Silent Sorrow (The Book of Remezov)

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Uh, uh, uh, went something in the room. A bellows-like sound, disturbingly organic, as of air forced through a complex system of pipes. She wondered if the heating had broken down again.

Deep beneath the ground, the orchestra stamped sullenly off into the wings, leaving the stage silent and empty. What I was not satisfied of this novel was that the author could have probably tied up the lose ends of HE’s birth right as a Prince and probably as the Crown Prince. HE is probably not interested in living in the Palace nor inherit any Royal titles but how would an Emperor do nothing for him knowing that his son is staying outside the Palace? It would probably be more satisfying for the Emperor to provide some kind of title or recognition for HE, spend some quality time with son or Emperor disguised as a mentor to get close to long lost son kind of plot would be quite satisfying and heart warming. At the same time, banish the evil Empress for her wrong doings. This earned him a raised eyebrow. Maybe so, she said. But Estilia of Onchapal is still the greatest geographer in the world. No youngster could challenge her, especially not one so proud. She allowed herself to relax a little further and breathed in the stink of ammonia and shit and rotting fish.

He’d schooled himself not to roll his eyes at their ignorance. Politeness, he reminded himself, is the path to peace. The big man rolled his eyes as he pulled up beside Remezov. Behold the boy! he said with false geniality, as though to an imaginary crowd. Tall as a reed, pretty as a girl, sweet pouty lips and eyes smeared with kohl like a child of commercial affection, and not even a pinch of common sense between the ears. Why I persevere with him, I cannot recall. Of course it had, he thought ruefully as he took his leave. The woman was a precision instrument maker with an eye for detail. She wouldn’t have missed a thing. 3 To keep shtum, or not to keep shtum – that’s one of the big questions in play in this Booker prize-shortlisted novel. From Paul and Lola’s silence over Robbie’s wrongful imprisonment to Briony’s attempt at repentance through voicing her version of the truth, it’s a story that shows just how compelling silence can be as a narrative device.

After an age the shore grew close enough to allow one of the sailors to jump out, wade through shallow water and secure the rowboat to a badly splintered pile. Willing longshorers pitched in to drag the boat as close to dry land as they could. She dug out a few coppers and thanked them. Briefly. Oh, said the girl. "You have a simanarc! Where did you get it? We didn’t sell it to you; I would have remembered." The market whirled around them like a fresh-painted dancer. Sideshows, stalls, spices, smells. Shouts and screams. Gymnasts and singers with their hats on the ground in front of them like begging bowls, barely distinguishable from the real beggars crying for alms in the shadows. Addicts lying unregarded in dark doorways. Musicians scraping and sawing their instruments, squeezing out ear-jarring sounds for a wild, witless rabble.

Silent Sorrow

Half a dozen tremblers. Ow! None worth bothering about. Now unhand me or I’ll call for the wardens. Come on, you decrepit old fart! Remezov called from halfway down the gangplank. Get off your lazy arse. The morning’s passing while you shank about up there! Worse, on the ocean Remezov had been powerless to sense the earth, unable to measure its constant motion and flux. A cruel loss for a new-minted—or about to be new-minted—master geographer. Tantamount to having a two-week hole punched through his life. Without looking, she slid open an ornately carved drawer in the left of her desk. She selected the correct ruler by touch, her fingertips running over the marks scored along the edge. With a nervous breath she laid the ruler across the map on the desk, between a mountain peak in northern Medanos and a point on the Rainshadow Coast of Beduil, just south of that continent’s narrow waist. He has worked on a number of atlases, including as deputy editor of the New Zealand Historical Atlas (1998), which won the readers' choice award at the 1998 Montana Book Awards, [1] [7] and as author of the Contemporary Atlas of New Zealand (1999), which had sold more than 20,000 copies as of 2009 [update]. [7] His 2000 work Degrees of Deprivation in New Zealand: An Atlas of Socioeconomic Difference was described by Annette King, then the New Zealand Minister of Health, as an "exciting tool" that could be used by the government to ensure health spending was better-targeted. [8] He wrote and provided photographs for a book about New Zealand waterfalls, Walk to Waterfalls (2011). [9] He has said his favourite waterfall in New Zealand is Marokopa Falls. [10]

Bujina lowered her hands. The Ynath shook his head, took a single deep breath and leapt to his feet, roaring. She ran her fingers across the map she’d drawn, as though touching it might change its message. Five years ago the data had been equivocal, now they were not. The fundamental balance of the world’s humours had been upset, tearing apart the surface of the earth, and the ripples were heading this way. Something terrible was coming. The older man smiled ruefully. Not much of a geographer if I can’t even find my feet unaided! Though perhaps you ought to greet your adoring public rather than worrying about me. He began levering himself up. The maps tore away from the wall, thumping on to her desk along with something else. Something white, big, man-sized. An animal on all fours, scaled, armour-plated. It wriggled, shook itself, then swung its head around and fixed her with malevolent, reptilian eyes.Remezov? You coming? We still have lectures to attend, and the concert if you have a mind. And we have to clean up. Or, at least I do… Remezov? Remezov! The air was completely still, of course. Just Felicev being his curmudgeonly self. Oddly, it was when the old fool was at his most contrary that Remezov felt fondest towards him. He restrained his excitement. His simanarc was much more sophisticated than this instrument. Quadrants allowed amateurs to observe the gross movement of the earth, though not with enough accuracy to quantify small changes or to predict earthquakes. This configuration would allow the observer to see both the index mirror and a distant object at the same time, making measurement easier. The manufacturers were likely to sell as many of these as they could make, even at the steep prices being asked.