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FLAMING_JEWEL

                                             February 19, 2011

  I listened to most of
  "The Flaming Jewell"                        If I remember right,
  by Robert W. Chambers                       Chambers was well respected
  (1922)                                      in genre circles for a
                                              work of fantasy, "The King
     Hugger-mugger in the aridondacks,        in Yellow".
     chasing around after some stolen
     royal jewels (if that's not                      Or was it for a mystery
     redundant)...                                    novel, "The Yellow
                                                      Chamber", or something?
     A number of things seemed
     remarkable to me about this                   No, that's yet another odd
     book, which sprawls a bit                     mental glitch on my part:
     more than it needs to with                    'twas "The King in
     too many characters, and some                 Yellow", which apparently
     repetitious events as the                     used some schtick similar
     jewels are stolen, stolen                     to Lovecraft's Necronomicon.
     back, stolen again...

        One remarkable item was the female lead, a
        young woman named Eve who grew-up in this
        backwoods locale and has no problem handling a
        rifle. She performs a number of daring escapes,
        climbing down a cliff and transferring to a
        tall pine, crawling through a tunnel and
        swimming an icy lake.

             Plucky Young Women were apparently
             something of a cliche in those
             days: it's rather strange how
             thoroughly they faded from the
             scene after World War II, only to
             return decades later in the 60s.
                                                    A_THING_OF_WIND_AND_LIGHT

        Another remarkable thing: in one chapter              SAVAGE_HONEYCOMB
        multiple factions are scrambling around in
        the woods chasing after the jewels, and one
        of the good guys tries using his hunting
        hounds. He immediately decides this was a
        complete mistake: "These dogs haven't ever
        been used for anything but tracking beaver,
        they can't get the idea that you want them to
        track down a man."  So the dogs keep running
        off in irrelevant directions, chasing after
        animals by the lake.

        But the bad guys don't know this at
        all: they hear the hounds baying, and
        it sends them into a panic, they all
        start scrambling around randomly in
        fear that the hounds are about to find
        them at any moment.

             One of them tries to hide in the same place
             that some beavers have taken shelter, and he
             ends up being killed by these animals, which
             cute cartoons aside, actually have some
             rather nasty, powerful teeth and jaws.

                 This confused mess
                 struck me as quiet
                 believable, compared        However, a lot of
                 to a typical action         the punch is muted
                 novel.                      by the need to tell
                                             this as a multi-
                                             viewpoint narrative.
                                             It's hard to see how
                                             else it could be
                                             conveyed, but "that
                                             trick never works",
                                             if you ask me.


                                                              POV


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