#Embassytown's narrator 'admit[s] defeat. [...] Perhaps because I didn't pay proper attention perhaps because it wasn't a narrative but for | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

regicidal-defenestration · 5 months ago

Text

Striking reading Embassytown immediately after Don Quixote because whilst you wouldn't usually compare sci-fi (published 2011) to a parody of the chivalric romance genre (final part published 1615) they are nevertheless strikingly similar

#like embassytown is about language: who controls communication; truth vs lies vs metaphors vs similes; what if there were no such thing as a #Concept You Had No Words For (Yet) what if you could only experience what you said #don quixote is about a guy who's a bit cringe and gets beaten up a lot #but they are also both about stories and communication #don quixote goes on his adventures because he reads too much and thinks them real - the narrator frequently refers to The True And Real #History of Don Quixote even though what we're reading is no more real than what he read and believed to be true #embassytown's plot hinges on lies but also I think the question How can we communicate across the vast differences between us #and even as the characters begin to lie so does the narrator (or at least finds herself struggling to tell the truth)#Cervantes - through Cide Hamete Benengeli - complains at the start of part 2 at how someone took his story away from him; wrote a second pa #Embassytown's narrator 'admit[s] defeat. [...] Perhaps because I didn't pay proper attention perhaps because it wasn't a narrative but for #whatever reasons it doesn't want to be what I want to make it'#Benegali tells us 'no [story]* can be bad so long as it is true' Avice says 'This is a true story I'm telling but I am telling it and that #entails certain things'#Do You Kinda See My Point. it's about how we tell stories to each other and how we communicate the non-real #*many translators translate 'historia' as 'history'. discuss amongst yourselves what impact that makes vs its other meaning of 'story'#I don't actually know how much sense I'm making; I'm tired and I'm just rambling in the tags #but like it's cool

1 note · View note