I know I have been promising updates on things I did and events and more photos and I've been terribly remiss in that.

Let me just tell you that I'm still alive, still having fun, but that social commitments, schoolwork and the internet is eating my time^^

A short update on what I'm going to do when University ends (which is very, very soon the 30.march)...as you may or may not know, I tried to stay another semester at nichidai. The end product is that I can't because the institute for teaching the foreign students is moving, but doesn't exactly have an idea yet where. Because of that they don't know the capacities they will have yet and don't want to risk not having enough space for the people who will be coming in any case.

Which I kind of understand, so I am miffed about that, but not too miffed, it is how it is.

So what am I doing then? In my infinite wisdom (haha, yeah you can all stop laughing now) I did actually get a working holiday visa before leaving to Japan, so now 1. I can actually stay without getting into trouble with the authorities and 2. I can work to support myself. Yeah for foresight

So I already reserved a flat through something nifty called Sakura Apartments (who only cater to foreign tenants, students etc.) which will be not as big, nice and well placed than the place I live now.
Which can be explained by me and not the University paying for it^^

But I'm alright and quite confident about getting a job.

Now on to the actual reason I started this post (and looking back on it...that took some time o_o) book-blogging

Again a fact you may or may not know I am a big fan of a fantasy series from Sarah Monette called "The doctrine of labyrinths"

I read the third book, called "The Mirador", last summer in one go and have been frantic for the fourth and last installment, Corambis.

It is going to come out on the 7. of April and I was literally sitting on the edge of my seat for it, when the authoress announced on her livejournal that she will auction off three Advanced Readers copies, signed and hand corrected by her on her journal with the proceeds going to charity
....
you can guess how this story ends^^.

So I placed a bid and won one of the copies (victory dance). I got it last Thursday at ten o'clock and I've just finished it(because I'm a book geek and can't pace a book I love if my life depended on it.)

And Mrs Monette said she would like it if people blogged about it in their journals, which I will do now without any spoilers(ill try as hard as I can anyway and  I will put anything behind a separate cut that i would consider even a light spoiler of the content) because I don't want to take enjoyment out of reading it, not even accidentally.(and because you can't do cuts in a cut, this is going to be long...)

So here it is my opinion of  "Corambis" (which is mainly a long drawn out reasoning why I loved reading it....because I'm never very critical of books I enjoyed ...which is ok because I'm not a writer or critic so I can just enjoy a good book without instinctively finding errors...like with music sometimes...thank god i don't do that with books as well^^)

As it is the last book in a series you obviously have to have read the other three. And it is very much the the final book of a series. You feel it being the end. A lot of things get closure or you know get finally actually discussed (and I do love those brothers, but I sometimes would have dearly, dearly loved to just put them in a room together and not letting them out and back into the story till they talked! instead of assumed. preferably with force and blackmail material on hand, if they didn't complied).

The new country we are introduced to is interesting and I loved how the whole idea of magic was so completely different again. We already saw that in the previous books and it just gets to me every time that they have this thing that is fundamentally the same, but that gets used and defined and restricted in so many different ways depending on the culture we are in. It just makes the world and the people living in it so much substance.

In a way the reinvention is even more clearly than in Troia or Kekropia, because Felix (and Mildmay to an extent) don't only need to understand it in a superficial sense of getting through there, but they actually have to deal with it and expand on it so it gets explored a lot more even though i would have loved to see more of the theory behind the connection of magic and machines. It is not only restricted to the use of magic but is seen and felt everywhere they are down to the words and terminology used. The pure helplessness of being in a culture seemingly similar but actually fundamentally different is shown very well.

The new narrator is likable and distinctly different enough not to fall into the trap of just being used as a narrative device. I would say I like him more than Mehitabel, even though I would have preferred to see more interaction between him and Felix (but I know why he didn't and why it wasn't possible plot and flow wise so that is actually very irrelevant^^) I have to say what I like nearly best about him (and what certainly made me like to read him a lot^^) is his accent. It is different from any accent I've read from Mrs. Monette before. It is not hard to understand or even very noticeable some of the time, but every time i stumbled over a particuIar word order I was delighted all over again^^. I don't even know why it tickled me so (probably because I'm an acoustic type of person and don't see the scenery or pictures/faces, but hear a voice reading things out in my head. which was very weird when I read the first chapter, because I had listened to the podcast of Sarah Monette reading the first chapter and instead of hearing the voices my head had made up for Felix and Mildmay i heard her voice and inflection....very creepy in a way^^), but it just struck the right chord for me and was exactly what was needed to give him definition as a character.

The plot is a quest and is a mystery, but both only in a way(and if you have never read any theory from Mrs. Monette about genre convention....you should^^) and not as much as (in my opinion) in the previous books. which is another reason it really felt like a closure of sorts. It still leaves you on the edge of your metaphorical seat, trying to figure out how the different plot points will get together (especially the narrators) and like every good mystery story it is an intricate mosaic that is all the more beautiful in the end for having been hard to achieve.

But Corambis is mainly about the characters it is portraying, as has been the whole series. It is not about the plot/action/mystery  it is about the people that encounter it and what they do with it, how they change it and change with it, how they influence each other and it is as she has said on her journal very clear how much it is Felix story in the end. He has changed a lot in the course of four books and while that is in his case definitively not a bad thing, I would love to read a fifth book just for seeing this slightly more balanced Felix being snarky and confident in his own territory again, because he is very much out of in his element/known environment most of the time, and I do love that side of Felix^^

It is very much a book about emotional and spiritual struggle and about dealing with it the best you can. That is maybe the most important reason you can't just read the book without the others because as in every real humans life the past is what defines the present. Just because they are leaving Melusine doesn't mean they are leaving behind the experiences they had. A lot of the emotional issues produced/revealed by the happenings in "The Mirador" have to be worked through, now that it is over and I would recommend re-reading it, because I would have if my copy wasn't in Germany. But for all the heartache you can imagine will happen if you know our main characters, I have to say it was a an extremely good read, emotionally.

I was actually having mixed feelings about it, because first of all writing the last book to a series and making it a good satisfying read while still tying up all the loose ends and getting everyone to the place they are supposed to end up is really, really hard to achieve. Secondly because I didn't want to let these characters go. I love them very much, love their speech patterns their thoughts, the part of their life's, their world, their cities, their beliefs, their dizzying and complicated social networks I was allowed to visit with reading the books.

So, no, I wasn't really thrilled to see it end. And now that I'm finished, I'm still not, I would love to read on for another 400 pages, but I feel good about the end. It is satisfying without being cliche and too much of an obvious wrap up, but it doesn't leave you with a desperate need to see knew stories
Which is, I have to say, the best way to feel after reading the end of a series I have experienced till now and the best praise I can give the book in my opinion

The writing is, as always, beautiful, addictive and breathtaking and she always manages to use the right words to not only communicate the happenings, but also the atmosphere of every scene, which is mainly why I love these books so, so much and would recommend everyone to read it!

And now I'm going to work on this stupid japanese essay I have avoided writing for two weeks ..joy