of the jungle rot...
Re the "instalove" ; yes, that is a very important aspect of the story, and I think Vandermeer is symbolising the tendency that all humans have, to project an image of our own imagination onto other people. Dradin is like a teenager; -did you never, as a teenager, get a "crush" on somebody and imagined all sorts of qualities onto that person that they never actually really had; but that you could project onto them because there was a distance between yourself and the person that served to uphold the illusion?
Also, when you read a bit further on about Dradin's childhood, you begin to see why he's not very socially adept and why he has a deep need to belong.
In any case, he is definitely an innocent, and not sophisticated in his manners, as one would expect from a "fop". A fop, to me is a "Dandy" - someone who is well-dressed and well-spoken. Dradin is so afraid of social intercourse that he prefers to hire an imtermediary, in spite of not having a lot of money to throw around.
In fact, I feel very sorry for Dradin - his whole life speaks of being trapped and helpless. I see him as a tragic figure full of pathos.
As to the Truffidians, - I suspect they are gradually revealed, the way most secret sects are. (Not sure if they are a "secret sect" in Ambergris, but they certainly are "mysterious" to the reader at first, and that might be intended.)
In fact, this entire story is only gradually revealed, as with all good mystery stories and postmodern fiction. :) ...but patience bears a lot of fruit.
Yeah, and now it really bothers me that you link Dradin with Sweeny Todd. :P Dradin seems so helpless, so artless, always a victim. One sees later on, that things obvious to other people, like to Dvorak, is not obvious to Dradin, and of course, Dvorak is the confidence trickster who takes advantage of Dradin's naiveté.
Note also that he is a shy person: "Dradin realized he must act and yet he was too shy to approach her..
Mod
Interesting. I am here painting my first impressions of him, but I confess my views are not changing on the reread. 'Fop' has been associated with fools longer than fashion, and Dradin is a very foolish fool, and though it is a strange association (I admitted as much), there is nothing to preclude him from aspirational foppishness. ((view spoiler))
Traveller wrote: "Dradin is like a teenager; -did you never, as a teenager, get a "crush" on somebody and imagined all sorts of qualities onto that person that they never actually really had; but that you could project onto them because there was a distance between yourself and the person that served to uphold the illusion?"
I'm afraid I'm one of those rare monstrosities who has always been happy alone :) what crushes I've had have always been shallow and over quickly. But that is not why I hate instalove. I hate instalove because it has become such a convention in current literature; it is both hopelessly unrealistic and patriarchal (it's almost always f to m). So it's always hard for me to read. (Of course, (view spoiler))
Traveller wrote: "In any case, he is definitely an innocent..."
Oh, I disagree, mostly (subject to revision once I finish the reread). But we will have to discuss that over in the final thread.
Traveller wrote: "In fact, I feel very sorry for Dradin and see him as a tragic figure full of pathos."
On the reread, I am agreeing with you. I still see him a hopeless fool who has an excruciating lack of self reflection, but he is a tragic figure. (However, (view spoiler). Again though, more discussion on that in the final thread.)
Re: Truffidians: it came across to me through the course of the whole book as one of the majority religions, if not the majority religion, of Ambergris (confirming my impressions from Dradin). I tend to like it when authors dispense with exposition and just throw you into the world, but I still found myself wanting more detail here. I begin to get the idea that VanderMeer just wants us to transpose Catholicism onto Truffidianism, and I find that impossible.
Traveller wrote: "Yeah, and now it really bothers me that you link Dradin with Sweeny Todd. :P"
Hey, I didn't link Dradin with Sweeney Todd, I linked him with (view spoiler) (spoiler for Sweeney Todd under the tag). Surely that's not so far from the mark!
Re: Dvorak: Yes, he is absolutely a con taking advantage of Dradin's folly. (Although he straight up tells Dradin the truth and Dradin blunders right by it!) However, I also found Dvorak to be full of pathos, with his tattoo which is a map of Moth and of time, the pain that made him incredible, and his coat full of knives. (I'm always a sucker for a scoundrel, though. At least in a book.)
Mod
Yes, indeed re your spoiler - remember that Dradin is just a character, not the author, and things that rounded protagonists do, needn't always be sympathetic - in other words, when the character is well-drawn, you see his/her failures foibles and faults, without necessarily losing empathy with the character, and the fact that you and I respond to Dradin differently, just proves to me that the character is subtly drawn - in other words, he's not a straight-up stereotype.
