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vorkosigan2009-05-15 12:24 pm
flourish) wrote in vorkosigan2009-05-15 12:24 pm
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Shards of Honor - readthrough!
To kick off our Vorkosiverse reread: Shards of Honor! I've just got some quick thoughts, and look forward to hearing all of yours too:
Remember: the next book in our readthrough is Barrayar, and we'll be discussing it on June 1!
- Cordelia discusses herself as being somewhat socially awkward or incapable when she talks about the bad relationship she was in pre-Aral, but she doesn't actually end up being that way in the series later. Is this just self-doubt? Or could it be that Cordelia is "out of step" with Beta colony and for some reason has assumptions about the way people interact that's more suited to life on Barrayar (or, even, not on Barrayar either, but at least on Barrayar she knows her assumptions are likely to be wrong)?
- I've recently seen some people complaining about the question of "blood guilt" that gets brought up with the fetuses in replicators, suggesting that Bujold has some kind of anti-abortion axe to grind. Rereading it this time, I wonder if it isn't perfectly reasonable: on Beta colony there are not typically any unwanted pregnancies, nor would I imagine are they very common on Escobar. The idea that Betan culture - how does Cordelia put it? "has a respect for life"? - has a very different tenor than it does in the United States today, then, or on Barrayar for that matter. I don't have any opinion on the topic that I care to share, but it was interesting to me to meditate on how it affects our understanding of Cordelia...
- It's also interesting that Cordelia explicitly positions herself as a theist. I like that Bujold does not just allow the assumption that everyone is a theist, or everyone is an atheist, or whatever.
- It just occurred to me: Konstantine Bothari - he's Greek! And so is Elena, then. Somehow it did not occur to me that 'Konstantine' established him as part of the Greek minority on Barrayar.
- Rereading Shards of Honor reminded me of Xav Vorbarra's Betan wife. To refresh: Xav is the younger son of Dorca the Just, half-brother to Mad Emperor Yuri. He ended up living through the end of the Time of Isolation (or at least Dorca's reign overlapped the Time of Isolation's end, so I assume Xav lived through it) and ended up bringing home a Betan wife from his ambassadorship to Beta colony. I don't know if we know her name, but his daughter Olivia married Piotr and therefore was Aral's mother; another daughter was Padma Vorpatril's mother. Can we say wonderful fanfiction topic? I would love to dig my teeth into writing about the experience of a Betan going to just-post-Time of Isolation Barrayar! Holy jeez, talk about culture shock.
Remember: the next book in our readthrough is Barrayar, and we'll be discussing it on June 1!
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Remember that it was just a thousand years ago that all of Scandinavia spoke the same language. It wasn't until we truly started to settle that languages really diversified. I can still easily speak Swedish with a Norwegian or Dane and be understood. And probably get the main gist out of a German text as well.
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Interesting thought on the Scandinavian languages. Barrayaran English and Betan English are probably further diverged than English accents are today. Makes Miles's accent switch more credible as a disguise, I guess.
Drift does happen, though - I know that when 19th century Norwegian families in the United States who've preserved their native language go back to Norway they sound painfully rural by modern standards. Partly because they immigrated from rural areas, but still. I'm about 1/4 Norwegian myself - my ancestors were crazy enough to farm near Tromsø.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokm%C3%A5l_language#History