Sinai, William Smethurst
ForumWorld Reading Circle
Melde dich bei LibraryThing an, um Nachrichten zu schreiben.
Dieses Thema ruht momentan. Die letzte Nachricht liegt mehr als 90 Tage zurück. Du kannst es wieder aufgreifen, indem du eine neue Antwort schreibst.
1mirrani
This was a hard book for me to get in to. I wasn't sure if it was trying to be a science fiction thing or trying to be a history thing or trying to be something totally different. I also ended up feeling as if things were started to move the plot along, but then never got resolved. Maybe I just didn't pay much attention because it couldn't keep my attention? I read the whole thing and I'm still not sure what I was reading about.
Zuri stopped laughing. He said, 'I am an old man.'
'Yes,' said Shelumiel, 'you are a hundred.'
'I am certainly an old man.'
They all nodded. He was an old man, they agreed, a hundred and fifty years old at least.
'Old Man,' said Ruth sadly, 'Old, old man.'
'To be taken,' Zuri cried, 'from my house, when so old!' at 3% in
I'm really not sure why conversations like this happen /exactly/ like this. Is it written this way to prove they're pitying him and playing along (because it's revealed he isn't really as old as is said)? Is there some other reason that all of this is going on? It just seems out of place, unless it's meant to make you chuckle, which this didn't really, it just made me wonder why it was written this way.
The problem with the Bible, Mr Baker, the problem with the Old Testament, is that the early chapters were written down several hundred years after the supposed events actually happened and many of the events described were borrowed from the folk-legends and folk-histories of other Middle Eastern Tribal societies. In Egypt itself -- and Egypt was very civilized, well-organized, well-governed country with a written language and an extensive civil service -- there is not a single reference to the ten terrible plagues, to the Nile turning to blood, frogs invading houses, locusts eating the crops, darkness falling over the land or the death of the nation's first-born. No reference anywhere to the departure of 600,000 men with their families, their herds and flocks, and all the loot that the Bible admits went out of Egypt with them. 4%
Here's long and rambling for you. A good point and I assume it was trying to set up an ideal in the book which was followed with the jumping back and forth between the past and the modern time, but still... rambling a good point makes it harder to share and harder to read.
'These are Shardana,' said Richard.
Worboys said, 'I know they are Shardana.'
He put down his bits of pottery. He sat down. He said, 'They are Shardana captives in a cart.' 9%
Really. What is up with this writing style? Am I missing something from the pages of creativity here that says conversation like this is okay?
'My physicist from Drexel offered me a thousand dollars to ghost-hunt in the Valley of the Kings,' said Richard, exaggerating hardly at all. 11%
First off I was confused enough, now I can't figure out who's from London, who's from the States, who should be talking about dollars and who should be talking about pounds.
The dialogue in this book is just horrible in places, at about 16% in there is a page of nothing but short, one line things back and forth:
'Meaning?'
'I don't understand.'
Her tongue moistened her dry lips.
'What don't you understand?'
'He's a boy soldier.'
'What dynasty?'
He bent down over the tattoo markings.
And so on. I mean... this goes on for the whole page.
At 20% of the way through I still haven't figured out the point of the book yet.
Zuri stopped laughing. He said, 'I am an old man.'
'Yes,' said Shelumiel, 'you are a hundred.'
'I am certainly an old man.'
They all nodded. He was an old man, they agreed, a hundred and fifty years old at least.
'Old Man,' said Ruth sadly, 'Old, old man.'
'To be taken,' Zuri cried, 'from my house, when so old!' at 3% in
I'm really not sure why conversations like this happen /exactly/ like this. Is it written this way to prove they're pitying him and playing along (because it's revealed he isn't really as old as is said)? Is there some other reason that all of this is going on? It just seems out of place, unless it's meant to make you chuckle, which this didn't really, it just made me wonder why it was written this way.
The problem with the Bible, Mr Baker, the problem with the Old Testament, is that the early chapters were written down several hundred years after the supposed events actually happened and many of the events described were borrowed from the folk-legends and folk-histories of other Middle Eastern Tribal societies. In Egypt itself -- and Egypt was very civilized, well-organized, well-governed country with a written language and an extensive civil service -- there is not a single reference to the ten terrible plagues, to the Nile turning to blood, frogs invading houses, locusts eating the crops, darkness falling over the land or the death of the nation's first-born. No reference anywhere to the departure of 600,000 men with their families, their herds and flocks, and all the loot that the Bible admits went out of Egypt with them. 4%
Here's long and rambling for you. A good point and I assume it was trying to set up an ideal in the book which was followed with the jumping back and forth between the past and the modern time, but still... rambling a good point makes it harder to share and harder to read.
'These are Shardana,' said Richard.
Worboys said, 'I know they are Shardana.'
