What's In A Name?, esoteric thought here..look out

Interesting. I for one loathe made-up names, at least in a human context. "Sipplewood" conveys nothing, except that it's (probably)a tree. Or a large shrub. "Supplewood" on the other hand would indicate a quality of the wood, maybe like a willow, and imparts some information.
Take Reynold's Spatterjay books. You have "leeches" and "whelks" which immediately gives you a far better idea of what you're reading about than some randomly invented name. "Boxies" tells you something about the appearance of the animal in question - and so on.

As an aside I'm wondering where the concept that Sycamore is a hanging tree comes from? From Nordic Mythology one would have more normally ascribed that to the Ash based on ..."then hung Odin bound, upon the ash ygddrasil ." scholarly though not respectable citations are required.

Anyway, to come to the question. lets take something we all know. How about the witi'ikin. Anyone who has any contact with the atevi has a good idea what a witi'ikin looks like, its approximate size, its colouring, that it has scales and bites, as opposed to feathers and scratches. that it nests on cliff faces and displays raptorial hunting methods. that it has a social family organisation: and we have all built this extensive understanding from no more than about six short sentences! Nowhere has Carolyn given a detailed description of a witi'ikin but we all have an exact mental picture.

the simple fact is that no matter how inventive we are as authors there is no escape from the semiotics inherent in language. Revisiting the Sipplewood, it is clearly some form of vegetable growth, probably dendritic and with some sort of protusions a little distance of the ground that makes it convenient for hanging things on. It is more likely to be deciduous than pinnate and probably is quite a slender species. I deduce this solely from the sentence "She hung her pack on the Sipplewood." the word and the associative actions provide a metaphor from which I can draw the whole cloth.

In truth it does not matter what outlandish noun I use to name a thing I will not be able to escape from delivering its nature and function to you through metaphor, synechdoche and interactivity. It is a function of human thinking to derive pattern and commonality from the new in order to acommodate it within our world pattern.

Ah, but the witi'ikin is indeed a symbol. And this is really what is so intriguing to me when it comes to Foreigner

Bren has no way in which to truly understand the Atevi. The best he can do is try to puzzle out what things might mean symbolically and then hope his interpretation might give him some insight into their thinking.

He spends a great deal of time in the first several books trying to understand man chi. No matter what he does, he fails in his understanding. Just when he thinks he's got some concept that works--something happens to undo his confidence. Atevi reaction shocks him. Almost gets him killed. Shakes his faith in himself.

Then he gets to Malguri and sees mecheiti. He begins to relate the mecheiti to the concept of man chi. It not until he thinks deeply on these things that he actually begins to really grasp the concept--an indirect way of understanding through symbol. He and Ilisidi talk about the witi'ikin, what do they mean--are they worth saving? Bren talks about his feelings for Malguri, wondering how close--how different--they might be from an Atevi understanding of history, destiny.

These are made up things, made up non-english words for foreign objects--but for Bren their meaning is deep. Seeing the story unfold through his POV, we share in his creation and his understanding through symbol. It's not just different--it's meaningful--an essential part of understanding the Atevi world for Bren Cameron.

In some way, in all stories we are "foreigner." In 's universe though, we have the delightful experience of sharing the foreignness with the lead POV. In most stories we go along with a character who doesn't think twice about these things. Thus, neither does the author.

I'm on the road so have to be brief, but Spider - the Spatterjay books are by Asher, not Reynolds ;-)

I'd love to contribute to the main discussion but opportunities are few... Perhaps I'll revive this thread when I'm back in normal time again :D

But not all the things places in the books have a symbolism for Bren. Instead, they remind the reader and the character that He's Not In Kansas Anymore...or on Mospheira. Same thing, though Mospheira seems less exciting. So it is with the sipplewood tree. It's a "This isn't anything you know, so don't try to make it something you know and understand and relate to."

examples:
bluewood cabinets
diossi flowers
o'oiana
embryonic lizards for breakfast (a.k.a. eggs)
midarga

None of these are symbolic, though all of them are specifically used in place of what we, the human readers from planet Earth, would know and associate with known things. They may become symbolic to Bren's way of thinking, through his own thought processes, but they are not required to be so for the story itself.

Here's the other point and why some forms of literary analysis are less believable than others: Not everything within a story has to have some kind of symbolism attached to it, or an alternate meaning. The wi'itikitiin are symbols to Bren, yes, but only because we see them through his eyes. How much of that symbolism is attributed by the reader, how much is inherent within the writing. One can argue this about five different ways, each different from the last with the intensity of the symbol of the wi'itikitiin.

Mecheiti aren't a symbol for the atevi, and they aren't a symbol for Bren, either. They are a much simpler form of man'chi that he can begin to see what he cannot ever fully understand. Demonstration isn't symbolism.

And the question here, Kato-ji, is...how many of those novels have non-Earth worlds inhabited only by natives, or by those visitors who have some familiarity with the natives? How many are from the native point of view? How many are written as Foreigner is, where the outsider's point of view is the constraint upon understanding, conveying even his misconceptions into the story--misconceptions which may or may not ever be corrected?

