"The Year of Intelligent Tigers"
Aug. 15th, 2007 10:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eponymous_roseDoctor Who, cats, weather, and music.
1. The William Blake references. Teensy, subtle, and I only counted two of 'em, but they were fantastic. I think that was the first poem, way back in the eleventh grade or whenever, that really got stuck rattling around in my head, the rhythm of it and all, and I can still hear my amazing, wonderful English teacher emphasizing the "dare" in that final line with a manic grin. (Of course, when I was helping a friend through a freshman English essay, we got hung up on the line "In what furnace was thy brain?" as the perfect all-purpose insult. Heehee.)
2. Beethoven's Fifth. Zapped me right back to that weird little Music Appreciation course I took in my freshman year, really listening to the cliche for the first time, tensing in my seat with the effort of waiting for the timpani to bring back those four notes. Trying to imagine how baffling and strange and wonderful this cyclical structure must've seemed to a generation beginning to witness the rise of Romanticism. Echoes of empfindsamkeit (bless you) in a world of tigers. Very, very nicely done.
3. Weather geekery. I got far too excited over the Chandler-wobble-gone-horribly-wrong explanation for the wacky and wonderful weather. My nerdiness knows no bounds.
4. Bewilderness. Just, yes. Win.
5. I love love love that the book was set as a sort of responsorial (chorus-verse)/concerto (chorus-solo)/pop-song (verse-bridge-chorus)/what-have-you. This is probably the only time I'll ever get to talk about a piece of writing in terms of a six-note theme! That was absolutely wonderful, having those six notes pop up again and again in the text, planted throughout with some sort of wonderful, driving ambition - and then having Fitz strum away at this song he's written for the Doctor, and that awesome, heartbreaking moment where you realize they're the same. It's that way with any Classical sonata beginning in a minor key - you might flit through all these wonderful, cheerful melodies, but the minor key's always lurking, waiting to return and claim dominance.
6. Ah, but speaking of knowing-the-ending, I actually ran into a bit of trouble predicting Karl's eventual fate. From the start, I was positively certain he'd get killed off; poor, doomed Karl. Turns out I was right, in a way - the Doctor certainly mourns him - but I'm so glad I wasn't right in the way I expected. That was beautiful, a little bit of a love story in the midst of everything else. Tragic, certainly: but then, that's a concerto for you - the argument between the virtuoso and the ripieno, and neither ever really wins.
7. Back to the weather geekery - a little part of me (the one that gets yelled at by friends/relatives/cabbies/passersby when the weather forecast's way off) felt mighty vindicated when it was revealed that the main evidence of the tiger's advancement as an intelligent society was control over the weather. Heehee.
8. To sum up - one of the biggest motifs of the story was the issue of communication. From the goofy-to-threatening "Hullow" to the fact that the Doctor is totally alone in understanding both races and must bridge the gap, miscommunication played a powerful role in the whole thing. And the idea of perception comes in when communication fails; we must make judgement calls without having all the information. So it's somehow fitting that Longbody dies as an anonymous tiger chasing Fitz, the victim of a bad pun - lack of communication; only we as the readers know her significance to the plot, and Fitz's perception is totally different. And you've also got Longbody sort of hurt at the idea that Anji didn't recognize her as the tiger she'd stabbed (though, as it turns out, she did, and that's just another layer of miscommunication). Neat stuff.
9. But the whole thing really is - and always was - about belonging. You've got the tigers, trying to integrate themselves forcefully into a human society, with a sort of childish enthusiasm offset by their ancestors' memories of violence. You've got the humans, the invaders, trying to live on and cope with a world that was never really theirs in the first place. You've got the Doctor, still trying to figure out who he is, attempting to define himself as a human and then as a tiger, failing in both cases, and achieving a sort of acceptance of his unbelonging. You've got Fitz, playing his guitar and leading rebellions and actually belonging somewhere for once - and then giving it up to leave with the Doctor. You've got Anji, who throughout her story arc never quite seems to fit in, growing further away from the Doctor and Fitz. And, of course, you've got Longbody, fierce and instinctual, deluding herself into believing that she belongs to the rest, never really realizing that they've moved on without her.
Very, very nicely done.
2. Beethoven's Fifth. Zapped me right back to that weird little Music Appreciation course I took in my freshman year, really listening to the cliche for the first time, tensing in my seat with the effort of waiting for the timpani to bring back those four notes. Trying to imagine how baffling and strange and wonderful this cyclical structure must've seemed to a generation beginning to witness the rise of Romanticism. Echoes of empfindsamkeit (bless you) in a world of tigers. Very, very nicely done.
3. Weather geekery. I got far too excited over the Chandler-wobble-gone-horribly-wrong explanation for the wacky and wonderful weather. My nerdiness knows no bounds.
