Penny Dreadful, is it dreadful?

IT'S MY FAVORITE IN THE TRILOGY, ACTUALLY. SOME SAY IT'S THE WORST, OTHER, LIKE ME, WHO'RE RIGHT, SAY IT'S THE BEST.

I THOUGHT THE SWITCHING POINT OF VIEWS WAS DONE WELL. IT MAKES YOU ASK WHY AND IT MAKES SENSE IF YOU GIVE IT A BIT OF THOUGHT.

Calm down, Eddy.

i like big confusing stories like penny dreadful. i never finished it but it's been my favorite of the trilogy. it's a puzzling read.

I liked Kiss Me Judas and Hell's Half Acre a lot more.

I do renmember Penny Dreadful getting better after a while though. It did take a while for me to get into it.

I'm not sure why Baer chose to write it that way. I guess he was just doing something different.

Because.All the 3rd person parts are the roleplaying game characters.All the 1st person ones are Phineas.

Iliked it, but HHA was my favorite because it all comes together at the end.

it just seems awkward, to change the style it's written in for the second book. it threw me. i wasn't expecting it, and not in a good way.

i can understand why he's doing it. and now that i'm a bit further in i get that it's the games players. but it makes no sense to me. this is phineas' story. not everyone elses, not some third person thing. it's him. i'm suprised his didn't knock about more people.

does the lovely Jude come to play in PD, or must i wait for HHA to read of the sexy killer again? i guess i sould just wait and see.

just woke, not entirely lucid. may return to alter slant of this post after shower...

as i read and re-read the trilogy i became more and more convinced that poe was not what he said. he's one of the most unreliable narrators ever, and that adds to the experience. one of my favorite passages in the trilogy is in kmj, where he's stalking jude from a cafe, and sees her walk out across the road holding flowers he'd left her, rose petals fly through the air and she's gone. the reader is left wondering if she was ever there.

he's not playing with a full deck, having broken out of a mental institution and almost constantly in a chemically altered state. the things he sees, tells, arent to be taken at face value and without question. phineas, he's a very shifty cat.

penny dreadful, and it's writing style, was phineas' depersonalization taken to the next logical step, and crammed down your throat in an unavoidable way. i thought that was brilliant.

you're right. Poe is the most unreliable narrator i have ever come across and i love him. i love it. the not really knowing, not trusting him or his observations. it really makes you actively read.

i've just reached a point in the story that has actually made me want to read on. i guess it just took a while. more than anything, i think it was the writing style that threw me off. but now that im used to it, i've excepted it, i'm digging it.

i still don't really get what you mean about Poe's depersonalisation? so, are you saying that it is somehow Poe still telling the story, but in the third-person? am i gonna get to the end and see how Poe could have narrated all of the other characters stories? because to me, that's what i feel should happen, to make the third-person neccessary.

in phineas' depersonalization i was referencing how easily he slips into his ray fine persona, how drastic a psychological change that entails for him. even as phineas he's so far removed from phineas himself that horrors and tragedies are removed from him by a few layers of protective psychic static.

i wasn't suggesting that it was poe telling the story from the third, i did a poor job explaining myself on that bit. i think more than anything the book is a comment on depersonalization, on voluntary schizoform-as-play. the bits of things each of us pick up and integrate as parts of us in our day to day because they serve some purpose but aren't really a core component of us.

hell, this is a visible phenomenon even here at the cult. certain members who write or post one way consistantly but it's all a facade.

yeah. i see what you're saying.

i'm just getting into the Ray Fine character now. i'm up to the part where he's going back to tell Moon that Jimmy Sky "doesn't Exist". after he has just been speaking with Honey, as Fine.

I have a hunch that Moon is Sky. but maybe i'm wrong. see, now i am wanting to read. now i want to find out. i think it just took a little too long to get into it. and i think, early on, the story would have benefited from holding off on some information. a lot of it was given away so quickly, leaving no tension, at all. by leaving those questions in the readers mind, unanswered, it makes you want to read on.

but, it seems to be getting thicker now. still, i think it would've paid to have a better reason for the third-person. like, maybe Poe was some kind of figure in the Game, whereby everyone had to report to him or something. wooah. i know that sounds silly. but, just some reason why it's third-person, other than being able to tell us things that Phineas could never. you know?

Just wait till HHA. It's difficult for me to say which is my favorite of the 3 because it's like one giant story to me. It IS clear however by HHA that WCB found Phineas' voice.

no doubt.
bit of advice for you matthew, when you purchase hells half acre, buy either the hardcover macadam cage edition (white, with a skull on the cover) or the onminus if you can get your hands on it.

no one has been able to give me a clear reason why, but other editions (the series they put out with the girls on the cover, very neon) omit the entire last chapter and a half of hell's half acre. both versions are good, but why buy a book that omits, ya know?

yeah, i'm pretty sure we already spoke about this. was it in chat? or was it in the boo-urns thread? i spoke about how i was bummed out because i bought the paperback KMJ and i loved the art theme for the paperbacks. red for KMJ. blue for PD. and yellow for HHA. then i found out about the omitted chapter. so i bought PD and HHA in the hardcover. i like having matching books, so, i'll probably buy KMJ in hardcover and give away my paperback. that or still by the other two paperbacks. just because.

i'm loving Penny now. i'm completely into it. which is good. talking about i has been good. and i just love Poe, he's one of my favourite narrators and Baer's voice is impeccable. so, i was so upset when i found i wasn't as into PD as KMJ.

glad. probably finish it tonight and start HHA.

Although I did end Up adoring the latter half of the novel, I think what was missing was the anxiety that Jude brings to the table.
She, in my opinion, is at least a good half to blame for phineas's unreliable nature. So,
as Phineas would day...
Anyway.
Half way through Hell's Half Acre and fucking addicted.

I havent finished it yet. to be honest, i was so excited to read it after judas that i paid a stupid amount to order it from the US. i started reading it and instead of not being able to put it down, i put it down about a third way in and havent picked it up since. maybe i will sooner or later.

EDIT: double posting is my speciality.

now now, no need to take that condescending tone with me, young lady. Obviously he was well fucked before her but I'm sure she was, at the very least, a splash of fuel. That's all I'm saying. That and that I LOVE Jude's character. You know, you actually remind me of Jude. Probably the cut-throat attitude and smashing good looks. That wasn't sarcasm, either.

Six was also a field surgeon.

Would you believe harvester of organs?