In fact, your spoiler is for me, the entire point of this story, and why one should read it as fast as possible from start to end. (..and perhaps skim over the less important world-building fluff, which I found rather indulgent in the same sense that I found China Mieville's earlier work self-indulgent).
"Hey, I didn't link Dradin with Sweeney Todd, I linked him with ...(spoiler for Sweeney Todd under the tag). Surely that's not so far from the mark!
Ohhh, *slaps forehead* Okay! sometimes i'mma bit dense on the first pass. Does that need to be a spoiler, btw? :P If it does, I'm still being dense! &_&
Yep, I'm also thinking we should rather discuss the - er... our differences in the last thread. :)
Mod
Probably not, but I'd hate to turn anyone away from Sweeney Todd if they haven't experienced it yet!
Looking forward to our third thread discussion; I need to sign off for the day but I will get back to it tomorrow.
Mod
Probably not, but I'd hate to turn anyone away from Sweeney Todd if they haven't experienced it yet!
Looking forward to our third thread di..."
Sure, no rush at all, since I've also been busy. I'll make the thread shortly. :)
Oh, sorry, and re the Truffidians: I think we get to learn a whole lot more of them in Finch, if I'm not mistaken, from the blurbs etc that I have read.
I'm finding myself getting impatient with Dradin, especially his bitching about lack of money while simultaneously throwing it away, and his making instant assumptions about people he knows nothing about (most of which I suspect will prove to be false). It's like 'I have next to nothing, World. You owe it to me to fix it while I throw away what little I have left'. No sympathy for stupid behaviour unless I see growth. Not seeing it yet.
how I wish I could have had this discussion to refer to as I struggled through Dradin. for some reason, perhaps this devices editing, I can't always, or never can, access certain topics. eg the group flight paths shows only 4 topics, its frustrating.be that as it may,the book was a special order and I had my 3 weeks with it.
perhaps some might appreciate the synchronicity of reading this in season. but i t was too much for me alone.
I do think Dradin is very cleverly worked and initially I was pulled in, fascinated. Dvorkin! in so unlikely a personage he entrusts his love. The map on the body of the dwarf leads directly to betrayal, but Dradin
ah. sorry...Dradin refuses to acknowledge reality in this as well. in his fevered imagination he has it all plotted out, throwing away his last valuables as of money and will were all that counts in getting reality to co-operate. but it got so gross and nasty and the vision so bleak, I rather recoiled from it.
if this is an example of new weird I guess I have to admit I found it ostentatious, glib, and creepy,depressing even, despite the sly humor.
Ruth! we must have been posting at the same time as I just saw your comment there: yes, that attitude of entitlement. not even a romantic anti- herohis attitude towards women and his role in relationship... I don't think he even thinks of this.
may the force be with you!
On Paths Unknown
Books mentioned in this topic
Finch (other topics)Simulacra and Simulation (other topics)
Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue (other topics)
Opticks: Or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light-Based on the Fourth Edition London, 1730 (other topics)
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (other topics)
Authors mentioned in this topic
Jean Baudrillard (other topics)Marquis de Sade (other topics)
Let's discuss a chapter a day to accommodate latecomers? And then once everybody is caught up, we can go faster? So for now, let's reflect a bit on chapter 1.
Reading this for the second time, I find it rather amusing reading with some foreknowledge, especially in how much Dradin projects onto a woman whom he had never met in person, but had only seen from afar:
"And yet, Dradin surmises, she looks as if she comes from more contented stock, not a stay-at-home, but uncomfortable abroad, unless traveling on the arm of her lover. Does she have a lover? A husband? Are her parents yet living?
Does she like the opera or the bawdy theatre shows put on down by the docks, where the creaking limbs of laborers load the crates of Hoegbotton & Sons onto barges that take the measure of the mighty River Moth as it flows, sludge-filled and torpid, down into the rapid swell of the sea?
If she likes the theatre, I can at least afford her, Dradin thinks, gawping up at her.
"Afford" her? Hmm.
Dradin's reaction to her almost gave me he idea that there aren't too many young women to be found around that area... and yet there are many people around him. Perhaps it is the fact that she seems so cool and distant, literally elevated, in her cool and distant room behind the window?