Talk:The Dowry of Angyar

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:The Dowry of the Angyar/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 16:12, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

I'll do this one. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:12, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Comments

In the 1966 edition it is headed "Prologue: The Necklace".

Added

It immediately struck me that the lead does not make clear that the Fomalhaut story is framed by Rocannon's reports of life-forms, and by an unnamed narrator's musings on "Rocannon's story" (as the narrator calls it on the first page). There is double framing - or is it triple: we have the reflective musings, then the species reports in italics, then a brief section in which Rocannon discusses with Ketho the curator, then "She was of an ancient family..." I think this framing needs to be described, at least; ideally its significance should also be discussed and cited. I note that 'framing' is only mentioned in the final paragraph! That could form the basis of a 'Framing' section.

Hmm. You're right about it not being given enough weight, and I've added some mentions. I can't find sources discussing the double/triple framing, though (it's a lovely device, but seems to have been ignored by scholars for some reason, maybe because there's more notable examples; Dune and Foundation come to mind). I've added as much as I'm comfortable doing with the primary source; take a look.

The Brísingamen theme could be illustrated with an image of the pendant, or indeed of a torc.

Good idea; added. If you could take a look at the caption...

The theme of time in Faerie is mentioned in one review but not really explained; and it is not connected with the mention of time dilation in the previous review/paragraph. Perhaps the theme deserves to be drawn out in a paragraph or section of its own, as it is key to the story, just as it is in the tale of the Mermaid of Zennor (which I'm sure Le Guin retells somewhere, though I can't locate it; the luckless youth is taken by the mermaid down to her father's house at the bottom of the sea, where he spends a wild few days and blissful nights, but tears himself away to return to his Cornish village, which has fallen into ruins during the century of his absence...). Semley's Necklace is (on this view) a retelling of a Time-of-Faerie story with the addition of space travel as an explanation.

I've expanded this a bit.

Perhaps the ISBN-10s should be replaced with ISBN-13s.

Done.

I think that's about all I have to say. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:38, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Should be all done, Chiswick Chap; take a look. Vanamonde (talk) 07:06, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

OK, I've tweaked very slightly and linked the framing in this Good Article. Nice work. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:52, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Cheers. Vanamonde (talk) 08:09, 23 July 2018 (UTC)