The Dream Archipelago Week 4: The Trace of Him

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Short read this week, and a short discussion, too!

Here's a familiar story, very similar (but not the same as) a story called The Trace from The Islanders.
The summary is simple: A woman (who is given no identity) travels to Piqay to attend the funeral of an old lover. She is an outsider, and treated as such by her friend's family, though they recognize her as important. She visits the room of her old friend, and finds there a trace of him. She leaves shortly thereafter.

What was different about this version? Does it achieve a different mood?

Comments

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    Nice to see Priest being eco-friendly before it was call, reusing this story for The Islanders.

    I'll admit, I didn't read it deeply. I think it lacks some impact from both being the second time I read it, and the lack of even the sliver of context the story had in The Islanders.

    A well-done, evocative piece of text. But once was enough.

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    Yes, I thought I'd go back and check out the Islanders version, only to discover that this is the one where there are two (maybe more) conflicting versions of whether Chaster ever left the island in question (with his brother standing in for him where necessary) or not. And several variations of what happened to the lady to.

    But I couldn't get very excited about this - it was fine as far as it went, and there was nothing obviously crazy about it, but I just couldn't get enthusiastic. UI suppose that's because we had already read multiple versions of the events, and this was just one more, with (so far as I could see) no obvious stand-out unique gem to be found in it.

    Sounds like we all felt pretty much the same...

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    The only thing noteworthy for me was that in this version she encounters some kind of blood mist in the bedroom, that is a literal ‘trace of him’, whereas the trace in the other version was more just a metaphoric memory of cheroot smoke or something.

    I think the version in The Islanders is better. I wonder if it was a ‘re-write’ , or if he had something different in mind.

    This book has more ties to ‘The Islanders’ than I remember, but I’m pretty sure not all stories are connected to that book.
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    I just reread the third version in Islanders (in the chapter The Trace) and it seems very similar to me, especially in relation to the apparition in the room - same blue haze coalescing, same smoke, same kiss breaking up into the same spasm of coughing, leading to same spray of bright redness ending up on her hand. I hadn't realised on first reading how very similar it is - like @NeilNjae says, it's more reuse than recycle. Very odd.

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    Also I only just realised that the events happen on Piqay, out of which CP derives the adjective Piqayean. Which is remarkably similar to picayune: "of little value or significance; petty". Not a word I use very often as a Brit, but I'm willing to bet that CP made the choice deliberately.

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    @RichardAbbott said:
    Also I only just realised that the events happen on Piqay, out of which CP derives the adjective Piqayean. Which is remarkably similar to picayune: "of little value or significance; petty". Not a word I use very often as a Brit, but I'm willing to bet that CP made the choice deliberately.

    Interesting catch.

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    It was almost identical to the story in the Islanders, as @RichardAbbott said. If it was any different at all, I didn't care enough to read it minutely enough to detect where it was different.

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