Characters interact. Now Josserek is brought before Casiru. After Josserek has told his story:
"Casiru blew smoke and nodded anew. I'll bet he's already had my story pretty well checked out, Josserek thought." (p. 43)
Exactly. Casiru listens and blows smoke but Josserek thinks because he is the current viewpoint character. Frank Herbert would at this stage have switched from Josserek as viewpoint character and told us what Casiru was thinking.
They are in the Lairs of Arvanneth where the criminal Brotherhoods are too entrenched for even the Imperial conquerors to weed them out:
"'Didn't even close down Thieves' Market, only made it movable.'" (III, p. 40)
In a mean house in a filthy neighbourhood, Casiru interviews Josserek in a room with plush carpet, purple and red hangings, elaborately carved wooden furniture, ivory and nacre inlays and sandalwood burning in a censer. This and many similar details make us feel that we have been in Arvanneth.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Anderson did have a preference to sticking with one viewpoint characters in most scenes or chapters of his stories. It has the advantage of making it less likely readers will get confused about which characters are thinking, saying, or doing what.
One slight oddity is we never see Old Nick as the viewpoint character, except once in "Margin of Profit." All other times we see van Rijn as he appears to others. Usually in varying degrees of exasperation or sometimes reluctant admiration.
Ad astra! Sean
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