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Emphyrio Q1. The Legend
In the story, Emphyrio is an ancient legend with many variants - like legends are wont to have - and Ghyl Tarvoke is exposed to one early on, at the age of eight, as a puppet play (with live, fractious puppet constructs) ending in puppet-Emphyrio's death by real execution. This has a lasting effect on Ghyl, who internalizes the story. Does this make sense in the development of Ghyl as time goes on? Ghyl searches for the truth about Emphyrio as Emphyrio used truth to face and defeat the monsters. Does this fixation work for you reading the story?
Comments
I have to admit I struggled a bit with this story and kept thinking - why is this one considered a masterwork? I kept thinking Emphyrio was only? a Christ-stand-in figure, complete with legends and all, and had trouble seeing it as much more than a slightly clunky SF crucifixion tale. Would love to heard from folk who read more into it and why...
So, I quite liked the book, first off. It was quite unlike any other Vance novels I've read so far, largely thanks to it's tone.
However, the whole Emphyrio connection was probably for me the weakest part of the book. I never quite got why he was so interested in the tale of this mythical hero (who seemed not to have much of a story going on at all, really). Then through the middle of the book, Emphyrio seems all but forgotten by Ghyl, and only at the very end does he rekindle his interest in the seemingly forgotten Emphyrio and devotes all his energy to finding out more about him. So I guess I'd have to say it didn't really work for me. Possibly I missed something crucial along the way, in which case you lot will enlighten me.
I agree with the other comments. The legend connection became important in the end, but it was almost as if Vance tacked it on to the main story of following Ghyl's life. I'm not sure if it's covered in other questions, but there was very little set-up of the revelation of the identity of the nobles, as being puppets. That came out of nowhere for me.
I felt that too - there was a kind of "um, could I have anticipated that?" feeling
100% agree and not much more to add. The Emphyrio tale just felt like book ends that we were supposed to read more into but the rest of the story mostly felt like it barely touched on it,