Reading And Bitching

The People Of The Wind, XVIII.

The forty Terran prisoners in an improvised Avalonian hospital ward:

"...had no entertainment except reading and bitching. A majority preferred the latter." (p. 644)

We appreciate the humour of classifying bitching as a kind of entertainment. Rochefort wears earcups and reads borrowed books like The Gaiila Folk.

There are people who "do not have time" to read and who do not know what they will do in their retirement. Would they prefer to work until they drop? People who "do not have time" to read are not readers. Anyone can read something during their lunch breaks. In my experience, blogging about books makes reading an interactive process. I would not have reread Poul Anderson's works so often and also would not have noticed certain recurrent themes and features without blogging.

Back to Rochefort: we find him an increasingly sympathetic character although this will be our last sight of him.