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May. 4th, 2020 10:08 amThey re-opened the parks in New Jersey this weekend, so I decided to take advantage before people ruin it. There were lots of people out there; mostly they were keeping away from each other, but not always. I stayed away from people and biked about thirteen miles, down to the canal trail and almost to 287, and then back. It was beautiful weather for it, but the bugs thought so too, and they stuck to my sunscreen in stunning numbers that I was constantly brushing off. :P I'll take it, it was a good time. Hopefully it will stay open, I could use the refuge.
As I rode, I listened to the audiobook of Bujold's Memory, which is an amazing book that is so excellent to revisit. I think one of my great delights in it this time around was noticing how it skirts the conventions of a mystery novel. In fact, for the first third of the book it artfully disguises the fact that it is a mystery novel at all. Bujold drops a ton of clues in the initial chapters, introducing suspects, establishing timelines, setting up critical McGuffins, well before the reader is aware that a crime is being committed and that rather than the straight action-adventure stories that have previously populated the series, this is a murder mystery novel. It's absurdly clever, and not out of nowhere. The whole point of Memory is to force Miles to reorient himself, to learn his limits, to figure out how to accept the parts of him that are Miles Vorkosigan as well as the parts of him that are Miles Naismith, so setting it within a story that initially appears to be a Miles Naismith adventure and that rapidly shifts under both Miles and the reader, not just in plot but actually in genre, is an incredibly powerful mechanism for representing that shift. But in spite of the way it flouts convention, it's an exceptionally well crafted mystery, too! So many tiny little things are set up. I love that the final air filter reveal is set up by Miles's earlier explorations of the ducts of ImpSec, which at the time is presented as, and very easily accepted as, Miles just being antsy. The disguise of the plot is so masterful.
But the best part of Memory is Miles's internal monologue in the attic, and it was really enjoyable to listen to it aloud, to hear its rhythms, the way Bujold moves from the figurative to the literal, the way we see Miles literally having breakthroughs both emotional and as a detective, see the thought processes he moves through. Even though I have read Memory and this passage in particular enough times to remember how large sections of it go, it was still great to hear them aloud.
As I rode, I listened to the audiobook of Bujold's Memory, which is an amazing book that is so excellent to revisit. I think one of my great delights in it this time around was noticing how it skirts the conventions of a mystery novel. In fact, for the first third of the book it artfully disguises the fact that it is a mystery novel at all. Bujold drops a ton of clues in the initial chapters, introducing suspects, establishing timelines, setting up critical McGuffins, well before the reader is aware that a crime is being committed and that rather than the straight action-adventure stories that have previously populated the series, this is a murder mystery novel. It's absurdly clever, and not out of nowhere. The whole point of Memory is to force Miles to reorient himself, to learn his limits, to figure out how to accept the parts of him that are Miles Vorkosigan as well as the parts of him that are Miles Naismith, so setting it within a story that initially appears to be a Miles Naismith adventure and that rapidly shifts under both Miles and the reader, not just in plot but actually in genre, is an incredibly powerful mechanism for representing that shift. But in spite of the way it flouts convention, it's an exceptionally well crafted mystery, too! So many tiny little things are set up. I love that the final air filter reveal is set up by Miles's earlier explorations of the ducts of ImpSec, which at the time is presented as, and very easily accepted as, Miles just being antsy. The disguise of the plot is so masterful.
But the best part of Memory is Miles's internal monologue in the attic, and it was really enjoyable to listen to it aloud, to hear its rhythms, the way Bujold moves from the figurative to the literal, the way we see Miles literally having breakthroughs both emotional and as a detective, see the thought processes he moves through. Even though I have read Memory and this passage in particular enough times to remember how large sections of it go, it was still great to hear them aloud.