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The Gradual Week 2
Summary
- Tidal Symbols is selling well, especially in the islands. Sandro is enjoying being married. And old letter - seemingly sent ten years ago - arrives from Jacj. The letter is strange and impersonal, informing Jacj's familay that he's about to embark on the grand campaign to end the war, and encouraging them to buy war bonds. The letter is postmarked from Winho, and Sandro is curious about the place.
- Sandro writes new pieces: the Seasonal Gods oratorio, in which the passage of time is depicted by the antiphonal gradual, and Detriment in the Calm to complete the trilogy that he had started with Dianme. His career is progressing nicely until things start to go wrong.
- A fan letter arrives and reveals that a person named And Ante on the island of Temmil has plagiarized a number of his pieces on a new rock album called Pilota Marret (The Lost Aviator). Sandro is unsettled but doesn't think he can do much about it.
- Sandro is invited on a tour of the islands as composer emeritus. His wife helped arrange his place on the tour for his benefit. The tour will include the island of Temmil - home of And Ante. Sandro expresses some foreboding and drops hints that bad days are a-coming.
- Sandro prepares for his trip. In preparation, he's given a hold-all containing a tour jacket and hat, some cash, and a mysterious stave which seems something like a conductor's baton.
- A brief visit with his parents reminds Sandro of his lost brother and saddens him. Again, some foreboding of the future.
- The opening concert of the tour takes place in Glaund City and goes well.
- The tour begins in earnest as Sandro boards the boat and it leaves port. Sandro remarks on the view and how it is already different. He also remarks upon two chronometers in his room labelled Mutlaq Vaqt and Kema Vaqt, names he doesn't understand. He drinks himself to sleep that night, and wakes up late the next morning. His personal watch seems to be 4 hours out, so he assumes they crossed some time zones. He's informed by a cellist names Ganner that he slept through the morning briefing which announced the itinerary - and he wasn't the only one.
Discussion
- Priest basically tells us that things are going to go wrong, then let our imaginations do the heaving lifting. Effective?
- Any predictions with respect to this And Ante character - I mean, apart from the fact things will go poorly? (And is Priest an Adam Ant fan?)
- It seems like temporal anomalies will be a thing. I wonder what kind of havoc that might wreak on the reading and playing of music!
- We are given the word 'gradual' again, this time in the musical context that @RichardAbbott so kindly pointed out.
Comments
The inclusion of Sandro's parents as significant figures is intriguing, I think. We haven't often seen CP deal in a meaningful way with intergenerational relationships, and here it seems to work... parents with failing physical and mental health still not knowing if they should be grieving for the death of their son or merely his absence.
I remain intrigued by how the political fallout of Sandro's music (fore-warned early on) will become known. I had assumed early on that some presumed political disloyalty inferred from his choice of topic would lead to him being drafted regardless his job in munitions. But no. Maybe the current trend of the story signals that his problems will be in the Archipelago rather than his homeland?
And Ante - haha (!). A nice if obvious musical play on words. But musically speaking andante indicates a fairly slow pace, which is at odds with his preferred genre of rock. Time, no doubt, will tell what the significance is.
One association I made was another inversion... rock and prog rock groups in our world often perform versions of their music accompanied by a traditional orchestra... sometimes IMHO this works (Pink Floyd, Yes) and sometimes it doesn't (Camel). But in all cases the music is their own, but performed on classical instruments alongside contemporary ones. Here we have the inversion of contemporary instruments playing music derived from a classical piece (albeit an innovative one). Is it plagiarism or simply an arrangement? Or is Sandro in his self-admitted paranoid mindset reading too much into it?
Temporal anomalies (captain)... I seem to recall they were called gravitational anomalies in an early chapter? But you are right... they may well emerge in some form in Sandro's music when he encounters the equatorial still point?
Again, lots of foreshadowing of things that will come up later in the novel. This time we get the wand, And Ante, and Jacj's absence is reinforced. I got the impression that Sandro won't see his wife again.
And I can't unsee that the Archipelago is a Brit's view of the Mediterranean islands. The journey as described is the subjective experience of a late-night tourist flight: a rush and bustle to pack, a disrupted night full of busy people, sleeping late the next morning, waking in a different time zone so it's too late, and having the climate, temperature, and even the light shockingly different. The unfamiliarity of surroundings being in a different language.
Sandro emerges from sleep while the ship is transiting the Corinth canal, for goodness sake! It's a clear signal of being in the Med. It's also a very clear mark of transition, from the home of Glaund to the exotic Archipelago. Sandro's now on the other side of that narrow passageway, now in the exotic Other dreamworld. He's crossed the threshold to adventure. It's a clear maker of the transition.
Going back to language, the Islanders use the same script at Glaund. I wonder why? Should we read anything into that?
What a cool idea! That hadn't occurred to me, but it would certainly move the plot back into the political dimensions of draft vs not
I was expecting some repercussions too, perhaps pressure not to compose with such seditious inspiration. But I agree, the book so far seems to be foreshadowing things to be resolved later.
Not for me. I await illumination rather than write his book for him.
Andante is a slowish tempo and/or movement. So something about slow time and timing.
I already hate the two clocks! They have CP nonsense scribbled all over their foolish faces. I hope to hell they aren't crucial to the plot! I was liking this so far.
And fittingly! Thank you, Richard! Although I knew that meaning of the term, I would never have thought of it in context, and I think it may be the meaning CP is fixing on.