In this, style and purpose are inherent to the question of the use of created words/things/people/places. What is the purpose in creating the world with a sipplewood tree, or some other form, rather than using good ol' Earth trees and critters? Could the story be what it needs to be with Earth things, or does it *need* that feeling of otherness to it in order to tell the story?

And this is the crux because it is incredibly difficult to create something entirely out of the readers world pattern without presenting it within a context that the reader can identify with. If you go and really look at those many worlds they have a framework to them that is within human experience even if the nouns are new. if the ground is covered in millionflower rather than grass, you can still build a workable metaphor of the function millionflower serves. we can only really introduce the alien by making it an out-of-the-ordinary thing in a familiar framework. For example:

"Yes cunning is the answer" she turned back to the two constables and emptied the last of the wine into her glass. Then to the bemusement of the constables she took up a small chunk of fresh bloody meat from a bag handed over by Spond and stuffed it down the bottle's long narrow neck. Reaching carefully over the side of the pen she put the glassware down on the floor. The squincz waited till her hands were clear and scuttled over to the bottle, springing up to the top of the neck it reached in a leg but was unable to get claws into the meat. In an eyeblink the creature morphed itself into a stream of purple liquid which flowed down the neck and wrapped around the meat. In a single fluid motion Kho dropped a heavy glass stopper into the top of the neck and handed the whole thing to Spond. Lisserl nodded, understanding, but Flenk glared at the bottle where the squincz reformed and stuck out a long barbed purple tongue at him.

You don't know what a squincz is but you can determine that it portrays a sequence of characteristics which render it definitely alien. there are some clues in its interactivity that allow us to start on a working metaphor. it "scuttles" and "springs" it has at least one leg and a tongue. it is, at least in part, purple. It is however quite devoid of symbolism until such time as the reader ascribes it or the author implies it.

:nods: I think I understand where you're going with this, Kato.

Yes, some things in CJC's books are meant to be symbolic for the readers, as literary symbolism, the artful content. Some are symbolic to the characters and cultures within a story/series, with connotational and denotational meanings and often with historical or personal significance to the characters. Then there are some things which may not necessarily have any special intended symbolism...but which nonetheless carry associations, because that's the nature of language and thought, human or alien.

Yes, in the Foreigner series and Chanur, and Cherryh's writing generally, she prefers to show just how alien something (or someone or many someones0 is (are) by an "outsider" plus a POV char, where the Outsider highlights just how strange the aliens are...even if the aliens are the humans and the norms are the aliens. In Foreigner, Bren is the odd man out, and he has to discover what makes the atevi tick. In Chanur, Tully is the Outsider, but Pyanfar and Hilfy are the POV chars who must discover the alien-ness of Tully as well as...their own and the other alien species of the Compact. -- I think Cherryh does this better than almost any other sci-fi writer and more often. She's usually unique in preferring to put the humans in the minority and the aliens in the majority, to highlight the alien-ness of either/both.

Hmmm -- To the comment that the mecheiti are not symbolic, I'd say yes and no, and here's why.

A mecheiti, or a horse or a llama, which they resemble, may or may not be an overt (literary) symbol within the stories, but it does carry associations. (Interesting that the word "associations" pops up in this way, given the atevi usage.) A horse (or for atevi, a mecheita) has a certain symbolic value by virtue of its long history within human (or atevi) culture. Even if we've never ridden a horse before, or if we're around horses every day, we all have some understanding of the almost mystical associations in which we, as humans, regard horses. A horse is more than an animal to ride, or a work animal, or a companion, or (for some) a food source. (Yikes, no, not the horse!) They're "a noble steed," and so on...or more down-to-earth qualities. So in some way, there's a mystique or a cloud of symbolism around the horse, simply by saying there is a horse there. In writing this, I feel I'm trying to get across that there's some archetype or "spirit" of the horse, the "nature of horsey-ness", almost a zen or tao or Gestalt of what humans associate with the horse, possibly across disparate cultures.

I think I'm onto something there, though I think it's been treated before by Dr. Jung and by, if I recall, Joseph(?) Campbell(?) regarding archetypes and the role of the hero in science fiction. (There's a specific book whose title escapes me right now.)

Whether it's a pistol or a blaster or a phaser, the thing has an inherent "handgun-ness" and associations we place on it. Likewise with a horse-like or tree-like or "whatchamacallit"-like thing. We have an internalized concept of what that represents, the class of objects to which it belongs. A dog? A cat? A wagon? A sword, be it a European broadsword or an épée or a Japanese katana or a Middle-Eastern scimitar, they are all a "sword"-class object, with the meanings we associate for swords, such as a name and history and use as a weapon or as a part of a cultural ethos or a mystical quality (such as with Elric's sword).

Somehow, I find that reminding me very strongly of the mri's worldview, threatened by non-mri and clinging to survival, until they find a way to continue, wherein the mri imbue everything with symbolic associations.

Gee, I really wandered around in my musings. :shrugs:

Neat discussion topic, Kato!

Aaaaaaaaaarghhhhh

sorry