Against the Day Update

I am still reading!

For a while there, I was only reading at night before falling asleep, and was rapidly losing track of what was happening. Which brother was which? How many brothers are there (2 or 3)? Who were the guys that killed Webb? What were the Chums of Chance looking for? Why was the Iceland Spar important? What is T.W.I.T.? Who's the girl who goes to New York and sees her mother(?) in the department store? I couldn't remember and I was wishing that I'd been taking notes from the beginning.

Worse yet, I'd completely missed the significance of the scene where Frank kills Sloat!

The other problem was that the character of Webb Traverse was so well drawn in the early sections that you really adopted him as the main character. He was the guy you identified with and wanted to follow to the end. In that regard, it makes his death that much more shocking when it happens, but it also leaves you, as a reader feeling a little lost. Who do we attach ourselves to now? Who is the hero?

A conventional, but honest question.

Last weekend I managed to read 100 pages at a single sitting (basically pgs. 400-500), and I realized that the problem was not the book but the fact that I'd been reading too slowly. The book is meant to be read at a pretty fast pace, and the extended sequences are meant to be episodic. When we move from one locale to another it either heightens the tension or answers a question. This thing has a plot and it moves!

In this section alone we learn of:

• The Chums of Chance and their discovery of Time-Travel via Dr. Zoot.
• Candlebrow University where scientists study Time.
• The "brief aberration in their history known as the Marching Academy Harmonica Band".
• The adventures of the under-sand frigate Saksaul.
• A journey to the under-sand city of Nuovo Rialta.
• Merle and some crazy business about movie projectors which leads to the invention of a Time-Machine.
• Thorvald the tornado.
• Frank's homeward journey, and a reunion with his mother.
• Deuce and Lake's increasingly accusatory, guilt-ridden, and confrontational marriage.
• Cyprian Latewood and his obsession with the beautiful (spy?) Yashmeen Halfcourt.

Clearly I don't have a full understanding of everything that's going on but it feels like it's fitting together. It helps to flip back to the beginning every once in a while to keep track of what's happened and to whom.

Only half way though. More to come!