He put down his bits of pottery. He sat down. He said, 'They are Shardana captives in a cart.' 9%
Really. What is up with this writing style? Am I missing something from the pages of creativity here that says conversation like this is okay?
'My physicist from Drexel offered me a thousand dollars to ghost-hunt in the Valley of the Kings,' said Richard, exaggerating hardly at all. 11%
First off I was confused enough, now I can't figure out who's from London, who's from the States, who should be talking about dollars and who should be talking about pounds.
The dialogue in this book is just horrible in places, at about 16% in there is a page of nothing but short, one line things back and forth:
'Meaning?'
'I don't understand.'
Her tongue moistened her dry lips.
'What don't you understand?'
'He's a boy soldier.'
'What dynasty?'
He bent down over the tattoo markings.
And so on. I mean... this goes on for the whole page.
At 20% of the way through I still haven't figured out the point of the book yet.
2mirrani
As for the rest of his tank crew, the trouble was they didn't think fast, enough.
Found a bit of a blip there, don't you think? Not sure how much of this book has errors like that in it, this was (so far) the only one that I found, but there are small sections where I only listened and didn't actually read with my own eyes.
A theory that might have sounded absurd in a London hotel sounded less implausible here in the Egyptian night, in the fetid, tomb-stench heat of the Cairo necropolis, in the place where the spirits of dead men and women had been released to roam for four thousand years. 25%
I liked this idea and it really is true. You do tend to think more magical thoughts in more "magical" locations.
I also want it noted that this book is full of things in parentheses, which I don't mind occasionally or in non-fiction books or whatever, but this got really tiresome.
Bullets smashed the side-windows into a minion shards. 37%
Here's something that needs a fix, guys. And this is the second time. There was also a section around 42% where a conversation was taking place that started out in person, or at least appeared to be, but then one of the characters says to the others 'If I had been, why would I be phoning you.' Was this in person or on the phone or did I miss something? I'm having to pay far too much attention to this book as I'm going along, I feel like I should be taking notes on each character. It's just too hard for me to follow the way it's written.
'Classical physics says that such time travel is not possible,' he said aloud to his geranium as he paced his flat, 'because it cannot be done without violating the autonomy principle. OK? Right? We're quite clear on that one, are we?'
His geranium, he noted, conformed to the biological laws of the universe and did not reply. 47%
Yeah, that made me laugh. Out loud. On an airplane. Probably because it wasn't really expected.
I really didn't much understand the biblical parts of the book. It was almost as if they were written in a different style on purpose, to represent biblical writing or something. If that was the point it was okay, but I'm not a bible reader so I couldn't tell you if it was well done or not. If that wasn't the point, I'm not really sure what the point was. Maybe it was just an accident of nature. Different time calls for different way of talking, which puts the writer in a different mindset?
'Did you know, the earliest known coin-operated vending machine for water was invented by the ancient Egyptians?' 75%
I looked this up. It's true. So there's a research win for you.
Other universes are paper universes. Universes of the imagination. You don't need quantum physics, you need William Blake:
To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
On an atomic level the other universes are there -- just as on a physical level the earth is moving, round and round its centre, round and round the sun. But our brains cannot detect, cannot feel the presence of other universes, any more than our bodies can feel the earth rotating. 83%
I like other universe thoughts and ideas, so I just threw this in here.
Cartwright stopped throwing gear into the back of the Land Rover. He said blankly, 'Oh, bloody hell. Oh, Christ. Listen, now listen, /sir/. When they pull out, get away from the target, you have to be bloody mad to take no notice. There's weapons research going on here that would make your hair fall out just thinking about it. Tell him, miss.'
'Tell him? Me? Me tell him?'
For starters... Huh? And for seconds... I still don't know what's really going on here... people running around to various sites in the desert trying to figure out why one man disappeared and showed up later dead of several days worth of dehydration or trying to figure out where a mummy came from or trying to figure out if there's a time loop somewhere? Lost.
Richard crawled into the cave's entrance. It was bigger inside that he expected -- this was the work of man, chiselling away with flint axes in prehistory, or in the time of the Old Kingdom. 90%
Yeah, that's all exactly as it was written. Typo city, so I'd say this thing needs an edit 'cause three mistakes in one go, when I'm /not/ paying attention for mistakes... that's a lot, isn't it?
Another thing that got to me about this writing style... I realize the book was long enough as it was and maybe someone tried to make it shorter, but WHY is everything abbreviated? If you're in the British Museum, just call it that, don't say you're in the BM. Every single time it was mentioned after the first time. And this wasn't the first incident, it's just the one I actually had time to make note of.
'At a time when the most advanced civilization in northern Europe was a Stone-Age axe factory in Great Langdale, the Egyptians had achieved everything a civilization can hope to achieve. The provision of food and shelter, the inventions of fire, the discovery of the wheel, the development of an oral and a written language, a social framework and a civil service. That was when the priests of Misri set out to conquer death.'
