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Okay, I'm going to do this now, so I don't keep thinking about it.
I'm not sure how many readings of Mirror Dance it took me to notice its structure; certainly the first time around I just wanted to know what happened next, and the second time I wanted to read it in emotional and narrative context, but finally I did begin to realize that the book has a shape. It is not, upon examination, a completely symmetrical shape, but it does contain significant internal echoes and reflections. In other words, simplistically speaking, the book is a mirror.
When we look in a mirror, we see ourselves, backwards. What's getting reflected in Mirror Dance is Mark's identity. (And to some extent, Miles's, but it's a very Mark-dominated book. I did a color chart by chapter of point-of-view, and Mark's color outweighs Miles's, significantly and not terribly symmetrically, just as Mark himself outweighs... well.) In terms of plot and character arcs, the growth of Mark's identity is pretty obvious, although you have to read closely to see how cleverly it's done. He isn't named at all until the end of chapter two (by Elli). In his early POV chapters (one, three, and most of five) he refers to himself only as "he." He doesn't self-reference as "Mark" until the end of chapter five, right after Bel outs him mid-disaster. He names himself out loud first in chapter seven (not long after Miles's death). And so forth.
This book is (in the paperback edition) 560 pages long, which makes the halfway point page 280. That's just after Aral's heart attack, when Mark and Cordelia are waiting in the hospital. It's possibly more plot-significant than structure-significant that the midpoint is the low point: Miles is still dead, Aral may die, Mark is not at all ready to be part of the family let alone Count. It's all up from here, sort of.
I did say the mirror wasn't entirely symmetrical - that would just be too clever even for Lois - and so I've been bending images around whatever vaguely central point suits me. I think the heart-center of the book is a little bit further on, in chapter seventeen, the second chapter about the Emperor's Birthday bash. Chapter sixteen contains the significant moment when Mark represents the family in the gifting ceremony, but it's the next chapter that gives us, in one page (305, if you're interested), Mark's first reference to Cordelia as "my mother" and Aral as "my father," and the opening of the mirror dance with Kareen, where he symbolically starts learning to be a human being by reacting to and reflecting others' feelings and actions. (He's been doing it for a while, really, but he starts to admit to it around that point.) And then, the end of the chapter: "Lord Mark Vorkosigan was a real person." I think it all bends around that.
So what happens when we start looking for mirroring moments? I had a vague impression that Miles's death mirrored his coming back to life, but it really doesn't balance out that way. His death more closely mirrors his memory cascade; and his coming back to life is closely reflected by Cordelia and Mark's first meeting (where they talk about Miles, but then Miles gets talked about a lot). The first of those is a pretty clear mirror of identity (it's not physical recovery that's most important for Miles; he isn't fully alive again until he remembers) and also a plot mirror that reflects forward into Memory. The second could be seen as relating to Cordelia and Mark's agency, since the resurrection happens right after they decide they'd better go after him, but that's less certain.
Miles and Mark meet for the first time in this book in chapter six, and then they meet again (Miles still amnesiac) in chapter twenty-three; those meetings mirror each other if you squint. A closer mirror to the first meeting is Mark's identity starting to slip away under torture. Both of the meetings are steeped in the confusion of identities (will the real Admiral Naismith please stand up). Mark gains identity as the book moves on, stronger and stronger, and then he comes close to losing it again in the second half (okay, it's pretty far into the second half); his first self-reference as "Mark" is pretty close to mirroring the creation of the Black Gang.
