<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=Windows-1252">
<style type="text/css" style="display:none;"><!-- P {margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;} --></style>
</head>
<body dir="ltr">
<div id="divtagdefaultwrapper" style="font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif, EmojiFont, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", NotoColorEmoji, "Segoe UI Symbol", "Android Emoji", EmojiSymbols;" dir="ltr">
<p style="margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0"></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I must say Eric that your thoughts about Cassie Casey are unusual.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>I find it most peculiar to take political and cultural stances towards information conveyed about a character in a book.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>It is not I who am measuring CC.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Margaret measures her and we are informed of it *in the book*.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>And not for the purpose of objectifying her, but for the purpose of making costumes for a play!<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>Would you object and use willful ignorance’s magic wand to forget that Gideon Chase was born an ambassador’s son on a distant planet because you believe so strongly in America as melting pot that you find social and cultural background immaterial?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>Rather than read a book you should go write one, perhaps about a non-pregnant woman with undisclosed height weight and other physical features who must endure the tightening impress of “rape culture”.
<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>If a character’s attributes in a book you have chosen to read (several times by your own admission) is “not my business”, I wonder why you bother.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There are points to be made (and which are made) about the pressures CC feels in her life to be thin and attractive and to be a star.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>They are the stuff of the novel.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But you do not engage them by dismissing portions of the book that give you the squirms.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>CC has endured what sounds like sexual abuse in her background.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>Surely that says something about why she is the way she is, why she is prone to exploitation and use at the hands of GC and WR.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>What’s interesting is watching her cotton to their manipulations and begin her own manipulation of them.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>When she finds her inner strength that is when she becomes a character of great interest.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I have, in coming to the speculation that she is pregnant, not studied Cassie’s weight or other physical attributes any more than I have for other characters.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>In fact, hers are not the only anomalous ones.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>Gideon is supposed to be able to squeeze a hole in CC’s apartment wall “less than a foot square”, pg. 87.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>Gideon says: “I made [the hole], pushed your couch aside, crawled through . . . .”, pg. 76.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>Are we observing and judging Gideon by noting that this is impossible for a man of his size?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>If I were to refuse to consider this problem, would I be unfair to Gideon?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>Would it be fair to Gene Wolfe, who wrote this into the novel?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br>
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">If I were across from CC at Walker’s, I’d order an omelet and ask her if she’d escaped that time loop yet.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u><o:p></o:p></u></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br>
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">>“I also wonder if this is a dangerous position for any scholar.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It is an incredibly dangerous position for a scholar, if left unacknowledged.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br>
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">>”who’s the father”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I think Gideon Chase impregnates her when he is performing his wizard nonsense on top of the mountain at the start of the book.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>She will have given birth to the baby before being stranded, if the book is following Revelations like I think it is.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>CC feels the loss for sure.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That’s why she starts time traveling (we meet her older selves in the book – Madame Pavlatos and Margaret).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p>
<p></p>
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
<div class="BodyFragment"><font size="2"><span style="font-size:11pt;">
<div class="PlainText"><br>
</div>
</span></font></div>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>