I liked this bit, at 98% in.
A sparrow, perhaps the ba of an Egyptian corpse in the Room of Mummies, fluttered softly by their heads as they passed under the trees.
That's the last line of the book and actually it doesn't give anything away. I like the line, but I thought. What? Huh? Where's the ending? I think you'll understand better when you read it yourself.
Found a bit of a blip there, don't you think? Not sure how much of this book has errors like that in it, this was (so far) the only one that I found, but there are small sections where I only listened and didn't actually read with my own eyes.
A theory that might have sounded absurd in a London hotel sounded less implausible here in the Egyptian night, in the fetid, tomb-stench heat of the Cairo necropolis, in the place where the spirits of dead men and women had been released to roam for four thousand years. 25%
I liked this idea and it really is true. You do tend to think more magical thoughts in more "magical" locations.
I also want it noted that this book is full of things in parentheses, which I don't mind occasionally or in non-fiction books or whatever, but this got really tiresome.
Bullets smashed the side-windows into a minion shards. 37%
Here's something that needs a fix, guys. And this is the second time. There was also a section around 42% where a conversation was taking place that started out in person, or at least appeared to be, but then one of the characters says to the others 'If I had been, why would I be phoning you.' Was this in person or on the phone or did I miss something? I'm having to pay far too much attention to this book as I'm going along, I feel like I should be taking notes on each character. It's just too hard for me to follow the way it's written.
'Classical physics says that such time travel is not possible,' he said aloud to his geranium as he paced his flat, 'because it cannot be done without violating the autonomy principle. OK? Right? We're quite clear on that one, are we?'
His geranium, he noted, conformed to the biological laws of the universe and did not reply. 47%
Yeah, that made me laugh. Out loud. On an airplane. Probably because it wasn't really expected.
I really didn't much understand the biblical parts of the book. It was almost as if they were written in a different style on purpose, to represent biblical writing or something. If that was the point it was okay, but I'm not a bible reader so I couldn't tell you if it was well done or not. If that wasn't the point, I'm not really sure what the point was. Maybe it was just an accident of nature. Different time calls for different way of talking, which puts the writer in a different mindset?
'Did you know, the earliest known coin-operated vending machine for water was invented by the ancient Egyptians?' 75%
I looked this up. It's true. So there's a research win for you.
Other universes are paper universes. Universes of the imagination. You don't need quantum physics, you need William Blake:
To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
On an atomic level the other universes are there -- just as on a physical level the earth is moving, round and round its centre, round and round the sun. But our brains cannot detect, cannot feel the presence of other universes, any more than our bodies can feel the earth rotating. 83%
I like other universe thoughts and ideas, so I just threw this in here.
Cartwright stopped throwing gear into the back of the Land Rover. He said blankly, 'Oh, bloody hell. Oh, Christ. Listen, now listen, /sir/. When they pull out, get away from the target, you have to be bloody mad to take no notice. There's weapons research going on here that would make your hair fall out just thinking about it. Tell him, miss.'
'Tell him? Me? Me tell him?'
For starters... Huh? And for seconds... I still don't know what's really going on here... people running around to various sites in the desert trying to figure out why one man disappeared and showed up later dead of several days worth of dehydration or trying to figure out where a mummy came from or trying to figure out if there's a time loop somewhere? Lost.
Richard crawled into the cave's entrance. It was bigger inside that he expected -- this was the work of man, chiselling away with flint axes in prehistory, or in the time of the Old Kingdom. 90%
Yeah, that's all exactly as it was written. Typo city, so I'd say this thing needs an edit 'cause three mistakes in one go, when I'm /not/ paying attention for mistakes... that's a lot, isn't it?
Another thing that got to me about this writing style... I realize the book was long enough as it was and maybe someone tried to make it shorter, but WHY is everything abbreviated? If you're in the British Museum, just call it that, don't say you're in the BM. Every single time it was mentioned after the first time. And this wasn't the first incident, it's just the one I actually had time to make note of.
'At a time when the most advanced civilization in northern Europe was a Stone-Age axe factory in Great Langdale, the Egyptians had achieved everything a civilization can hope to achieve. The provision of food and shelter, the inventions of fire, the discovery of the wheel, the development of an oral and a written language, a social framework and a civil service. That was when the priests of Misri set out to conquer death.'
I liked this bit, at 98% in.
A sparrow, perhaps the ba of an Egyptian corpse in the Room of Mummies, fluttered softly by their heads as they passed under the trees.
That's the last line of the book and actually it doesn't give anything away. I like the line, but I thought. What? Huh? Where's the ending? I think you'll understand better when you read it yourself.