This would be better drawn somehow, but here's Mark's identity arc:
No name, pretending to be Miles Naismith
On Jackson's Whole, outed by Bel, can't be Naismith, forced to self-refer as "Mark"
Meets Miles again
Miles dies
Mark can call himself by his name, but has to pretend to be Miles
Distinguishes self from Miles with weight gain
Meets Barrayarans and starts being distinguished by them from Miles/mostly self-IDing as "not Miles" but also starting to accept "Lord Mark"
Has a formal relationship with Gregor/Barrayar
"Lord Mark Vorkosigan is a real person"
Mark can relate to other people: Cordelia, uncomfortably Aral, Kareen, Elena - named relationships
Takes Elena's oath - first "my word as Vorkosigan"
Returns to Jackson's Whole and meets Miles again - is seen by Miles as Naismith
Tortured by Ryoval - identity starts to slip and then fragments
Integrity of fragmented personality asserts itself and takes action
Return to Barrayar; brotherly relationship with Miles (including one-upmanship); identity and belonging; continued distinguishing from Miles
He starts with no name and ends with multiple named personalities; he starts pretending to be Miles, wrenches violently away from that pretense so no one will confuse him with Miles, and yet he ends up still being perceived as Miles by Ryoval, Lilly, and by Miles himself. That's not so much a mirror as clusters of little dangerous sparks; Mark senses rightly that confusion with Miles is bad for him, and once he has his own name he tries to avoid it. (It's bad for Miles, too, clearly, and it's also worth remembering that remark about Mark getting fatter while Miles gets thinner. Also, Jackson's Whole is bad for both of them, but this is so obvious it's hardly worth stating. Except that Miles comes back to life there, along with dying there.) Mark's relationship with Aral is interesting in this context, too, since it's problematic and slower to evolve than his with Cordelia not only because of Aral's reluctant sensibilities but also because Mark can't forget he was supposed to kill Aral while pretending to be Miles.
Other interesting mirror-points: Mark's near-rape of Maree is closely mirrored by Miles's rediscovery of sex with Rowan; Elena's offering-burning to her father mirrors her taking oath to Mark.
I don't insist on the mirror interpretation, and I'm not sure if any of it was created on purpose; the writing instinct is a marvelous thing, however. Plot arcs are arcs for a reason, because our minds like symmetry; character arcs are seldom as tidy. Mark is definitely not tidy. He is, however, an extraordinary chance to play with viewpoint and self-definition and the reflection of identity; I love him and I love this book more each time I read it.
Must eat dinner now, and will edit as necessary later!
*posts*
I'm not sure how many readings of Mirror Dance it took me to notice its structure; certainly the first time around I just wanted to know what happened next, and the second time I wanted to read it in emotional and narrative context, but finally I did begin to realize that the book has a shape. It is not, upon examination, a completely symmetrical shape, but it does contain significant internal echoes and reflections. In other words, simplistically speaking, the book is a mirror.
When we look in a mirror, we see ourselves, backwards. What's getting reflected in Mirror Dance is Mark's identity. (And to some extent, Miles's, but it's a very Mark-dominated book. I did a color chart by chapter of point-of-view, and Mark's color outweighs Miles's, significantly and not terribly symmetrically, just as Mark himself outweighs... well.) In terms of plot and character arcs, the growth of Mark's identity is pretty obvious, although you have to read closely to see how cleverly it's done. He isn't named at all until the end of chapter two (by Elli). In his early POV chapters (one, three, and most of five) he refers to himself only as "he." He doesn't self-reference as "Mark" until the end of chapter five, right after Bel outs him mid-disaster. He names himself out loud first in chapter seven (not long after Miles's death). And so forth.
This book is (in the paperback edition) 560 pages long, which makes the halfway point page 280. That's just after Aral's heart attack, when Mark and Cordelia are waiting in the hospital. It's possibly more plot-significant than structure-significant that the midpoint is the low point: Miles is still dead, Aral may die, Mark is not at all ready to be part of the family let alone Count. It's all up from here, sort of.
I did say the mirror wasn't entirely symmetrical - that would just be too clever even for Lois - and so I've been bending images around whatever vaguely central point suits me. I think the heart-center of the book is a little bit further on, in chapter seventeen, the second chapter about the Emperor's Birthday bash. Chapter sixteen contains the significant moment when Mark represents the family in the gifting ceremony, but it's the next chapter that gives us, in one page (305, if you're interested), Mark's first reference to Cordelia as "my mother" and Aral as "my father," and the opening of the mirror dance with Kareen, where he symbolically starts learning to be a human being by reacting to and reflecting others' feelings and actions. (He's been doing it for a while, really, but he starts to admit to it around that point.) And then, the end of the chapter: "Lord Mark Vorkosigan was a real person." I think it all bends around that.
