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Bear
bear cub
Username: Bear
Post Number: 3
Registered: 3-2008
| | Posted on Thursday, March 27, 2008 - 8:46 pm: |     |
This probably does not deserve a thread of its own, but I couldn't find it mentioned anywhere else on this site. Maybe its was brought up and discussed a long time ago?
In the first chapter of VoH Ayla has just left the clan and is thinking about Iza, and notes that Iza has been dead for three years. I always had the impression that Durc was about one year old when Iza died, and that he was three when Ayla left the clan. Shouldn't Iza have only been dead for two years then? Or do I need to re-take 1st grade mathematics?
Dave |
Annie
storyteller
Username: Annie
Post Number: 2227
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, March 27, 2008 - 11:17 pm: | |
Always feel welcome to open threads to ask any question you don't see answered here yet.  The reason you don't see many discussions is indeed that many of the posting group we have here now had come together years ago, long before this board was started, mainly from three other boards - Thema Extrarius (which was much more active back then), The AuelBoard, and Lion Camp (which has been taken down years ago, and was AFAIK itself the heir of a fourth defunct board, EarthsChildren.com - not quite sure there, that was "before my time"  - I landed at Thema Extrarius at first, in late 2001, and still envy those who got to the EC communities earlier!). Lots of questions had been discussed on all these sites, but unfortunately both surviving boards are regularly pruned, and most of the best of even those discussions were lost over time, except for some summaries that were saved by Don at Don's Maps. Personally, I particularly regret the loss of a very valuable discussion of the S'Armunai subplot of PoP from the AuelBoard, that was one of the most interesting and enlightening communal brainstorms I ever participated in, and the loss of a great discussion regarding the meanings and linguistic connections of the Doni/Duna/Donna etc. group of words from ThemaExtrarius. 
In any case, we're glad to see book discussions here, even if the questions may have been raised before. There's no reason newcomers to the board shouldn't benefit from whatever we can recall of the accumulated insights that were brought to those lost discussions and any conclusions reached in them, and besides, new people can always bring a different POV and fresh observations to a topic. And since JADE has a firm no-pruning policy, hopefully and barring unplanned losses, anything ever posted here will be online to stay.
Now, lessee what I can come up with regarding your question... it's been a while, I may have to do some rereading!
Chess is the purest form of debate, unadulterated by a topic. |
Bear
bear cub
Username: Bear
Post Number: 4
Registered: 3-2008
| | Posted on Friday, March 28, 2008 - 12:09 am: | |
Maybe Durc wasn't a full year old when Iza died. He may have been only a few months old, but I have read that book many times and it always seemed to me that Durc was closer to a year old, than a few months old.
Thank you for your lengthy comment about my question, though! I appreciate it.
Dave |
Annie
storyteller
Username: Annie
Post Number: 2228
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 28, 2008 - 1:05 am: | |
You're welcome. I've been meaning to get around to explaining in this forum, for the benefit of new members, why there are so few detailed book discussions here (and that we would, in fact, be glad to have more of them), for quite a while - your comment just reminded me to get to it already.
I would like to reconstruct, summarize, develop, and/or continue as many of those "Lost Threads" as possible, it's just not very workable as a solo project, and newcomers who actually ask questions perceptive enough to show a real depth of interest in the series, that would motivate us to respond in detail, are few and far between.  
OK, I scanned the relevant parts of CotCB and VoH for timelines (Ayla also repeats that Durc was 3 years old when she left in chapter 26 of VoH, when Jondalar teaches her the counting words). Durc was born in early/middle spring, since it was late winter/early spring when Iza got sick from getting caught in an unexpected storm while searching for rattlesnake root to prevent Ayla's late miscarriage. Iza died in late summer, soon after Ayla returned from the Clan Gathering. So Durc was about half a year old then.
Chess is the purest form of debate, unadulterated by a topic. |
Annie
storyteller
Username: Annie
Post Number: 2229
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 28, 2008 - 1:20 am: | |
Oops, correction! I just got to the right part in CotCB chapter 19, and Iza's root-searching trip was actually in "late fall", but Durc was indeed born in early spring, so he still would have been half a year old at the time of Iza's death.
Chess is the purest form of debate, unadulterated by a topic. |
Bear
bear cub
Username: Bear
Post Number: 5
Registered: 3-2008
| | Posted on Monday, March 31, 2008 - 10:12 pm: | |
Thank you, Annie. It seems to me that Durc was 6-8 months old when Iza died. So, Iza would have been dead for about 2 1/2 years (or maybe 2 years, 4 months) when Ayla left the clan. I guess JMA was just rounding to the nearest year when she said Iza had been dead 3 years. |
gwenith (Unregistered Guest)
visitor
| | Posted on Saturday, April 12, 2008 - 2:30 pm: | |
Working from memory only -
Do we know how long it's been since she 'left' till the time she first measures three years?
I read most such statements as rough measures - not exact ones.
But I didn't think about weather variations as clues to the Clan's illnesses - only Iza's!
gwenith |
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Ayla's World