Favourite quotes?

[nanila]

p. 88, paperback version:
Without feelings insignificant decisions become excruciating attempts to compare endless arrays of inconsequential things. It's just easier to handle those with emotions.

I paused in my reading to savour these statements for quite some time. It was such a wonderful antidote to the commonly espoused belief that emotions always cloud objective judgment, that "being emotional" precludes the ability to apply logic and rational thought. It makes sense. And, if I dare say so, it feels right. I find that an examination of my emotions enhances and clarifies my judgment rather than obscuring it.

As an aside, it has taken me ages to read this book, but not for the usual full-time-job-and-a-kid reason, which has cut down severely on my long-form reading. Instead, it's because it kept giving me these moments when I want to sit and think over a scene and enjoy their pleasurable effects on my brain.

What are some lines that gave you pause? What did they inspire in you?

Comments

[kaberett]

The part that I bookmarked and highlighted etc is

But when I look closer I seem to see cracks everywhere. Did the singing contribute, the thing that made One Esk different from all other units on the ship, indeed in the fleets? Perhaps. Or is anyone's identity a matter of fragments held together by convenient or useful narrative, that in ordinary circumstances never reveals itself as a fiction? Or is it really a fiction?

[nanila]

YES. That was a section that pinged strongly with me too. Such a powerful statement.

[kaberett]

It is something that has been mattering a very great deal to me at the moment, in terms of my conception of my self and of the difficulties I'm having, and it's a theme the entire damn' book deals with, and I can't - try as I might - summarise the power of that statement to people, so I just sort of flail and handwave and go BUT YOU SHOULD TOTALLY READ THIS BOOK THOUGH.

[davidgillon]

Page 150, Kindle version

'"You're going to stay in touch with me," she said, not a question, not a request. And then, more gently, "I'll miss you."'

Which is probably the moment I realised Skaaiat was more than just Awn's casual lover, not just someone from a more powerful house exploiting someone from a lesser one. And twenty years later when the contemporary strand catches up with her again, Skaaiat is still commemorating Awn's death.

[davidgillon]

(And sadly I'm not sure Awn ever dared believe there was real love there).

[nanila]

Agreed. I doubt she would have brought the topic up even in the most intimate private moments.

[kaberett]

Yes. :-( Which makes me cry when I think to hard about it, because - of all the stuff I've been talking about, about feeling oneself beloved on the earth.

(... CRAP THAT IS GOING TO BE A FIC.)

[davidgillon]

Awn is perhaps the character most worthy of that in the entire book, and she never gets the chance to understand that she actually is beloved, and not simply some casual dalliance of Skaaiat's (and I suspect she was as close to beloved by the Orsians as they could come for any Radchaai).

[davidgillon]

It occurred to me we missed an obvious one:

Page 42 Kindle edition
'The Flower of Justice is Peace'

which actually sounds rather lovely, but then it occurs to you that every Radchaai soldier recites it at the start of the day, that it is Radchaai justice alone they will consider relevant, and that the Radchaai extend their 'justice' through extraordinarily brutal annexations. That's a tremendously complex six words.

Spoilers for Avatar: the Last Airbender, oddly enough

[kaberett]

Yes! "I am the sword of justice..."

(Which is some of why I picked it as a community name: it's social nicety over something very, very ugly, which I think this series has so far done an excellent job of addressing on many levels. And in part it's playing with the name of white_lotus, an A:tLA fan community. Because... yeah. Yeah. The White Lotus, in A:tLA terms, is an international secret society that has held together through genocides and one hundred years of war, and is still holding, and is instrumental in bringing that war to its conclusion; the echoes in comm names are deliberate and they get to me.)