4. Bewilderness. Just, yes. Win.
5. I love love love that the book was set as a sort of responsorial (chorus-verse)/concerto (chorus-solo)/pop-song (verse-bridge-chorus)/what-have-you. This is probably the only time I'll ever get to talk about a piece of writing in terms of a six-note theme! That was absolutely wonderful, having those six notes pop up again and again in the text, planted throughout with some sort of wonderful, driving ambition - and then having Fitz strum away at this song he's written for the Doctor, and that awesome, heartbreaking moment where you realize they're the same. It's that way with any Classical sonata beginning in a minor key - you might flit through all these wonderful, cheerful melodies, but the minor key's always lurking, waiting to return and claim dominance.
6. Ah, but speaking of knowing-the-ending, I actually ran into a bit of trouble predicting Karl's eventual fate. From the start, I was positively certain he'd get killed off; poor, doomed Karl. Turns out I was right, in a way - the Doctor certainly mourns him - but I'm so glad I wasn't right in the way I expected. That was beautiful, a little bit of a love story in the midst of everything else. Tragic, certainly: but then, that's a concerto for you - the argument between the virtuoso and the ripieno, and neither ever really wins.
7. Back to the weather geekery - a little part of me (the one that gets yelled at by friends/relatives/cabbies/passersby when the weather forecast's way off) felt mighty vindicated when it was revealed that the main evidence of the tiger's advancement as an intelligent society was control over the weather. Heehee.
8. To sum up - one of the biggest motifs of the story was the issue of communication. From the goofy-to-threatening "Hullow" to the fact that the Doctor is totally alone in understanding both races and must bridge the gap, miscommunication played a powerful role in the whole thing. And the idea of perception comes in when communication fails; we must make judgement calls without having all the information. So it's somehow fitting that Longbody dies as an anonymous tiger chasing Fitz, the victim of a bad pun - lack of communication; only we as the readers know her significance to the plot, and Fitz's perception is totally different. And you've also got Longbody sort of hurt at the idea that Anji didn't recognize her as the tiger she'd stabbed (though, as it turns out, she did, and that's just another layer of miscommunication). Neat stuff.
9. But the whole thing really is - and always was - about belonging. You've got the tigers, trying to integrate themselves forcefully into a human society, with a sort of childish enthusiasm offset by their ancestors' memories of violence. You've got the humans, the invaders, trying to live on and cope with a world that was never really theirs in the first place. You've got the Doctor, still trying to figure out who he is, attempting to define himself as a human and then as a tiger, failing in both cases, and achieving a sort of acceptance of his unbelonging. You've got Fitz, playing his guitar and leading rebellions and actually belonging somewhere for once - and then giving it up to leave with the Doctor. You've got Anji, who throughout her story arc never quite seems to fit in, growing further away from the Doctor and Fitz. And, of course, you've got Longbody, fierce and instinctual, deluding herself into believing that she belongs to the rest, never really realizing that they've moved on without her.
Very, very nicely done.
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no subject
Date: 2007-08-16 05:50 am (UTC)It's on my shelf of love.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-16 05:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-16 06:02 am (UTC)Kate's talent knows no bounds.
This is extremely true!
And huzzah for random friending! :D
Ah, but speaking of knowing-the-ending...
Date: 2007-08-16 12:28 pm (UTC)|
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I loved -- and was quite surprised by -- the way the Doctor didn't fix the planet's weather problems. Instead he made them worse, in order to force the humans and tigers to work together. Brilliant and unexpected move, that, and so different from what one comes to expect after watching/reading an embarassingly vast amount of Doctor Who.
Bonus: it sets things up so nicely for a sequel, because one just knows that it's all going to go horribly wrong and the Doctor's going to have to show up again to fix it. I'm just sad that the BBC never published that sequel (of course Kate&Jon would have to write it).
As it is such a perfect setup, I am a little surprised that there aren't hundreds of fanfic Tigers sequels out there too. That would make me so happy, at least until Kate&Jon write the canon version.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-16 02:44 pm (UTC)Re: Ah, but speaking of knowing-the-ending...
Date: 2007-08-16 03:15 pm (UTC)I am a little surprised that there aren't hundreds of fanfic Tigers sequels out there too.
Uh-oh.
...I think I might just have a new end-of-summer project. :D
no subject
Date: 2007-08-16 03:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-16 11:02 pm (UTC)Looks like I should check it out next time I see it.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-16 11:33 pm (UTC)(I started my Who!novel reading off with "The Eight Doctors" and the experience very nearly convinced me to stop. But there really are a lot of good ones out there!)
Re: Ah, but speaking of knowing-the-ending...
Date: 2007-08-18 03:35 am (UTC)Do it! Do it! And I will love you forever
and have your tiembabiez.Until then how 'bout I just friend you?
Re: Ah, but speaking of knowing-the-ending...
Date: 2007-08-18 03:41 am (UTC)And friending = much good. :D
Okay. Another project. I can handle this. (Of course, it'll have to be in sonata-allegro form. Ooh, this'll be neat.)