The Relaxed Snowman & The Lost Balcony

The third part of my real-time review of ‘The Terror and the Tortoiseshell’ (A Benji Spriteman Mystery) by John Travis (Atomic Fez Publishing Ltd. 2010).

Continued from here: http://weirdmonger.livejournal.com/2010/04/16/

15.
"The floor was covered in dust..."
The image of 'The Terror' as it has changed inter-breeding relationships reaches here the most imaginatively grotesque proportions both in material fact (with one's own bare eyes) and inferred philosophication. Benji is called urgently to a disused grain warehouse and I'm sure what met him there made him weep for his police 'buddy' in spite (or because) of his earlier gravest misgivings about him. I did not see him weeping, however. Only inferred it. (17 Apr 10 - an hour later)

16.
"Talk about using a bulldozer to bury a Sparrow."
Side-splitting first-real-drink-after-the-Change rite-of-passage with Benji getting drunk on eggnog. A yellow taxi becomes a double-decker bus? Miaow. A comic lull before the Terror resumes, I guess. [Is there any reason why the word 'terror' has 'error' embedded, I wonder with a degree of expected irrelevance?] (17 Apr 10 - another 2 hours later).

17.
"A thin beam of white light passed my left ear, the beam full of small motes of dust."
You know, this is one helluva chapter. Akin, in some way, with an epiphany, and I can only think of "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" chapter in 'Wind In The Willows' as anything with any feasible comparison to it. An epiphany that is both scatological and eschatological. An important moment not only in this book, I guess, but also, without putting too fine a point on it, potentially important in all general literature. (17 Apr 10 - another hour later)

18.
"The sky was far too low..."
Some narrative tusslings with previous plot events by Benji - with, to my mind, at least a hint in one place about 'retrocausality' (a new buzz word personally for me in view of my recent studies of implications relating to CERN's Large Hadron Collider). (17 Apr 10 - another 30 minutes later)

19.
A very brief chapter in an elevator. One that I dare not divulge the nature of for fear of possibly letting some sort of cat out of the bag. A complete surprise to me. (17 Apr 10 - another 15 minutes later)


Part Three: The Country of the Blind

20.
" 'Didn't you notice the clue I left?' "
And I am afraid you who who are reading this review before you read the book must also enter the Country of the Blind. Well, at least for a while. Meanwhile, why has Benji reminded me of Mr Polly?
" 'It was a bit oblique I suppose,'..." (17 Apr 10 - another hour later)

21.
" 'It started as a hunch...' "
And for you, it ended as such, too. Meanwhile, in general terms, many sensitive implications (or hunches) as to the philosophical interface between Animus and Hume. (17 Apr 10 - another 30 minutes later)

22.
" 'I got nowhere with it.' "
While in the Country of the Blind, I've been extrapolating (separate from but relevant to this book) upon the entire pure mid-Ash chemtrail-less blue sky beyond my window here today. It seems somehow right thus to muse upon this sky without aeroplanes as we enter territory with this book where even angels may fear to tread. 'Dark faucets' or Blue Wells? (17 Apr 10 - another 20 minutes later).

23.
I can lift the news blackout slightly at this point. As Benji speculates upon how he is to get entry into the misspelt newspaper's offices (for reasons you will eventually understand even if I don't!), he first meets up with Lieutenant Dingus, one of those remarkable characters I mentioned earlier, this an "undersized, squinty-eyed Basset Hound in a dirty brown raincoat..." (17 Apr 10 - another 20 minutes later)


This real-time review is now continued here:
http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/the_terror_and_the_tortoiseshell_4.htm