Talk:Use of Weapons

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Contents

[edit] Prologue

I'm not sure why the prologue is thought to be the start of another novel. This is obviously not the case, the prologue is there because the story runs backwards. It contains hints about hair length and other stuff, and it's obviously part of the main plot of the story.

Hmmm...your version has the advantage that it's concise and clear, but inevitably it misrepresents a little. It doesn't point up that the two parts actually form a more or less continuous narrative when read in order, and it glosses too much; the word chapters aren't *only* about Zakalwe acting as an agent, and the RN chapters aren't *only* about his earlier life.

 ;-) I did toy with writing "narratives which run backward and forward from the same point" -- like mirror images. Plus there are flashbacks to his childhood, as you said. (Whose childhood.... ? haha). Plus, I nenevr worked out what the bit with the other man in the city was meant to be about -- in the end I gave up trying to link it to the rest of the story, and just figured it acts as a link between teh two marratives, but with no real plot value in itself, except fot eh device of the hair. -- Tarquin

Hmm? I thought that bit fit in quite well with the rest of that narrative stream. It's just another of the vignettes of 'Zakalwe', really - one more of his missions. I realised when thinking about your version that the whole thing is even cleverer than I thought; the bits about childhood are written as flashbacks for most of the book but if you think about it they're not clearly a separate chronological stream, because they fit in seamlessly with the start of the "other" chronological stream, which happens at the end of the book. If you read the bits of text in an *extremely* specific order, you'd have an uninterrupted biography of 'Zakalwe' from childhood all the way through, with no bits missing. Damn, this thing reeks more of genius every time I think about it. How the hell did it not win any awards? :) --AW

I'm having another go, picking out bits from both our versions. Feel free to merge or rewrite anything I've put in -- Tarquin 16:20 Sep 9, 2002 (UTC)
I think this is pretty good now, Tarquin. If you agree, I might go ahead and wipe this stuff from the talk page, to prevent nasty spoilers coming the way of unfortunate souls who haven't read the book yet. Any objections? --AW
Spoiler removed. :-) -- Tarquin

--

Since this entry has basically been a mess for a couple months I went ahead and had a go at cleaning it up. I used some of Tarquin's paragraph and a little of my own writing to discuss the structure and added a sentence to actually say what the book is about, plus a few minor edits here and there. I also went ahead and took the bit about quotations off the talk page since the referenced quotations must have been removed long ago. --Talion 2/2/03

cool :-) -- Tarquin

I deleted the discussion regarding the prologue earlier, and it was reversed. I'm not sure why, the prologue is quite clearly the start of Zakalwe's story and of his recruitment. The structure of the entire novel is set up to lead to this, the prologue, at the end. Consider the first chapter, consider the discussion of his hair, this is no other conclusion.

[edit] Publication date?

I have it as 1991. Can anyone provide a reference to it being 1990? Guinnog 00:15, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

  • The Orbit Books edition has a 1990 copyright, as does every online reference I can find. Justin Bacon 04:06, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Intro problems?

Just having finished Use of Weapons, I have problems with the intro of this article. Elethiomel is not a running opponent of Cheradine, as the intro would suggest. I suggest that the last sentence needs replacing with something like "Parallel with his work, he struggles with ghosts from his past" (the Chairmaker, Staberinde).

The pattern is also not a simple forward/backward split; the "childhood" sections move mostly forward, alongside the "now" sections, while the "previous engagements" sections do move mostly backwards. Should I try to rewrite? --Alvestrand 05:26, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the forwards/backwards split, the current description is generally true but, you're right, the novel doesn't entirely conform to this pattern. However, the sentence at the end of the relevant paragraph makes this clear (to a degree) by highlighting further complications to the structure, so I don't think this needs changing really. Regarding your comments about Elethiomel, I tend to agree. It's somewhat distracting and draws attention to a character that doesn't really need to be covered in the summary of the novel (my POV). Speaking more generally, I tend to favour less description with this novel because it'd be very easy to add spoilers with extra detail, and it'd be a great shame (IMHO) to spoil the novel for a casual browser who hasn't read it yet (spoiler warnings being a little too tempting). I think, on the whole, that the current draft does a pretty good job of outlining it without giving too much away (mostly due to Guinnog's editing). Cheers, --Plumbago 08:34, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Original research

I've removed the "literary significance" section to here for now as it appears to be original research in nature. The only source provided is an online review that essentially unverifiably repeats the claim in the article. Personally, I don't disagree with the content that I've removed to here, but it's not backed up with any reliable sources and it pretty much is just one POV about the novel.

Literary significance & criticism
It is widely considered to be the best of the Culture novels[1], but also one of the least accessible due to its relatively complex structure. The Culture wrestles with its usual dilemma of whether or not to intervene in the affairs of other species.
As in Look to Windward and A Song of Stone, the main theme is the horror of war.
The book also includes, for the first time in a Banks novel, the possible beginning of another story. After the dénouement of Zakalwe's story, Diziet Sma visits a hospital in a less advanced civilisation. There she finds a heroic but crippled soldier and offers him renewed health and a job, presumably as a Culture mercenary. This section is entitled "States of War" and is labelled a prologue. As Banks has never announced any plans to write this story, it may be seen as adding a cyclical element to the story of Use of Weapons. As the central two strands of the novel cycle around to finish at essentially the same point, many readers find this circular interpretation appealing.

In other changes, I've also restored some text to the article that was removed by an anon a while back. Cheers, --Plumbago 08:57, 6 July 2007 (UTC)