DFL’S COMMENTS ON ‘ODALISQUE’ BY PF JEFFERY
Chapter Nine - Torment.
Truly beautiful and detailed accounts of the Art of Torment (as a showpiece), the game of calendar-bones, a hilarious inner-tale that has to be read to be believed (Green Wood), more dynastic footnotery, description of the Torment showpiece’s colourful audience, and the coming of barbarians, including the foreboding name of Lewis Ironhand of Clun (for whom Tuerqui is being prepared as dessert?).
Some snippets:
According to the tale, Effilia had her personage sucked into a flask by the sorcerer Mandick, leaving her in a state of limbo – known as hipnos – in which she had neither the authority of a person nor the submission of a slave. Eventually, Effilia’s daughter, Roseblue, managed to uncork the flask – releasing her mother’s personage and sucking that of Mandick into the bottle.
The art of torment is to have precisely the opposite effect. Through the artistry of the tormentor, the subject’s ability to experience pain is continually refined.
We were to perform Woodward’s third agorole, a lengthy and complex work lasting about an hour and a half and requiring more than fifty tormentors – and, of course, a like number of subjects. It called for the finest tormentors and required almost two months to prepare.
Query:
collected we tent collectors
Typo:
desert course = dessert course
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Word docs of the actual chapters are freely available to readers of this blog.
The links to all Chapter comments by me are here: http://weirdmonger.blogspot.com/2008/06/odalisque.html
Posted by: newdfl on 7/7/2008 5:14:02 AM , 2 comments
Submitted by Pet at 7/7/2008 8:13:28 AM
Thank you for that.
The typo "desert course" has now been corrected. (I didn't mean roast camel!!)
I think I spot a DFL typo -- "collected we tent collectors" should read "collected we tent decorators".
I suppose that your query is a reprise of the "we slaves" one. The phonetic argument in favour of "we" seems a bit weaker here -- but the subject/object argument may be stronger. The tent decorators had been set what I think was an essentially enjoyable task. Now, they are about to be treated -- more than ever -- as objects.
Submitted by des at 7/7/2008 8:23:13 AM
Thanks for pointing out my own typo! :-0
