The Dragon's Pool - Week I (Part I) NO SPOILERS

[Edward C. Patterson]

Haven't you ever heard of the ageless Chinese. Well first of all, John was older than most of his women and John was quite advanced when Nick was born as you'll see in another slipback. I never say that the old Grandmother is 100 (although I intentionally make you think that using the Chinese system of counting, which always rounds number up to the nearest 100 or 1,000). Win-t'o is nearing 50, and Sung Yi-di is the second child, so she is in her mid-forties, while Meng Ka-bao, the third child (from another trip back to China to be covered in book 4) is thirty eight. Nick is 24. It was a rough birth and his mother never really recovered, that's why he was brought up by Aunt Millie, while John took up residence in New York. John was never close to his children and, as we can deduce (and you will see) was never close to these women. He was more entranced by their place in his quest than for their companionship. Nick was likely a mistake of his advanced years, although Nick always sought his father's love and approval (as again, you shall see). The old Grandmother's fling with John takes place years after they first rubbed elbows in Guilin. She was over forty when she had Sung Yi-di, so she dies at age ninety-two.

However, I must say, you're the first reader to try to jog together all the character's ages. There is a reason I leave them out of the story and allow the reader to form their own mental conclusions on age. Wait until you encounter the 180 year old I have in store for you.  However, I am guilty as charged misleading you to think that the old grandmother is 100.  Actually see her as 110 sometimes, and sometimes as 22 waiting on Angel island. It's funny how you can convince people that you can hop through a silk painting and wind up in 12th Century China, but when it comes the ageless Chinese, we want to see . . . the passports. 

Ed P

[Ann in Arlington]

92. . . .100. . . . .same thing when you're considering the span of ages of the various kids. I still say that Battle was quite the oat sower. . . . .and it does make more sense when you realize that the mothers were all different women. . . . .

o.k. then. . . .off to Italy. . . . . . . . .

[Edward C. Patterson]

Ann:

Since we're reading this together, I will share with you and the other members of the Klub that author's use a "trick" also called "hanging  a lantern," which comes from the old Silent Movie days when a piece of the scenery stuck out illogically, they'd shout "Hang a lantern on it and nobody'll notice it."

Sometimes authors need to do this to prevent spilling the beans. I do it in The Jade Owl when Nick and Rowden first enter the tomb and there's light. Now in an earlier version I had a long explanation for the light, but because of that explanation when Wu Tze-t'ien appears and is alive, the surpirse was gone - no shock, because everyone has figured out that "someone" kept the lights going. I replaced all that by having an unexplained "light" in the red chamber which remained unexplained. So when we see the lights in the tomb, Rowden hangs a lantern on it, by saying that these were similar to the unexplained light in the Red Chamber "and he never got a satisfactory explanation for that either." THEN I LEAVE IT ALONE. And no one notices it or questions it, and thus the Empress Wu's appearance is a surprise.

This reminds me of a comment made by Sean Astin on a commentary for The Two Towers, when he asked the lighting director in the Cireth Ungol scene about some unexplained lighting: "Where is the light coming from?," Astin asked. The man smiled and said, "the same place that the music comes from."

My favorite logic slip comes, of course, from Gilbert & Sullivan. The Pirates of Penzance. Act One is set on a Summer day in Cornwall on the heroes 21st birthday. Major-General Stanley's daughters are skipping along the coast, splashing in the water and having a picnic. Of course we learn in Act Two that the hero was born in leap year on the 29th of Febraury (a plot inequity to nullify his piratical contract). No one ever questions that bright Summer day picnicking in Cornwall in Act One that actually takes place in the dead of winter.  In this case Gilbert didn't hang a lantern on it. He just presents the fact out of sequence and the audiences misses the logical slip. Oh, there's all sorts of slips made on purpose. I could write a book. (Wait a second, I think I did).

Ed P