COMMUNITY READALONG PART 3: The Queen of Attolia chapters 1-7
Please no spoilers for ACoK! Thanks to
jade_sabe_301 for organizing the readalong!
This week we read from "He was asleep, but woke at the sound of the key turning in the lock," to “…the engineers, torn between satisfaction and anguish, reported to the queen that no army would reach the heights of the pass quickly."
And, oh, how much takes place in between!
Favorite lines:
· “It was a very quiet hunt moving through the queen’s palace in Attolia, with her guardsmen creeping quietly, hoping to surprise him, and him creeping even more quietly, hoping to evade them” (6)*
· “‘He’ll come if I say he will,’… She’d have the Attolian abducted and dragged up the mountain if need be” (42)
· “I’ll stop shouting. I won’t sit down. I might need to throw more inkpots” (86)
Favorite scene: The first formal dinner Eugenides attends after Attolia cuts his hand off. Then again, if you ask me tomorrow, I’ll probably have a different answer.
Most frequent thought: I want to BE Eddis.
Thoughts and questions: They got longer and longer as I went through my sticky notes. However, I have conveniently separated them into sections with lovely bullet points so you can jump in wherever you please without issue. Or you could just skip it all and tell me what you think about the section.
Point of view
· Hello, new point of view! I hardly ever remember the third person narrator as I read; thinking back on any given scene, it feels as if one of the characters was narrating. Do you think the book would have worked with any other narrator? Do you prefer this change to Gen’s narration in The Thief?
Attolia
· Attolia’s introduction: “’Did you see where he went?’ a cold voice asked behind them…” (8)
o The first time we see Attolia, she’s appearing in the night to frighten her soldiers as they chase Gen. Cold and intimidating - that’s what we’re initially led to think of her. How much (if at all) does that change in this section?
· After Gen is returned to Eddis (and even before), we only see short little snatches of Attolia and her thoughts, maybe a paragraph or a couple of pages at a time but not much more than that. (Example: five lines at the end of chapter four)
o What do we gain from these tiny scenes? What do we miss seeing?
· “…he’d caused her no harm beyond stealing something she hadn’t known she possessed…” (21).
o And he’s about to do so again, little does she know.
· Attolia repeatedly thinks and states that she wishes she’d hung Eugenides. Why? Because he is still a threat? Other reasons? (69, 73, 101)
The gods
· Attolia has a visit from a goddess very early in the novel (13). How much do you notice the presence of the gods in this section?
· “Stop whining” (79). Moira is so helpful, isn’t she?
Nahuseresh
· Nahuseresh’s introduction: “Beside her [Attolia] the ambassador from the Mede Empire shifted his weight and caught her attention” (23). While Attolia is deciding what to do with Gen.
· He’s always asking Attolia questions when it’s clear that he knows the answers, and he thinks he has her figured out (even if she does know what he’s doing at the same time). Clearly he is a baddie trying to take over the world, right? And Kamet too, or is he more likeable?
Eddis (the country mostly)
· Background on Eddis and Gen (48-51)
· Eddisian politics 101 (88ish-94)
· So MUCH time passes
o The book opens in the middle of summer (1) and we’re already in winter (62)! Then if you peek ahead to the first word of chapter eight it’s spring (103)! Almost a year in 100 pages. Does it feel as if that much time has passed?
Magus
· “Maybe you aren’t a thief anymore, but you could still do something” (98). Careful what you wish for, Magus.
For next week: The Queen of Attolia, chapters 8-13, led by
ilysia_039
*All pages numbers are from the paperback edition with Vince Natale’s cover art.