So what happens when we start looking for mirroring moments? I had a vague impression that Miles's death mirrored his coming back to life, but it really doesn't balance out that way. His death more closely mirrors his memory cascade; and his coming back to life is closely reflected by Cordelia and Mark's first meeting (where they talk about Miles, but then Miles gets talked about a lot). The first of those is a pretty clear mirror of identity (it's not physical recovery that's most important for Miles; he isn't fully alive again until he remembers) and also a plot mirror that reflects forward into Memory. The second could be seen as relating to Cordelia and Mark's agency, since the resurrection happens right after they decide they'd better go after him, but that's less certain.
Miles and Mark meet for the first time in this book in chapter six, and then they meet again (Miles still amnesiac) in chapter twenty-three; those meetings mirror each other if you squint. A closer mirror to the first meeting is Mark's identity starting to slip away under torture. Both of the meetings are steeped in the confusion of identities (will the real Admiral Naismith please stand up). Mark gains identity as the book moves on, stronger and stronger, and then he comes close to losing it again in the second half (okay, it's pretty far into the second half); his first self-reference as "Mark" is pretty close to mirroring the creation of the Black Gang.
This would be better drawn somehow, but here's Mark's identity arc:
No name, pretending to be Miles Naismith
On Jackson's Whole, outed by Bel, can't be Naismith, forced to self-refer as "Mark"
Meets Miles again
Miles dies
Mark can call himself by his name, but has to pretend to be Miles
Distinguishes self from Miles with weight gain
Meets Barrayarans and starts being distinguished by them from Miles/mostly self-IDing as "not Miles" but also starting to accept "Lord Mark"
Has a formal relationship with Gregor/Barrayar
"Lord Mark Vorkosigan is a real person"
Mark can relate to other people: Cordelia, uncomfortably Aral, Kareen, Elena - named relationships
Takes Elena's oath - first "my word as Vorkosigan"
Returns to Jackson's Whole and meets Miles again - is seen by Miles as Naismith
Tortured by Ryoval - identity starts to slip and then fragments
Integrity of fragmented personality asserts itself and takes action
Return to Barrayar; brotherly relationship with Miles (including one-upmanship); identity and belonging; continued distinguishing from Miles
He starts with no name and ends with multiple named personalities; he starts pretending to be Miles, wrenches violently away from that pretense so no one will confuse him with Miles, and yet he ends up still being perceived as Miles by Ryoval, Lilly, and by Miles himself. That's not so much a mirror as clusters of little dangerous sparks; Mark senses rightly that confusion with Miles is bad for him, and once he has his own name he tries to avoid it. (It's bad for Miles, too, clearly, and it's also worth remembering that remark about Mark getting fatter while Miles gets thinner. Also, Jackson's Whole is bad for both of them, but this is so obvious it's hardly worth stating. Except that Miles comes back to life there, along with dying there.) Mark's relationship with Aral is interesting in this context, too, since it's problematic and slower to evolve than his with Cordelia not only because of Aral's reluctant sensibilities but also because Mark can't forget he was supposed to kill Aral while pretending to be Miles.
Other interesting mirror-points: Mark's near-rape of Maree is closely mirrored by Miles's rediscovery of sex with Rowan; Elena's offering-burning to her father mirrors her taking oath to Mark.
I don't insist on the mirror interpretation, and I'm not sure if any of it was created on purpose; the writing instinct is a marvelous thing, however. Plot arcs are arcs for a reason, because our minds like symmetry; character arcs are seldom as tidy. Mark is definitely not tidy. He is, however, an extraordinary chance to play with viewpoint and self-definition and the reflection of identity; I love him and I love this book more each time I read it.
Must eat dinner now, and will edit as necessary later!
*posts*
no subject
Date: 2012-02-14 11:56 pm (UTC)From: