Paksworld

5 Comments »

• Comment by Chuck — August 12, 2010 @ 7:32 am

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  This is great news! I know I’ve harped on this before, but one thing I miss in most modern fantasies is the lack of poetry and song that the readers get to read for themselves. Starting way back in “Sheepfarmer’s Daughter” you started tantalizing us with the music and poetry of Paksworld (specifically, the honors rendered to the dead after battle — “Fair were the towers” and so on).
  I realize that modern editors seem to be convinced that readers don’t like the interspering of verse in the prose, but there are plenty of us readers who do. I am encouraged greatly by this news. Even if we don’t get to read the whole thing, Paksworld itself is enriched by a new song, and the book that we see can only benefit by this enrichment of background.

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• Comment by elizabeth — August 12, 2010 @ 7:47 am

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  You can blame (or credit) Carlos Montoya for this one. I was writing late last night, home from choir and trying to scour a non-writing-enabling anthem from my brain, so I put on an older CD of his…and suddenly out came some verses.

  Also, I found that Alured can sing. And play an instrument, though not expertly at all.

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• Comment by tuppence — August 12, 2010 @ 9:18 am

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  As a sailor, I’m not surprised. On sailing ships the beat of music helped with all sorts of rope pulling, plus helping with the tedium of long months at sea, under marginal conditions.

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• Comment by Kip Colegrove — August 12, 2010 @ 12:22 pm

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  I’m still wondering if we’ll ever see all the bazillion verses of “Cedars of the Valley.” Probably not possible; that looks like one the singers can readily make up new verses to as the song moves along through the oral tradition.

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• Comment by elizabeth — August 12, 2010 @ 12:47 pm

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  Oh, yes….”Cedars” is a favorite, but it does have variations and people make up new verses whenever the march lasts longer than the song. The new one has more verses, because it’s even easier to make them up, and the tune is catchy enough to have been “filked” by half the tavern musicians in the north. It’s really good for topical stuff, as it’s the last two lines of each stanza that rhyme, allowing you to sing the first two while thinking of the rhymes and then how to use them. In some places it’s known as “Pretty Girl” and in some places as “Love’s Lament” and in others by whatever recent event was celebrated with it.

  The missing reference notebooks had–not all bazillion verses of “Cedars” but quite a few, and some other songs too.

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