A bit of a slower paced chapter this time relative to chapter 4. We encounter Mary again (another of the kids from chapter 1) didn’t think we’d be seeing her again. Turns out that the bees which attacked Peter in the last chapter were likely under her… control? Guidance? Authority? It’s not exactly clear. Regardless, it seems that she has an affinity with bees and is able to speak with them, while Peter is able to similarly communicate with spiders.
Peter reaches out to Ted, asking him to drive him out to a ledge on the valley which overlooks Millgate.
Ted agrees, and things aren’t going so well for Ted. His wife is sick of being put up in a hotel and says that if Ted stays in Millgate any longer she’s going to leave and divorce him. While I feel like Teds putting her up in a hotel away from town probably wasn’t the best course of action, I do think Peg is being a bit unsympathetic here. Ted is clearly encountering some sort of bizarre experience with this town that is driving him to act in this way. All that said, it’s a complicated scenario and it seems like this is more meant to make Ted a bit more ‘down and out’ than present a point of dramatic tension for the plot to be working against.
Ted goes to the ledge of the valley with Peter, who points out that the town is in fact... I guess “constructed from” would be the right term… two gigantic figures. Almost like giant apparitions (similar to the Wanderers I guess) whose bodies are made out of the landscape itself. The giant which Ted is able to see has a body composed out of the other side of the valley, its legs are mountains, and its head is the sun itself. As Ted remarks on this to Peter, Peter indicates that if he could figure out the giant’s name, he could control it. I wonder if this is a rule which applies to all of the things that Peter (and I suppose Mary) have governance over.. Peter points out to Ted that the other figure is split off at the valley that they are standing on and then he begins to wake the figure. Ted seems to say that the sensation of being surrounded by this waking landscape giant is similar to the feeling of the Wanderers passing through him the night before. Bewildered, Ted leaves Peter behind, saying he’s going to try to leave the town.
I’m getting the feeling that perhaps the… cosmology? Of this book might be a bit too unwieldy for its own good. Part of the reason that Eye in the Sky worked so well was that it kept a relatively simple premise (eight people wake up in a world in which one of their group’s perception of reality acts as indisputable law) and played that out to its logical extremes several times over (also worth noting, the book’s advertising wrote that the story is “hilarious”. I could think of a few things that the story is, but hilarious is not a word that springs to mind). The Cosmic Puppets, while it is certainly an interesting mystery on some level, is beginning to feel like it’s just piling on mechanic after mechanic in this world. Perhaps that’s the point, that Ted is bewildered but keeps on striving. However, if that’s the case, then the continued focus on Peter, who seems to know everything but won’t let the reader in on anything, is aggravating.
No comments:
Post a Comment